“LITTLE STRANGERS.”

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 144145, 15 July 1913, Page 6

“LITTLE STRANGERS.”

Tho “Strand” articles for July include an extremely bright statistical essay by Dr. Mormon i'orriton “the little stranger” and its ways. “Tho little stranger,” he begins“is either a boy or a girl, but may bo both.” It is both most frequently in Dublin, whore there is a set of twins at every fifty eight’arrivals; and least frequently in Naples, whore twins , occur only once to a hundred and fifty-eight single events. The favourite hour for arriving is 3 a. m. Infants commemorate it usually by wixking up as that hour returns, and demanding instantaneous refreshment, followed by a walk rbund 'the room in a parent’s arms. The little stranger is more often a boy than a girl. “In England and Wales about seventeen thousand five Hundred more boys than girls arrive every year.” And yet the last census shows there arc one thousand and sixty-eight British females to every thousand males.“ Tho lady who when asked if she wanted a vote, replied, ‘No,what I want is a voter,’ will, as time goes on, have more and more difficulty in securing one.” Out of a thousand boys born only eight hundred and seventy-eight are alive at tho end of a year, while nine hundred and four girls out of a thousand will still bo facing tho world’s difficulties. The superior vitality tells throughtout life, and whereas out of one hundred thousand boys born, only seven may hope to outlast a 1 hundred years, tho feat will bo gaily accomplished by twenty-four out of tho same number of girls. Taking boys and girls together, of every thousand British infants one hundred and five never see their first birthday. If tho new arrival comes to town his chances of quick departure are a third greater than if ho elects to try a rural district “If the latest arrival can emigrate to New Zealand, ho will have the best chance of all to survive more than a twelvemonth. In Now Zealand only sixty-eight clxildren out of. a thousand die in their first year. “Rachel weeping for hexchildren shared a world-wide sorrow—but parental grief was expressed less poeticolly by tho Norwich labourer, who after passionately kissing a little corpse, cried, “Ah! sir, you don’t know how I loved that 1111’ fallor; and if it worix’t agin tho law I’d have him stuffed, that I would!” Scripture names for the little stranger are poplar in English country places; the towns “displace the good old-fashioned John and Tom, Mary and Sarah, for Gordon and Cyril, Doris, Lily, and Rose.,, Not all fathers are so clover as tho man who had decided on Kate for a first daughter’s xxamo, and when she arrived as twins, promptly called the fair companion Dupli-Kato But it was a small boy who declared his now twin brothers wore to bo named Thunder and Lightning. I know they are,” Ajie explained, “Pa called them that as soon as ho hoard.”