Under what circumstances should the daily tub-bath be omitted?

Almost any excuse will do.  The bath-room may be too cold, or too hot, or the child may be too sleepy or too wide-awake, or the parent may have lame knees or lead poisoning.  And anyway, the child had a good bath yesterday.

CLOTHING

How should the infant be held during dressing and undressing?

Any carpenter will be glad to sell you a vise which can be attached to the edge of the table.  Place the infant in the vise and turn the screw until there is a slight redness under the pressure.  Be careful not to turn it too tight or the child will resent it; but on the other hand, care should be taken not to leave it too loose, otherwise the child will be continually falling out on the floor, and you will never get it dressed that way.

What are the most important items in the baby’s clothing?

The safety-pins which are in the bureau in the next room.

WEIGHT

How should a child be weighed?

Place the child in the scales.  The father should then sit on top of the child to hold him down.  Weigh father and child together.  Then deduct the father’s weight from the gross tonnage, and the weight of the child is the result.

FRESH AIR

What are the objections to an infant’s sleeping out-of-doors?

Sleeping out-of-doors in the city is all right, but children sleeping out of doors in the country are likely to be kissed by wandering cows and things.  This should never be permitted under any circumstances.

DEVELOPMENT

When does the infant first laugh aloud?

When father tries to pin it up for the first time.

If at two years the child makes no attempt to talk, what should be suspected?

That it hasn’t yet seen anyone worth talking to.

FEEDING

What should not be fed to a child?

Ripe olives.

How do we know how much food a healthy child needs?

By listening carefully.

Which parent should go and get the child’s early morning bottle?

The one least able to feign sleep.

XX

THE COMMITTEE ON THE WHOLE

A new plan has just been submitted for running the railroads.  That makes one hundred and eleven.

The present suggestion involves the services of some sixteen committees.  Now presumably the idea is to get the roses back into the cheeks of the railroads, so that they will go running about from place to place again and perhaps make a little money on pleasant Saturdays and Sundays.  But if these proposed committees are anything like other committees which we have had to do with, the following will be a fair example of how our railroads will be run.