Audubon Republican

The hand that rocks the cradle and, incidentally and metaphorically, rules the world, is no longer to enjoy undisturbed these notable functions. The anti-rocking movement has begun vigorously in London, the opening declaration of hostilities having been made in a leaflet addressed to mothers by the public health department of the city of London. This document most solemnly adjures mothers never to rock the baby. It is here set forth that rocking the baby to sleep, far from being the wholesome and altogether admirable performance we have been taught through centuries to believe, is one that is rankly diabolic in possibilities. Rocking the baby to sleep, it is declared, is likely to set up various digestive disorders, it stupefies the child and may breed in him or her various bad habits. A healthy child, it is averred, requires no rocking to sleep, the rocking being after all merely a kind of mechanical narcotic, scarcely less dangerous than the poppy juice of the so-called soothing syrup. The baby should be put to bed in the dark and allowed to go to sleep naturally. Cradle rocking,

say the concoctors of the anti-rocking decree, may cause a child to grow up unhealthy, exacting and petulant.

A bas le berceau!