CHILDREN'S DRESS.

Waikato Times, Volume xxvi, Issue 2458, 8 May 1886, Page 2 (Supplement)

CHILDREN'S DRESS.

(The Queen.) The discourses delivered in the lecture room of the " Healtheries " on subjects cognate to the exhibition formed ono of the valuable features of that instructive show. How to dress children during infancy, and through those early years on the proper management of which so much of the future physical well-being and graceful development of form and limb depend, was an appropriate subject to be included in that series of lectures. Miss Ada Ballin, in the paper read at the Healtheries, and siuce published iv pamphlet form, gave some excellent directions to mothers nnd nurses on the too long-neglected subject of clothing during babyhood. She also offers valuable hints as to the manner of carrying infants ; on cots, cradles, and perambulators. How to keep children sufficiently warm, and yet allow them sufficient freedom of limb, is the problem to be solved by the typical dress for childhood. The merciless twaddling clothes so long considered by our French neighbours as the proper mode of protection for baby limbs, and the exposure of tiny necks, arms and legs, long looked upon in England as suitable and pretty for babes, are the two 'delinquencies that need to be reformed in the dress of infancy. Mr Herbert Spenoer, who has treated of every subject that can affect the well-being of society, protested earnestly against this foolish custom of English mothers. Miss Ballin reminded her hearers that years ago he wrote, " What father, f ull-grown though he is, losing heat less rapidly ns ho does, and paving no physiological necessity but to supply the waste of each day — what father, we ask, would think it salutarj to go about with bare leg*, bare arm*, find bnre neck ? External cold is the first danger the new-born infant has to encouutcr, the baby frame being then at its minimum power of generating boat ; and in ratio of its smallnest quick in losing warmth. Some painful statistics ate yiven in the course of the lecture of the death rate of infants through lung diseases. In 1871, a year set down as one of average mortality an regards these disen«3\ over 18,000 infants under one year died in England add Wales from pneumonia and bronchitis. It is stated that of the fatal cases of pneumonia that yearly occur, nearly twothirds are children under three yearn of age. In the face of all these facts, Miss Ballin heartily goes in for the system of "coddling" as opposed to that of "hardening 1 ." "This theory of hardening" she sayu, "is a fallacy from beginning to end. From one point of view only can anything be siid in its favour, and that is, that, ' allowing there are already too many people in the world, it is an advantage to get rid of as many of the weakest of the new corners as possible." Supporting herself with the authority of Professor Humphries, Miss Ballin urges the total abolition of "the binder or swather." The professor denounces " those mischevious two yards of calico, for they constriot and hinder the expansion of that very region of. the body where heart and lun«r«, stomach and liver are struggling for room to .grow and do their vrork. 1 ' It may interest our rentiers to knew the ftyle of bnby clothing recommended by Miss Billin. The clothes ou?ht to I>p made "(I) to cover every part of the body nllke ; (2) to n»*t upon the collar bones, ho that tho arms may be quite free; (3) they should be made so that they can bo put on without tnrninsr the baby over; (1) they should be short and lijftir, so th*t it can move *ts lejyH qnite freely." Mr Dir, the assistant Hiirireon to the Royal Hospital far Women and Children, Ivw deigned nn infant's clothes that uppoar to fulfil thnuo requirement*. " First a fin" fl mnel w* 1 - r»tt<:hinr to tibont inche« below th* fi'f*, w'w-h should be protected 'by woollen wrkt, wrapped round the infant md ti«d in front with tnoe<« : next, a oMlimihirt wit'i -l-ovc* nearly to the wrwt* to re Hi fo'ir in"h n s below vest, nnd 1 ntly, a roY m ide in the name way, thiit i'", t'\ fi-«f<'n down the front. The rob nn<i «lrrt ?n «y bp f it^e'icd with small button*, as tlia \v<t will protect the nkin from their pro «iro, and the robe may be trimmel to ta«ti».