FRIGHTENING THE LITTLE ONES.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 366, 8 May 1889, Page 8

FRIGHTENING THE LITTLE ONES.

With painful firqucncy we hear of cruel *" practical jokes " perpetmted upon little children. Again and a^ain comes to us the old story of a child frightened into convulsions by a play-fellow who "only wanted to have a little fun." One would think that incidents like this had been enacted and told with ah.istly iteiation often enough fi.mi ueneiatiou to generation to Wdin oil* the mo^t incoi risible fun-lovers and Jools fioin the perilous ground. The piogiess of the \vic'e.-.s plot is generally the same up tv a eeitain point Tbere is neither originality noi vaiicty in the favourite mode of execution It sound , trite in tlie telling. A fig mo wrapped in the conventional theet, linking in a dark corner ; a spring upon the unsuspecting victim selected, because he is the moat timorous or delicate of the family or school ; dismay, shrieks of anguish blent with eoblin bniirhtei — then a difference in the ending. Sometimes no apparent haiin is done, unless that one clii'd is m.idemoie timid, another more cruel. Again, the nervous system is unbalanced su far that a swoon, or, as in the CuSu before us, convulsions ensue. Once in a whiiu the inno cent subject of the practical joke pays foi his former tot's prank with hi& rca&on or his life. In a less llagiant manner incalculable mischief is done inipany uuismies by tiiles of ghosts, bogies, the black m-m who comes down the chimney to can h children who will not so to sleep quietly, etc. That mother is culpable »vho, when she finds her child unduly timid, does not watch for indications that the nervous onjcinism of li°r <>ff.-.prin«- has been tampered with, and who, shou'd her suspicions lie continued, does not follow the clue to its source and banish the criminal from her household.— " Babyhood."