The Baby on the Battlefield.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3768, 24 March 1891, Page 3

The Baby on the Battlefield.

Oil the night atter the battle of Waterloo, in the blood stained mire of a ploughed field, lay an English officer, - dead where he fell.—At his side lay the body of his wife, who had followed him ■ - irom England, aud perhaps arrived m time to receive his last sigh. On his breast was their baby, sound asleep, and -- ■" Broiling amid that scene as though angels were inspiring its dreams. Ah, God: what a thing is childhood ; touching Heaven in its innocence and : earth in its agony. "While we have the <\children how large the places they nil I When we lose them how great the -Vacancies they leave! Read the story of an escape as told by a parent.My daughter Kate, now eleven years old, had always been delicatei She was pale and thin, and ■ as it seemed,,as though a breath tit cold air would destroy lier. She was now r ' better, now worse, but never well. In the summer of 1885, she complained of a sense of weight in the chest and side. Her abdomen was distended as though had overaaten, when in fact she ate uore than a bird. She spoke bad taste in the mouth, and would always be holding her sides, or placing # her hands against her temples, as if to relieve the pressure there. She also had pains between the shoulders, and her breaßt was very offensive. She was always tired and languid, and though naturally a bright, child, would lie for hours in a listllss condition. She grew weaker and .weaker until she could scarcely Btancl. "We thought her to be in a decline. Then came a sign even more alarming, —a short, dry, deep-sounditig cou?h." My wife and 1 feared it was : consumption. In our anxiety we con- ' . suited the doctors, who said, "Yes, your daughter has consumption." What a sad prospect for us ! About Christmas, 1885,1 removed my family from Huntingdon to Manchester Poor Kate was too weak to take the journey with us ; she remained with her grandmother at Thorp Farm, Nortolk, Still the dear child sank from week to week.—What was our surprise some time .afterwards, to receive a letter from grandmother reading this : "Kate is very much better. She is eating : icell and sleeping wetl; and the rosts are coming into her thni cheeks. What • could have happened? In another -. month we had the happiness of welcoming our daughter in our new home m Manchester. How great was our joy when we saw the wonderful change which had takeD place in her, bhe is l w fine, healthy child, and never ails rjjßiiore than any girl may. "* Now, what wrought this changes " . "What pave us back our daughter, seemindy almost from the brink of the grave ? I will answer frankly, for there is nothing to conceal: —Seeing her de» plorable state, and none of the medicines she had taken proved appropriate to her strange maJady, her grandmother -one day said to herself, "I think I will give Kate a dose out of my bottle of " Mother Seigel's Curative Syrup." Her grandmother had received great benefit from this medicine herself for a corncomplicated disease. It was given to Kate and the good effect was immediate - She at once rested more tranquilly and had something of an appetite, and a " little later her grandmother was justified in writing to us as I have already stated ! (Signed) Frederick Butcher, 6, Birch Road, Crumjsall, near Manchester. . , . , Mr are people of the highest and well educated. Mr Butcherms an assistant at the great shop of the Messrs Lewis, Market-st„ Manchester, and an impartial acquaintance writes that Miss Kate Butcher is one of the brightest young girls to be met with anywhere—quick, precocious, and rull of vivacity and wit. Speaking iof the daughter's recovery her mother 'says: "I do not care what anyone may . say, there is no medicine so good as