Sådan en lille prut-maskine kan få leveret store portioner af både det ene og det andet på bare én dag. Derfor undrer jeg mig over beretninger om, hvordan man ikke vaskede børn fra om efteråret til engang i foråret, fordi de var syet ind i deres tøj. Hvordan i alverden kunne det lade sig gøre - og hvis det kun er en (sejlivet) myte, hvor kom den så fra? Man skulle tro, at et barn under alle omstændigheder vokser for hurtigt til at kunne passe det samme tøj gennem så mange måneder, så alene det burde have sat en stopper for denne sære historie. Død er den dog ikke, selv om flere har protesteret imod dens mangel på logik. Så vidt jeg ved, er der ingen eksempler på denne skik på dansk grund, men den lever mærkeligt nok stadig i England, selv om der dog er sat spørgsmålstegn ved den i nyere tid. Gad vide, om man nogen sinde finder ud af, hvad den gik ud på, hvor den opstod og især dens sandhedsværdi. Det sidste tvivler jeg på, at man vil se bevist, meeen ....
sewing in children in their winter clothes.
“However, in some North country villages, washing the children in the winter months was unheard of because they were sewn into their clothes from autumn until spring:”
"They used to sew their children in during the autumn. They had a sewing-in day. They sewed them into their clothes and left them there till spring. They were sewn in for warmth. They thought they would die of cold otherwise. With only enough freedom left to answer the calls of nature, the sewn-up children soon smelt very distinctive:
"They were filthy. That was nothing in those days. You had to be quite strong minded to go into the houses because they rather smelt, although they were so clean on the outside, they scrubbed their steps and whitened the edges."
“Its probably fair to conclude that only the fittest survived a country babyhood, and consequently most grew into strong children able to tolerate the usual childhood complaints of measles and chicken pox. Children were regularly dosed with cod liver oil, Virol, brimstone and treacle, and malt. There was goose grease for a bad chest, Easterledge pudding in spring to clear the blood and dozens of old remedies for every ailment. Just occasionally, a small town would suffer the tragic consequences of something like a polio outbreak:”
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