HOME TREATMENT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 68, 21 March 1934, Page 10

HOME TREATMENT.

THE PUSH-CART,

(By PERITUS.)

Many times recently I Lave seen children asleep in the clumsy little thing 3 made for the convenience of mothers, and called push-carts. As long as the child can be laid at length in a perambulator all is well, but once old enough to be seated there is no comfort for the child. The ordinary push-cart carries the child facing the same way as the pusher, and the seat is level or even tilted slightly forward. The foot rCst is supposed — with the help of a waist strap —to keep the child safely in position. Now, when the child sleeps he slips down the sideways, and I have seen many of them in contorted, uncomfortable and unnatural attitudes, the head swinging over-the side, the fefct dragging the ground, the body twisted across 'be narrow unrestful seat. The cart in which the child faces the pusher is better perhaps because the child can be constantly pushed into position, like a "guy" on a barrow, by the attendant. To correct the fault in push-carts when made to fold for transport is not easy, but there might be a curved back, and the back and scat made at an angle to allow the child to remain upon it. The best push-cart I know is the London rickshaw, with wheels and axle of metal and all the rest bamboo and flexible cane. The shafts for pushing are straight, and when raised in the hands of the attendant tilt the seat (which is deep and comfortable) at an angle which puts the rider in a half-reclining attitude. In this vehicle the child faces the pusher. The rickshaw is light, reasonably cheap, and makes a splendid toy in later vears. Sleeping in this "rickshaw" cart the child cannot slip downwards, and arms of cane prevent much sideways droop. The Indian perambulator, made with three bamboos into an isosceles triangle, over which stretched a dressed skin, and the vehicle dragged along bv the apex of the triangle, is more comfortable for the child, and more easily portable, than any child-conveyanco of ours. The bamboos lie alongside each other with the skin wrapped round them when not in use, and the conveyance takes up no more room than, say, two ur.'.brellas.