THE BABY IN ARMS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9190, 12 September 1908, Page 3

THE BABY IN ARMS.

Vangbrs to which infants r ARE EXPOSED. The annual congress of the Royal Institute of Public Health concluded its sectional sittings at Buxton (England) on July 23rd with a discussion on the death-rate among children. Mr J. M. Mackenzie, medical officer for Kirby-in-Ashfield, sai.l that one of the causes of the high deathrate among infants was the vicious habit of carrying infanta in arms to public demonstrations, wakes, fairs and workmen's excursions. He knew of cases where children of thrje or four months old had been carried in arms on excursions, .leaving home at 3 a.m. one day and returning at 3 o'clock the next morning. The mother returned exhausied, and in many instances the baby collapsed and died within forty-eight hours from pneumonia. Another prolific cause of the increase in the infant death-rate was the practice of taking infants into public-houses on Saturday and Sunday nights, where they remained several hours in small rooms crammed _- witlijeople and reeking with the smell of beer and tobacco. Mr Dane, oi: Giossop, said many chil.lren lost their lives because their sinners were so proud of them that ih-jy dressed them in light iancy ciothing. Instancing the evil effects oi! improper feeding, he said on one occasion he remonstrated with a for giving solid food to a baby v *rar months old. She resented his impertinence in attempting to teach her how to rear a baby when she had had fourteen children. He was not surprised to learn, he added, that twelve of tha children were dead. Councillor Shelmerline, of Liverpool, spoke of tha highly satisfactory results achieved in Liverpool by the corporation supplying humanised milk. About 15,000 infants had been fad by this means, and the deathrat:! among those thus nourished was les* than half the rate of infant mortality in the city. A M lH iRAJAH'S DIAMOND. Details given by tha "Hindoo Patnot" of a Maharajah's diamonds read like a page from the "Arabian Nights." Of all the Princes of India, declares that journal, not one his gams that an compare with those of tos Gaekwar of Baroda. Perhaps tha most remarkable of the Gaekwar's jewel treasures is a carpet, said to he about four yards square, composed of ropes of rubies, diamonds, pearls, woven into a pattern of exquisite and daa/ding beauty. The gems in this carpet are of an estimated value of £S0i),000, and it is the product of three years' work of skilled artists and jewel setters. Still more costly is one of the Gaekwar's diamond necklaces, which is said to be worth well over £2,000,000, > and which, one can easily imagine is the most magnificent in the world. .