INFANT PRODIGIES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 7170, 8 November 1884, Page 2 (Supplement)

INFANT PRODIGIES.

An exhibition of ISOO babies, says the Globe, 18 about to be opened in the Champs Ely s6es ; and though, if census officers are to be relied ' upon, Paris ia not the capital of Europe in which babies are moat highly appreciated, no' donbt a considerable proportion of motherly and paternal Paris will visit the collection. It is not, of course, exactly a show for every-, body's inonoy. There is many an old bachelor to whom the bare idea of ISOO babies all under one roof would be a sort of nightmare, and there are some who are not old bachelors to whom the possible accompaniments of such a scene would be most; appalling. Suppose, far instance, only 25 per cent, of these exceptionally fine and vigorous little domestic organs ehould combine their lung'powers ia a grand chorus of disapproval of the general arrangements for their comfort i To say nothing of old bachelors, where the well-inured father of a family who would not be put to rout by 450 babies, all in fall cry ? Whatever may be thought of the taste o£ such an entertainment, it is impossible to deny the interest which may attach to it It would be still greater, no doabt, if the mental and moral peculiarities of these hundreds of young citizens could be displayed as well as their fine limbs and cherub faces. It may be considered, perhaps, scarcely reasonable to assume that very young infants have any special mental or moral characteristics. Bat the history of almost all ages may be adduced in proof of the contention that they certainly have, if we only knew how to get at them. Iα some cases intuitive knowledge has been displayed to a really marvellous extent, and that, too, in combination with a degree of firmness of principle such as very few even in our tnaturer years can boast of. It is well known, for example, that the suckling St. Nicholas not only perfectly well understood enough of ecolesiaitioal matters to distinguish between ordinary daye and d»y3 which the Church had appointed for fasting ; but on these the latter resolutely refused all refreshment, to the great concern of all about him, until it came to be understood to ba an evidence of early sanctity. With such a fact solemnly recorded by grave historians of the Church, it is, of coarse, qnite impossible to doubt that babies in arms may be possessed of moral characteristics of a very decided nature, though it may no doubt often be difficult for them to make them practically manifest. Then;* as to mental characteristics, who will venture to deny the greatest acuteneas to infant powers of perception after the election of St. Ambrose to the Bishopric of Milan? Ambrose was a lawyer by profession, and Governor of Liguria. During an unusnally bitter contest between two rival parties over the election of a Bishop, he came down among the people merely for the purpose of persuading them to be peaceful and orderly, and had no sooner finished what he had to aay than a baby in the crowd cried out, "Ambrose is Biehop !" The Governor was universally allowed to be a just and prudent man, and the moment this infant sage suggested the idea everybody recognised him at once as the very man for the past, and so he certainly proved. Such facts as this merely confirm the opinion that most obiervant persons mnatjhave arrived at when scrutinising any considerable number of babies, that a good jaany of them are far more knowing then they are commonly supposed to be. The infant daughter of Gustavus Adolphus was declared by her father to have shown unmistakable evidence of cleverness by her advent. The astrologers had foretold a son, and had found good reason for believing that things would go awkwardly with mother aud child. When a daughter was born, and all had gone happily, papa prophetically declared that she was sure to be clever, for she had already deceived everybody. Who shall say, after the facts already adduced, that that early encouragement may not have exerted a great influence on the after career of that remarkable woman? Gustavus IV. seems to have been a singularly precocious baby, though, poor soul, it was almost killed by an attempt to bring it up a "hardy" child. Perhaps the idea was suggested by the dipping of Achilles into the river Styx ; but however that may be, the infant Gustavus was perpetually being soused in cold water, until the life was well-nigh chilled out of him. Gustavus Yasa was born with a caul like a helmet on hie bead, and a red cross on his breset. No wonder that the infant prodigy was shortly found drawing [his tiny sword upon his schoolmaster, and afterwards doing all that one particularly active young man could do to turn the world upside down. Modern babies, it is to be feared, are becoming comparatively uninteresting, partly, no doubt, because we have no genuine saints to show what is in them, or to make them the central figures in marvellous events. .Nowadays, if a child tumbles into a cauldron of scalding water, it dies a frightful death; but n medisevial times, as everybody has heard, a baby whose mother had gone to hear St. Anthony preach, toppled into such a vessel,, and merely picked himself up in the boiling water, and waited patiently for his mother to come and lift him out. The infant hero of such an event would make a great sensation in the Champs Elyse'ea. Most of the interest attached to modern babies—the striking and exceptional interest, that is to say— is rather a mutter of siza or weight, or else is merely the surroundings and circumstances of the child. An Ameriean paper, the other day, alluded to a young lady, now eleven years of age, and weighing about 601b5., who at her birth weighed less than IJlbs. The nurse, when washing her, used to lay her in the palm of her hand, and the first few days oE her life were moetly spent wrapped in cotton wool and placed in a basket beside the stove to keep her warm. Her head, it was said, would go into a small-sized teacup. Yet she lived to be "a bright and promising young lady." A speciality of this sort is occasionally met with, and the world is now and again profoundly impressed by the dignity and importance of some new arrival in the shape of a Royal or Imperial infant. But the personal characteristics of babies are, it is to be feared, losing interest. There.will be beautiful babies, no doubt, as there were at a smaller affair of this kind attempted in London some years back babies as beautiful, perhaps, as was the infant Haroun Alraschid, of whom his biographer says :—" He was as beautiful as, the day. As an infant of seven days you might have supposed him a year old. His face was like the full moon, his eyes like the stars Aisch and Kesil, hie lips like twin pomegranates." In other points of interest it cannot be hoped that the collection will rival such as might have been made in olden times. The jury have to award prizes for physical development and for beauty. It is to be feared they will hardly succeed in satisfying all. the eighteen hundred mothers, unless they are wise, enough to award eighteen hundred first prizes.