to cherish. You
would be proud to have Unhealthy Homes. Lusty carcases, they are for
coarse folk and for the heathen; civilization forbids us to promote animal
development. How can a man look spiritual, if he be not sickly? How can a
woman--Is not Paris the mode? Go, weigh an elegant Parisienne against a
peasant girl from Normandy. It is here proposed, therefore, to honor your
discretion by demonstrating publicly how right you are. Some of the many
methods by which one may succeed in making Home Unhealthy will be here
detailed to you, in order that, as we go on, you may congratulate yourself
on feeling how extremely clever you already are in your arrangements. Here
is a plain purpose. If any citizen, listening to such lessons, think
himself wise, and yet is one who, like good M. Jourdain in the comedy,
_n'applaudit qu'a contresens_--to such a citizen it is enough to say. May
much good come of his perversity!

I. Hints To Hang Up In The Nursery.

In laying a foundation of ill health, it is a great point to be able to
begin at the beginning. You have the future man at excellent advantage
when he is between your fingers as a baby. One of Hoffman's heroines, a
clever housewife, discarded and abhorred her lover from the moment of his
cutting a yeast dumpling. There are some little enormities of that kind
which really can not be forgiven, and one such is, to miss the opportunity
of physicking a baby. Now I will tell you how to treat the future
pale-face at his first entrance into life.

A little while before the birth of any child, have a little something
ready in a spoon; and, after birth, be ready at the first opportunity, to
thrust this down his throat. Let his first gift from his fellow-creatures
be a dose of physic--honey and calomel, or something of that kind: but you
had better ask the nurse for a prescription. Have ready also, before
birth, an abundant stock of pins; for it is a great point, in putting the
first dress upon the little naked body, to contrive that it shall contain
as many pins as possible. The prick of a sly pin is excellent for making
children cry; and since it may lead nurses, mothers, now and then even
doctors, to administer physic for the cure of imaginary gripings in the
bowels, it may be twice blessed. Sanitary enthusiasts are apt to say that
strings, not pins, are the right fastening for infants' clothes. Be not
misled. Is not the pincushion an ancient institution? What is to say,
"Wel