Children and Sweetmeats.

Auckland Star, Volume XVII, Issue 199, 25 August 1886, Page 4

Children and Sweetmeats.

fN the current number of a roligious monthly the Rev. J. W. Horsley, lately chaplain of the recently abolished Clerken. well Prison, called attention to an unsuspected cause of infantile depravity. " The perverted taste for lollipops," ho said, "caußod chiefly (because not prevented) by mothers, is a large—vory large—caueo of juvenillo crirao; and, from a prison point of view, thero is far mere justification for an Anti-Lollipop League than for an anti-tobacco one." Without going into the question of tho connection botween the craving for sweetmeats and juvenile vice— a question upon which Mr Horslcy's experience gives soma weight to his opinion — it may be pointed out that there ia nothing immoral or unwholesome in the gratification, within reasonable limits, of the saccharine tastes of children and women. On the contrary, the appetite ie a far more natural one than that for tobacco, bitter heer, and very dry wine?, bo characteristic of manhood, and ia certainly not more injurious. OE coureo, excess in sweets, aa in any article of food, is calculated to cripple the digestive functions, and debilitate the constitution ; and it ie an unquestionable fact that many children, especially the poorer classes, are permitted to indulge to a disgusting extent in the ingenious messes of the confectioner. There can bo little doubt, however, that much of this infantile debauchery is duo rather to sheer hunger than to any perversion of appetite.