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12
The Science of Dress.
[CHAP. I.

as neither she nor any of the servants knew how to put them on, she was waiting until her mother returned from the country.

On inquiry, I found that the unfortunate infant in question was wearing two thick rollers, one of flannel and one of cotton, shirt, flannel, heavily laced and embroidered long robe, and last, but not least, an indoor cap with three rows of lace. She laid especial stress on the last, and added that all the clothes were lovely. Can any one wonder at the terribly high rate of infant mortality, if reputedly educated women thus lose their quality of reason so far as to take pride in their ignorance of matters which concern the well-being, and even the life, of their children?

This class of mother, and unfortunately the class is a very large one, thinks she is doing her duty nobly if she turns her little one into a sort of animated block on which to display costly and handsome clothes, never for a moment considering whether those clothes are healthy and comfortable. She will let her baby grow weak and feverish from being too warmly dressed in the summer, while in the winter she will let it appear in a robe of lace, with bare neck and arms.

The instinct of the hen makes her sit day after day, week after week, on her nest, to warm her chickens with the heat of her own body, lest they should die of cold. The perverted reason of woman makes her, in accordance with a foolish fashion, cut her baby's clothes low in the neck, and tie up its already short sleeves with ribbons, so that "it shall