WHY DO CHILDEEN DIE?

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 160, 2 March 1871, Page 6

WHY DO CHILDREN DIE?

In answer to this question, the " Medical Record " holds the following lauguage :—": — " The reason why children die is because they are stuffed with food, choked with physic, splashed with water, suffocated in hot rooms, and steamed in bed clothes. So much for indoors. When permitted to breathe a breath of pure air once a week in summer, and once or twice in the colder months, only the nose is permitted to peer in daylight. A little later they are sent out with no clothes at all on the parts of the body which most need protection. Bare legs, bare arms, bare necks, girted middles, with an inverted umbrella to collect the air and chill the other parts of the body. A stout strong man goes out on a cold day with gloves and overcoat, woollen stockings and thick doubled-soled boots, with cork between and rubbers over. The same day a child of three years old, an infant of flesh and blood, and bone and constitution, goes out with hose as thin as paper, cotton socks, legs uncovered to the knees, and neck bare, an exposure which would disable the nurse, kill the mother outright, and make the father an invalid for weeks. And why ? To harden them to a mode of dress which, they are never expected to practice.

To accustom them to exposure which a dozen years later would be considered downright foolery. To rear children thus for the slaughter-pen, and then lay it to the Lord, is too bad. "We do not think the Almighty has any hand in it."