al rhyme. Two verses have been added without rhyme,
reason, rhythm, sense or good taste. They are as follows:

His mother jumped up on the window-sill,
But the window had no crack,
She then looked into the looking-glass,
But the mirror had no back.

Then all at once she began to sing,
But the song it had no end
And then she played the monkey trick
And to heaven she did ascend.

The moral teachings of nursery rhymes are as varied as the morals of
the people to whom the rhymes belong. The "Little Mouse" already given
contains both a warning and a penalty. The mouse which had climbed up
the candle-stick to steal tallow was unable to get down. This was the
penalty for stealing, and indicates to children that if they visit the
cupboard in their mother's absence and take her sweetmeats without her
permission, they may suffer as the mouse did. To leave the mouse there
after he had repeatedly called for that halo-crowned grandmother, who
refused to come, would have been too much for the child's sympathies,
and so the mouse doubles himself up into a wheel, and rolls to the
floor.

In other rhymes, children are warned against stealing, but the penalty
threatened is rather an indication of the untruthfulness of the parent
or nurse than a promise of reform in the child, for they are told that,

If you steal a needle
Or steal a thread,
A pimple will grow
Upon your head.

If you steal a dog
Or steal a cat,
A pimple will grow
Beneath your hat.

Boys are warned of the dire consequences if they wear their hats on the
side of their heads or go about with ragged coats or slipshod feet.

If you wear your hat on the side of your head,
You'll have a lazy wife, 'tis said.
If a ragged coat or slipshod feet,
You'll have a wife who loves to eat.

Those rhymes which manifest the affection of parents for children
cultivate a like affection in the child. We have in the Chinese Mother
Goose a rhyme called the Little Orphan, which is a most pathetic tale.
A little boy tells us that,

Like a little withered flower,
That is dying in the earth,
I was left alone at seven
By her who gave me birth.

With my papa I was happy
But I feared he'd take another,
But now my papa's married,
And I have a little brother.

And he eats good food,