The Women of the Suffrage Movement. Jane Addams

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      My reading, at this time, centered on hygiene. I came to the conclusion, after much thought and observation, that children never cried unless they were uncomfortable. A professor at Union College, who used to combat many of my theories, said he gave one of his children a sound spanking at six weeks, and it never disturbed him a night afterward. Another Solomon told me that a very weak preparation of opium would keep a child always quiet and take it through the dangerous period of teething without a ripple on the surface of domestic life. As children cannot tell what ails them, and suffer from many things of which parents are ignorant, the crying of the child should arouse them to an intelligent examination. To spank it for crying is to silence the watchman on the tower through fear, to give soothing syrup is to drug the watchman while the evils go on. Parents may thereby insure eight hours' sleep at the time, but at the risk of greater trouble in the future with sick and dying children. Tom Moore tells us "the heart from love to one, grows bountiful to all." I know the care of one child made me thoughtful of all. I never hear a child cry, now, that I do not feel that I am bound to find out the reason.

      In my extensive travels on lecturing tours, in after years, I had many varied experiences with babies. One day, in the cars, a child was crying near me, while the parents were alternately shaking and slapping it. First one would take it with an emphatic jerk, and then the other. At last I heard the father say in a spiteful tone, "If you don't stop I'll throw you out of the window." One naturally hesitates about interfering between parents and children, so I generally restrain myself as long as I can endure the torture of witnessing such outrages, but at length I turned and said:

      "Let me take your child and see if I can find out what ails it."

      "Nothing ails it," said the father, "but bad temper."

      The child readily came to me. I felt all around to see if its clothes pinched anywhere, or if there were any pins pricking. I took off its hat and cloak to see if there were any strings cutting its neck or choking it. Then I glanced at the feet, and lo! there was the trouble. The boots were at least one size too small. I took them off, and the stockings, too, and found the feet as cold as ice and the prints of the stockings clearly traced on the tender flesh. We all know the agony of tight boots. I rubbed the feet and held them in my hands until they were warm, when the poor little thing fell asleep. I said to the parents, "You are young people, I see, and this is probably your first child." They said, "Yes." "You don't intend to be cruel, I know, but if you had thrown those boots out of the window, when you threatened to throw the child, it would have been wiser. This poor child has suffered ever since it was dressed this morning." I showed them the marks on the feet, and called their attention to the fact that the child fell asleep as soon as its pain was relieved. The mother said she knew the boots were tight, as it was with difficulty she could get them on, but the old ones were too shabby for the journey and they had no time to change the others.

      "Well," said the husband, "if I had known those boots were tight, I would have thrown them out of the window."

      "Now," said I, "let me give you one rule: when your child cries, remember it is telling you, as well as it can, that something hurts it, either outside or in, and do not rest until you find what it is. Neither spanking, shaking, or scolding can relieve pain."

      I have seen women enter the cars with their babies' faces completely covered with a blanket shawl. I have often thought I would like to cover their faces for an hour and see how they would bear it. In such circumstances, in order to get the blanket open, I have asked to see the baby, and generally found it as red as a beet. Ignorant nurses and mothers have discovered that children sleep longer with their heads covered. They don't know why, nor the injurious effect of breathing over and over the same air that has been thrown off the lungs polluted with carbonic acid gas. This stupefies the child and prolongs the unhealthy slumber.

      One hot day, in the month of May, I entered a crowded car at Cedar Rapids, Ia., and took the only empty seat beside a gentleman who seemed very nervous about a crying child. I was scarcely seated when he said:

      "Mother, do you know anything about babies?"

      "Oh, yes!" I said, smiling, "that is a department of knowledge on which I especially pride myself."

      "Well," said he, "there is a child that has cried most of the time for the last twenty-four hours. What do you think ails it?"

      Making a random supposition, I replied, "It probably needs a bath."

      He promptly rejoined, "If you will give it one, I will provide the necessary means."

      I said, "I will first see if the child will come to me and if the mother is willing."

      I found the mother only too glad to have a few minutes' rest, and the child too tired to care who took it. She gave me a suit of clean clothes throughout, the gentleman spread his blanket shawl on the seat, securing the opposite one for me and the bathing appliances. Then he produced a towel, sponge, and an india-rubber bowl full of water, and I gave the child a generous drink and a thorough ablution. It stretched and seemed to enjoy every step of the proceeding, and, while I was brushing its golden curls as gently as I could, it fell asleep; so I covered it with the towel and blanket shawl, not willing to disturb it for dressing. The poor mother, too, was sound asleep, and the gentleman very happy. He had children of his own and, like me, felt great pity for the poor, helpless little victim of ignorance and folly. I engaged one of the ladies to dress it when it awoke, as I was soon to leave the train. It slept the two hours I remained—how much longer I never heard.

      A young man, who had witnessed the proceeding, got off at the same station and accosted me, saying:

      "I should be very thankful if you would come and see my baby. It is only one month old and cries all the time, and my wife, who is only sixteen years old, is worn out with it and neither of us know what to do, so we all cry together, and the doctor says he does not see what ails it."

      So I went on my mission of mercy and found the child bandaged as tight as a drum. When I took out the pins and unrolled it, it fairly popped like the cork out of a champagne bottle. I rubbed its breast and its back and soon soothed it to sleep. I remained a long time, telling them how to take care of the child and the mother, too. I told them everything I could think of in regard to clothes, diet, and pure air. I asked the mother why she bandaged her child as she did. She said her nurse told her that there was danger of hernia unless the abdomen was well bandaged. I told her that the only object of a bandage was to protect the navel, for a few days, until it was healed, and for that purpose all that was necessary was a piece of linen four inches square, well oiled, folded four times double, with a hole in the center, laid over it. I remembered, next day, that I forgot to tell them to give the child water, and so I telegraphed them, "Give the baby water six times a day." I heard of that baby afterward. It lived and flourished, and the parents knew how to administer to the wants of the next one. The father was a telegraph operator and had many friends—knights of the key—throughout Iowa. For many years afterward, in leisure moments, these knights would "call up" this parent and say, over the wire, "Give the baby water six times a day." Thus did they "repeat the story, and spread the truth from pole to pole."

      Chapter VIII.

      Boston and Chelsea.

       Table of Contents

      In the autumn of 1843 my husband was admitted to the bar and commenced the practice of law in Boston with Mr. Bowles, brother-in-law of the late General John A. Dix. This gave me the opportunity to make many pleasant acquaintances among the lawyers in Boston, and to meet, intimately, many of the noble men and women among reformers, whom I had long worshiped at a СКАЧАТЬ