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4
years; and the remaining ninth, of persons advanced
in life.
So again, looking at the amount of infant mortality
this quarter, we see that against the 528 births, 112
infants have died, that is nearly one child in four. Out of
this wholesale infant destruction, 48 deaths are due to
diarrhoea; 35 to scrofula, convulsions, debility, atrophy,
and premature birth; 11 to want of breast milk. When
we add that one babe was suffocated in bed with its
parents in Swan Passage, another found strangled in
Hyde Park, and another in Bolton Yard, we leave only
about a dozen infants' deaths to be accounted for. It
must be said, moreover, that besides 11 infants, whose
deaths are directly attributed to want of breast milk,
there are 30 others in the Belgrave sub-district alone,
who died of diarrhoea, atrophy, and the like, and who are
reported as having been dry-nursed.
Looking at the affair in a practical light, we see in
the first place that some infants die, because their mothers,
when they took upon themselves the responsibility of
giving existence to an infant, did not secure for it the
necessary protection of a married home. They perhaps
take situations as wet-nurses, the babes are put out to
nurse, or put out of the way. Hence, increase of morality
will prevent the deaths of some children.
In the next place, we are met with the fact, that in all
ranks of life, many women are too feeble to be good
mothers. Hence, the offspring is feeble too, and if it does
not die outright, the mothers are unable to nourish it
naturally. Then comes a struggle; for the rearing a
feeble child by hand is more laborious, more trying to
temper, requiring more watchfulness, and more skill, and
good-will to the task, than any other human occupation.