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TREATMENT OF CHILDREN.

207

management. When I hear a child cry, I feel almost sure somebody has been acting foolishly about that child. It is astonishing how seldom children who are well managed, cry at all. Parents commit two faults; they indulge the child too long, and then get into a passion with it for being naughty. I hear children often ask their mother twenty times for a plaything, a piece of bread, or a draught of milk, or water, at last they set up a dismal cry, and then they get what they want; and having thus learnt to get things by crying, they scream always for what they want. The best rule is this, if a child asks for what it ought to have, let it have it at once, do not stay till it begins to squall; if it cries for what it ought not to have, refuse it, never mind its crying; but be steady. Give it something else to play with, and it will not cry long. If you do this every day, your child will soon find that some things are to be had, and some things are not to be had, and that crying and screaming are of no use.

If you have a passionate child, you must take every means to make the child see, that being passionate is very foolish, and very wrong, and will make it very unhappy. Never talk of its having " a good spirit," as I have heard some parents say of a passionate child. Do not suffer it to gain anything by violence; and, above all, be calm and steady yourself; never put down passion by passion; it may succeed for a moment, but will make your child worse another time. If a child is fretful and cries much without any cause that you can discover, it is probable there is some fault in its health, and it wants the adviceof a doctor. Do not let it get a trick of crying; it is better to soothe it, or endeavour to amuse it, than to scold it. Children seldom cry much without some cause. I see people walking out on a Sunday or holiday with poor little children of three or four years old walking after them, tired and crying; the parents scold the child, sometimes strike the poor little creature, and it cries the more; at last they snatch up the child and carry it. It would be better to take the child up at once, for it cries from weariness and misery.

Infant schools are very useful for mothers who have not time to pay proper attention to their children; it is

delightful to see a hundred little children full of life and spirit; and though there are so many, to hear no squalling nor fighting. If a little cry is set up sometimes by a young child, it is soon amused by something going on in the school, and is quickly quiet again. I know nothing more pleasing than to hear them singing their little songs, which they enjoy at the moment so much, and which they will always recollect with pleasure.-From Cottage Evenings.

ON WOUNDS.

If a poor man receives a wound from a sharp instrument, and this be neglected or badly treated, he may be kept at home perhaps five or six weeks, whilst his family is deprived of the support which he was enabled to provide for them when he was well. It is often the cheapest plan to go to a good doctor at once. Many people apply sugar, or cobweb, or beaver from a hat. These things, put into a wound, do no good, but often a great deal of harm, for the first thing which the surgeon has to do, when he comes, is to wash away all these things, or any dirt, glass, sand or other substance which may have got into the wound. If there be a slight cut, and there is no dirt in it, the best method is to put nothing at all to it; but to bring the sides of the wound close together, and keep them so, either by means of sticking-plaister, or a piece -of linen rag and thread. A wound thus treated will generally heal very soon, by what is called, the first intention. If the cut be more severe, and a surgeon's help is required, it is still right to do nothing, till the surgeon arrives, but wrap it up, as they say, in its own blood, bringing the sides of the wound as near together as you conveniently can, to prevent loss of blood and irritation. If the surgeon finds dirt or anything else in the wound, his first care is to wash it away, and then to bring the edges of the wound together, and keep them so by means of adhesive plaister, (that is, strong sticking-plaister.) A clean cut wound, if treated thus, will generally soon heal; and this, must then be the method to pursue, when no surgeon is likely to arrive soon.

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INTEMPERANCE.

209

Burns and scalds are best relieved by plunging the part into cold water, taking care not to break the blisters. A slight burn or scald will be relieved at once by this method; the part must be kept in for some time; and when the water becomes warmed, fresh cold water must be taken.-See Nurses' Manual, by Mr. Winterbourn, Surgeon.

LINES ON FLOWERS.

GOD might have made the earth bring forth
Enough for great and small,

The oak-tree and the cedar-tree,

Without a flower at all.

He might have made enough, enough
For every want of ours,

For luxury, medicine, and toil,

And yet have made no flowers.

The clouds might give abundant rain,
The mighty dew might fall;

And the herb that keepeth life in man
Might yet have drunk them all.

Then, wherefore, were the flowers all made,

All dyed with rainbow light,
All fashioned with supremest grace,
Upspringing day and night?

Our outward life requires them not;
Then, wherefore had they birth?

To minister to man delight,

To beautify the earth.

To comfort man, to whisper hope,

Whene'er his faith is dim;

For He who made for man the flowers,
Must care much more for him.

INTEMPERANCE.

IT is a most miserable relief which a man seeks, who, under disappointment or poverty, resorts to spirit-drinking as the means of cheering his mind. What is the result of all those millions that are wasted upon spirits in this land? What would have been done with those millions? That sum would have been employed among the poor to get clothing for their naked children, to stop their cries

for food, to procure shoes for their feet, and to fill their homes with social comfort. In short, it would have been employed in honest industry, in the payment of husbandmen and artizans, who would have been necessary to raise all these goods and all that food. But all this has been wasted, and for what? Is it to make men happy? To support a sinking frame? No; it is to create disorder and perpetuate misery; to give a momentary joy, to be followed by the deepest sadness; to excite an over-strained liveliness of spirit, to end in destruction, in sickness, in despair; to prompt to every species of crime, to fill their homes with all sorts of unhappiness, to separate the husband from the wife, to make the father the tyrant of his children, and not their protector; to make the children dread the return of him in whose beaming eye they ought to find one of the best solaces for their sorrows. This is what the use of ardent spirits-not merely their intemperate use, but their use generally, leading to intemperance -has produced here and in every place; it is the harbinger and parent of innumerable crimes and sorrows.Hon. and Rev. B. W. Noel.

LEECHES.

LEECHES thrive in water, at the bottom of which is a layer of charcoal; the water being changed and the vessel well cleaned every ten or fifteen days. After they have been used, they may be thrown into a plate covered with wood ashes: when they have disgorged all the blood they had sucked, and been well washed with fresh water, they may be put back into the bottle, (as above,) so as to serve several times. This should only be covered with a piece of linen.-Magazine of Domestic Economy.

EARLY POTATOES.

GREAT quantities of early potatoes are, raised in Cheshire, by a peculiar process,-transplanting the sets (which should be of the earliest kind) during winter, carefully guarded from the frost, in a warm place, where they may

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sprout at least three inches by the beginning of March. As soon after that time as the weather happens to be favourable, they are, with the sprout on, to be carefully planted in a dry soil, in drills, with a small rib of earth between each drill, and the end of the sprout just under the surface of the ground. The plants should be kept covered with straw, or rushes, every night, as long as the frost continues, and uncovered every favourable day.-Lyson.

ENCOURAGEMENT OF AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS.

THE last exhibition for 1837, of the Royal Ilsley Society for the encouragement of agricultural labourers, was held on the 18th of September, at Market Ilsley, when the annual ploughing match took place in a field of the Messrs. Gee, in the parish of Beedon. The show of vegetables did infinite credit to the labourers, and proved how much more the earth had given forth her increase from their additional exertions through the stimulus given to them by this Society. It has already effected great good in this purely agricultural district, and well deserves the support of every owner and occupier of land throughout the neighbourhood, who desires to see the labouring classes industrious, honest, and prosperous.-Salisbury Herald.

BONE MANURE.

THE following letter was received by Mr. John Biddle, of Stratford Mills, near Stroud, with the handsome present therein stated:

"Dear Sir, I embrace the opportunity of proving to you, beyond doubt, the extraordinary efficacy of Bone Dust, as a manure, for the growth of turnips; one real specimen is better than one thousand representations, therefore I beg your acceptance of one of my largest turnips, containing a hare, a brace of pheasants, two brace of partridges, three pigeons, four larks, four sparrows, and a game cock.

(Signed)

Coombe End, Oct. 1837.

PETER MATTHEWS."