poor, innocent creatures, thus banished.  And now, as connected with this measure, I have an argument of experience, enough to terrify every young man and woman upon earth from the thought of committing this offence against nature.  I wrote No.  IX. at CAMBRIDGE, on Sunday, the 28th of March; and before I quitted SHREWSBURY, on the 14th of May, the following facts reached my ears.  A very respectable tradesman, who, with his wife, have led a most industrious life, in a town that it is not necessary to name, said to a gentleman that told it to me:  ’I wish to God I had read No.  IX. of Mr. Cobbett’s ADVICE TO YOUNG MEN fifteen years ago!’ He then related, that he had had ten children, all put out to be suckled, in consequence of the necessity of his having the mother’s assistance to carry on his business; and that two out of the ten had come home ideots; though the rest were all sane, and though insanity had never been known in the family of either father or mother!  These parents, whom I myself saw, are very clever people, and the wife singularly industrious and expert in her affairs.

271.  Now the motive, in this case, unquestionably was good; it was that the mother’s valuable time might, as much as possible, be devoted to the earning of a competence for her children.  But, alas! what is this competence to these two unfortunate beings!  And what is the competence to the rest, when put in the scale against the mortification that they must, all their lives, suffer on account of the insanity of their brother and sister, exciting, as it must, in all their circle, and even in themselves, suspicions of their own perfect soundness of mind!  When weighed against this consideration, what is all the wealth in the world!  And as to the parents, where are they to find compensation for such a calamity, embittered additionally, too, by the reflection, that it was in their power to prevent it, and that nature, with loud voice, cried out to them to prevent it!  MONEY!  Wealth acquired in consequence of this banishment of these poor children; these victims of this, I will not call it avarice, but over-eager love of gain! wealth, thus acquired!  What wealth can console these parents for the loss of reason in these children!  Where is the father and the mother, who would not rather see their children ploughing in other men’s fields, and sweeping other men’s houses, than led about parks or houses of their own, objects of pity even of the menials procured by their wealth?

272.  If what I have now said be not sufficient to deter a man from suffering any consideration, no matter what, to induce him to delegate the care of his children, when very young, to any body whomsoever, nothing that I can say can possibly have that effect; and I will, therefore, now proceed to offer my advice with regard to the management of children when they get beyond the danger of being crazed or killed by nurses or servants.