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years, no baby is competent to be a joy "forever." It pains me thus to
demolish two-thirds of your pretty sentiment in a single sentence; but
the position I hold in this chair requires that I shall not permit you to
deceive and mislead the public with your plausible figures of speech.
I know a female baby, aged eighteen months, in this city, which cannot
hold out as a "joy" twenty-four hours on a stretch, let alone "forever."
And it possesses some of the most remarkable eccentricities of character
and appetite that have ever fallen under my notice. I will set down here
a statement of this infant's operations (conceived, planned, and carried
out by itself, and without suggestion or assistance from its mother or
any one else), during a single day; and what I shall say can be
substantiated by the sworn testimony of witnesses.
It commenced by eating one dozen large blue-mass pills, box and all; then
it fell down a flight of stairs, and arose with a blue and purple knot on
its forehead, after which it proceeded in quest of further refreshment
and amusement. It found a glass trinket ornamented with brass-work
-
-smashed up and ate the glass, and then swallowed the brass.
Then it drank about twenty drops of laudanum, and more than a dozen
tablespoonfuls of strong spirits of camphor. The reason why it took no
more laudanum was because there was no more to take. After this it lay
down on its back, and shoved five or six inches of a silver-headed
whalebone cane down its throat; got it fast there, and it was all its
mother could do to pull the cane out again, without pulling out some of
the child with it. Then, being hungry for glass again, it broke up
several wine glasses, and fell to eating and swallowing the fragments,
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