3-074-581 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Sea Urchins, 1883. 'Ready for a day's Enjoyment; A first Venture; Gives dolly a ducking; Makes Acquaintances; Friendly Splashes; Comes to grief; A hero to the Rescue; Finale; Consolation...to the little children, who delight both in water and in sand,...those long sunny days on the shore were a time of frolic and pleasure. They went forth after breakfast, armed with small wooden spades and buckets...It has often suggested itself to an observer of these "sea-urchins" at their play, that...a cartload of clean sand would be an easy, cheap, and desirable addition, perhaps not less agreeable to the children than a grass-plot, and probably more likely to be dry...As for sea-bathing, it is too rough and alarming for most little ones...Wading, however,...is a good healthy practice, and helps to give them courage, as it makes them familiar with the noisy onward rush of the waves. A variety of comical little adventures, in ankle-deep or knee-deep water, with splashing and ducking, though forbidden, will be observed among the Sketches of our seaside Artist. There is a juvenile couple, brother and sister, whose fun has been stopped by order of the parental authority, but who get "Consolation" in an extra plate of stewed raspberry and currant'. From "Illustrated London News", 1883.