LETTERS FROM A BABY. BY A FORWARD CHILD.

St. Louis has obtained the reputation of being a dangerous climate for infants, and the bills of mortality, as they have from time to time exhibited an alarming number of deaths among children, have called forth learned disquisitions from the “medicine men,” and some new views from those who are without the pale of regular practice. All seemed to agree that the mortality every summer was alarming, but no two united in assigning the same cause for the fatal result. After listening patiently to both sides, I sought information from the suffering party, and their opinion may be gathered from the complaints of their correspondent Bub. He says:

Dear Sir:—Of late I perceive the public are making some stir about us babies; may heaven vouchsafe healthy children to our defenders. I have a string of sorrows to relate myself, and my poor bowels cry out for protection; you must therefore permit me to say a few words. My Ma is what you would call a fashionable woman, and although she loves her baby, yet she says it is not fashionable for mammas in the southern states to nurse their own babies; I am, consequently, turned over to the care of nigger Molly, and Lord preserve me, such nursing as I get would kill a young Indian. I am fed with every thing, from a green apple to a chunk of fat pickled pork, and the sufferings which I undergo therefrom, would crack a sucking bottle, or rend a diaper in tatters. After feeding me into sickness, they set a doctor at me, who physics me into a state of quiet insensibility, and they then say, “bess its ittle bessed heart it's ditten better, it is.” I get a little peace until I get strong enough to cry out, and then nigger Molly stuffs me to keep me quiet, and I go through another spell. I see our dog Flora watching her pups, and if any person goes near them she is almost ready to tear them to pieces; I wish my Ma was as careful of me. I see a poor woman opposite kissing her baby, and I envy that child; nobody kisses me but black Molly, and she does it to smother my cries of suffering. I don't know what kills other babies, but this treatment will soon finish me Bub.

NO. II.-BUB IN PERIL.

How are you?—You have published my letter, and I am glad to see that nigger Molly cannot smother my cry to the public—if I don't give her scissors, it will be because she smothers me outright. You must know Molly keeps two bottles filled with liquid, one of which she administers to me, and the other to herself, and they both have about the same effect, only hers smells worst. Hers she calls whiskey, mine cordial. The other morning Molly set me down on the floor, beside a pan of water, and commenced taking comfort from her bottle, and I, feeling feverish, commenced comforting myself by dabbling in the pan until I was all wet; Molly perceiving this picked me up to slap me, but her cordial floored her. I should have been glad of this, only she nearly killed me in her fall, and because I screamed, as any baby would do, she clapped her black lips to mine, smelling horribly as they were of whiskey, and kept in my breath until I was as black in the face as herself. I yelled at this double outrage, and she silenced me by pouring a double dose of cordial down my throat, which threw me into a state of insensibility, from which I awoke almost dead. My mother asked to see me, and when she heard me moaning, she said “the ittle bessed dear is suffering wis its too-sys.” I aint suffering with my teeth—I'm suffering with nigger Moll's nursing.

Bub.

NO. III.—BUB RESCUED.

Hello, boys:—Flourish trumpets! merrily beat your drums—I'm a saved sucker! A day of hope and promise has shed its light upon my infantile head, and bright visions of a pair of small breeches to be worn by me, float airily round my head—they appear plain and palpable in the vista of the future—buttons, pockets, suspenders and all—vive la pantalons! The other morning my Pa drew forth the copies of the Reveille from his book case, and commenced reading them for Ma's amusement. Suddenly he cast his eye on my letters, and straight he commenced them—he laughed, and then Ma laughed, and then I crowed. By and by, as he proceeded, Ma began to look angry; she cast a glance at me, and then her conscience smote her—I was wasted to a shadow—on went Pa with the letters; Ma wept, I crowed, and nigger Molly gave me a pinch—a yell followed and the clouds burst!

“Give me that child, you hateful jade, you; how dare you hurt it?” cried Ma.

“Please God, I didn't do nuffin ob de sort, missus; I'd do any thin else, missus, dan hurt de baby,” answered Moll.

“Get out of my sight, you hussy!” cried my enraged mamma; “you have nearly killed de bessed ittle pet—mamma's dear, bess its heart—get out of my sight; if ever you touch it again, I'll punish you severely.”

Molly fled, Pa chuckled to himself, and I crowed again—I tried to hurrah! How shall I describe the change which stole over me, body and spirit, as, nestling in my mother's sweet bosom and receiving her fond caress, I was permitted abundantly to drink at “Nature's pure fount, which, at my cry, sent forth a pearly stream to cherish my enamelled veins.” A sweet sleep visited my pillow again, and the fond endearments which waited on my waking moments were life and joy to me. My Ma, now, is rapidly improving in health—I, of course, will grow fat; and just wait until I'm able to wear them breeches and beat a small drum, if I don't visit the Reveille office and give you the serenade of “Oh, be joyful,” until your petrified stump will execute a double shuffle, then say my name aint Bub.

NO. IV.—BUB FLOURISHING.

Hello, Drummers:—Whoop! hey! cock-a-doodle-doo-o-o! If I aint some by this time I wouldn't say so! You remember what a sickly state I was in when I commenced telling you my grievances?—how my complaints wrought improvement and rescued me from nigger Molly? Well, ever since then, it's a surprise to learn the way my body has spread—I'm a small Lambert, and have got six teeth. Aint I some? Talk of your Missouriums!—only look at me! Well, between you and me, I didn't cut them teeth for nothing; I find a fellow don't get knowledge without paying for it; I suffered in teething, but I learned some. Women who pay no attention to their babies, envy me my fat—I'm a kind of living rebuke to them, and, for a year old, I'm rather a heavy rebuke. They every now and then say: “Why, bless me, Mrs. T————, you'll kill yourself nursing that big fat child.” The answer they get, generally, is, “Well, it will get killed if I don't!” That's the way to tell it!—bravo, Ma! “Well, but, Mrs. T————, why don't you let Molly relieve you of such a load?” Ma answers, “It's because Molly nearly relieved me of him altogether—he would have died from her nursing.” That's a fact!—hit 'em again, Ma. “My children,” says Mrs. Nevernurse, “get along very well without me.”

“Yes,” answered Ma, again, “you have only two living out of six.” That was a wiper!—how she twisted her face at it! I think I'm safe enough, but my peace is sadly troubled with fear when I hear some of these old women giving Ma advice. It would do you good to see old Molly look at me, now and then, saying, with her big eyes, “Well, bress de Lord, I'm clar ob dat brat, but I should jis like to hab him for a a week, I'd take de sassy look out ob his face.” I'd like to try my six new teeth on her black hide.

You shall have that serenade, Drummers, and no mistake. Bub.

NO. V.-BUB AGAIN IN DANGER.

Gents:—How d'ye do? I've just had a good long pull at the titty, and have got on a clean warm diaper; and feeling pretty comfortable, I think I'll give you another small epistle. I'm going to get into trouble—I feel it in my bones. My Ma has quarreled with her old physician, and has employed a new one, young Dr. Pliant—between you and me, I think they should have named him Verdant. This new doctor wants to please, so anything the women propose is exactly right. “Don't you think, Doctor,” says one, “that Mrs. T———— will destroy her health, nursing that fat child?”

“Certainly, maam, most unquestionably, Mrs. Helpalong; the strength of the mother being inadequate to the sufficient indevelopment of the ponderous system of meat-gather-upon-its-bones-ativeness of the infant, it consequently follows that the thin-down-to-a-light-alti-tudity of the fill-up-and-get-strong-ative powers of the mother naturally must result.”

“I thought so, Doctor,” says Mrs. Helpalong, and this clear-as-mud evidence against my comfort is reiterated to my mother. “Do you really think, Dr. P., that I am endangering my health?”

“That depends upon how you feel,” says the doctor. “Why,” says Ma, “I feel as well as ever I did in my life.”

“Your system, then,” says the doctor, “is what we call in the south sui generis—that is, you can stand nursing, and, consequently, the babe having a tendency to the natural milk which surreptitiously flows, I might say, from the secretive portion of the female os frontis of the breast, it must follow, as a result from these multifarious and indigenous effects, that no danger can ensue from your nursing.” I'm safe as long as my mother keeps in good health; but Lord bless me, should she get ill, I'm a gone sucker—this new physician would dose her and me into kingdom come in about a week. I heard quite a discussion about his merits yesterday. Mrs. Enquiry says that he used to be a fiddler about two years ago, but Mrs. Helpalong says it is no such thing—that he always was a gentleman, and taught school before he took up the profession—that he studied regularly a whole season, and took his diploma in the spring;—she sticks to that, Mrs. Helpalong does, and I guess she is about right. Aint my case critical? Bub.

NO. VI.-bub's RECEPTION OF A SILVER PAP SPOON.

I'm here again:—Important events having transpired since I last wrote to you, it has been deemed proper to send a synopsis of them to you for publication, in order that the world in general may know western babies are some, and when well nursed a good deal more than some. A most gratifying reformation has been effected in certain circles by my letters, and, indeed, wherever they have been read, nigger nurses, paregoric, sucking-bottles, coarse diapers, and sundry other abuses have entirely disappeared. The effect has been a corresponding improvement in babies, generally, and your correspondent in particular, who is now admitted to be a whapping child for a small family.

On last Christmas, a number of our parents having met together to celebrate the day, all of us youngsters were put into the nursery together, and the clatter of discussion which followed would have thrown a peevish nurse into hysterics. Charley Wilgus proposed that a meeting should be held upon the spot, and a silver pap spoon voted to me for my able letters in defence of infantile rights. Asa Keemle seconded the motion, and it was unanimously carried. Charley Wilgus was thereupon chosen chairman, and Asa Keemle, secretary. The president mounted a pillow, and called the meeting to order by ringing the bells on his coral. On motion, a committee was then appointed to draft resolutions expressive of the sense of the meeting, and the following boys, having cut their eye-teeth, were selected to draft said resolutions:

Augustus Vinton, Edward Shade, John Charless, Christopher Wigery, John Dalrymple and Wallace Finney.

The committee having retired, Colton A. Presbury, Jr., offered the following resolution, which he prefaced by some very pertinent remarks:

Resolved, That cutting teeth is a sharp operation, and should therefore, be deferred until maturity.

Presbury G. A. Colton, a little fellow who had just cut his first “double,” opposed this resolution, on the ground of its interfering with “future prospects,”—he went in for teeth now, and the cutting to come being left an open question. The resolution was rejected.

Rucker Smith now rose to address the meeting, when some objection was made to him because he sucked milk from a bottle; it was, however, concluded that he might address the chair if his diaper was pinned tight; on examination he was permitted to proceed. He commenced describing the horrors of a cold bath, and was interrupted by the president, who informed him that the subject of water came more particularly under the head of streams, and could not then be entertained by the meeting. He then proceeded to describe the delights of a sucking-bottle, and was cried down by the unanimous voice of the meeting. Some one now commenced a speech against paregoric, whereupon the assembly, speaker and all, went immediately to sleep!

They were aroused from their slumber by the return of the committee, which, through their chairman, Augustus Vinton, reported the following resolutions:

Resolved, That babies are, and of right ought to be, natural-born suckers.

Resolved, That the introduction of negro nurses among white babies was a dark era in infantile history.

Resolved, That all artificial efforts, in regard to babies, are no go, and that the old fashion defies the ingenuity of Yankeedom to improve on it.

Resolved, That “being born with a silver spoon in your mouth” is a good thing, but an unlimited chance at the titty is a better.

Resolved, That all anti-nursing mothers are undeserving of lively husbands.

Resolved, That we look with feelings of compassion upon those who have adopted children.

Resolved, That Bub deserves a silver pap spoon, and shall have one.

These resolutions having been unanimously adopted by the meeting, it was—

On motion of O. M. Ridgely, seconded by Edward 'Shade, adjourned. A general call was now made for refreshments, which anxious mothers promptly supplied.

Yours, Bub.