ttle charge as the parents
themselves,--hugging the child to their bosoms as they say that he is
so sweet that "he makes you love him till it kills you," we begin to
appreciate the affection that prompts the utterance.

Another feature of these rhymes is the same as that found in the
nursery songs of all nations, namely, the food element. "Jack Sprat,"
"Little Jacky Horner," "Four and Twenty Black-birds," "When Good King
Arthur Ruled the Land," and a host of others will indicate what I mean.
A little child is a highly developed stomach, and anything which tells
about something that ministers to the appetite and tends to satisfy
that aching void, commends itself to his literary taste, and hence the
popularity of many of our nursery rhymes, the only thought of which is
about something good to eat. Notice the following:

Look at the white breasted crows overhead.
My father shot once and ten crows tumbled dead.
When boiled or when fried they taste very good,
But skin them, I tell you, there's no better food.

In imagination I can see the reader raise his eyebrows and mutter, "Do
the Chinese eat crows?" while at the same time he has been singing all
his life about what a "dainty dish" "four and twenty blackbirds" would
make for the "king," without ever raising the question as to whether
blackbirds are good eating or not.

We note another feature of all nursery rhymes in the additions made by
the various persons through whose hands,--or should we say, through
whose mouths they pass.

When an American or English child hears how a certain benevolent dame
found no bone in her cupboard to satisfy the cravings of her hungry
dog, its feelings of compassion are stirred up to ask: "And then what?
Didn't she get any meat? Did the dog die?" and the nurse is compelled
to make another verse to satisfy the curiosity of the child and bring
both the dame and the dog out of the dilemma in which they have been
left. This is what happened in the case of "Old Mother Hubbard" as will
readily be seen by examining the meter of the various verses. The
original "Mother Hubbard" consisted of nothing more than the first six
lines which contain three rhymes. All the other verses have but four
lines and one rhyme.

We find the same thing in Chinese Mother Goose. Take the following as
an example:

He ate too much,
That second brother,
And when he had eaten his fill
He beat his mother.

This was the origin