Regular readers of this blog (both of you) know that I’ve devoted a few posts to public awareness campaigns, particularly related to accident prevention. You can imagine my delight then at coming across The Book of Accidents, Designed for Young Children, an indispensable guide from 1831. A sample warning:

Little children who can just reach to the top of a table, often endeavor to drink from the spout of a tea-pot; and in consequence scold their mouths and throats, and die miserable deaths in a few hours.

And in a later passage that could serve equally well as a warning against run-on sentences:

The little girl was playing about at the head of the stairs, and though frequently cautioned by her mother of the danger and carelessness of so doing, yet she heedlessly neglected the charge, and the consequence was, that one of her feet slipped off the first step, and down she came headlong, crying and bawling in the most dreadful manner, and alarming all the inmates of the house.

I wonder if this inspired Gorey’s Gashleycrumb Tinies.

(Via MeFi.)