2-798-777 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Spanish nurses, 1845. '...the best characteristics will be found in the two groups of wet-nurses, of whom there are hundreds in the Prado promenade. " Fat wet-nurses," says a recent tourist, "from the mountains of Santander, with showy handkerchiefs tied about their heads, tight cloth jackets, and gorgeous laced petticoats, frequent this place with their squalling charges; not to mention the juvenile gambols of a crowd of little angels of both sexes." There is something peculiarly aboriginal in the mode of carrying the child, swung in a sort of fringed cot at the back; it reminds one of the North American Indian custom. This sisterhood of nurses are said to be fast disappearing'. From "Illustrated London News", 1845, Vol VII.