{nstead of whispering this bit of scandal into the ears of al] my nearest and dearest and charging them strictly not to say a word about it, the which I have always found to be an excellent manner of disseminating useless information, I have asked my accommodating friend, Mrs. Pepys, to let me have my say in her colurens in order that my remarks may reach the offending parent or parents at whom they are aimed. I am alnwst discouraged before I begin, for such: parents, I realize, would hardly take the requisite interest in the Home to read this department, and indeed probably do not regularly peruse this paper. They could hardly be "constant readers" and still guilty of the heinous crime attributed to them, Were the guilty wretch or wretches known to me I should certainly face them with the charge direct, but as happily I ave no such persons on my list of acquaintances one has to fling the accusation out into empty space and let him whose head fits the cap wear it. Even now I hesitate to bring the complaint forward lest the original remark should have been made simply to put the burden of responsility one step further on, 'Still, lest there be in all Shanghai one parent so remiss as to deserve this stern stricture it shall be' spoken.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.