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23
The family lived in one room in the house of the mother's parents
The grandmother had had 24 children, of whom 18 had died, so
that she considered that she had had " plenty of experience and
could give her daughter plenty of good advice about the children's
food and things of that sort."
Care and Condition of Baby.—Many of the babies when
first seen were wasting, improperly or irregularly fed, insufficiently,
improperly or too tightly clothed, or occasionally suffered from
exposure or neglect.
Very few slept throughout in a separate cot, nearly all slept
with their parents at night, even though they slept elsewhere
during the day time. Much ingenuity is exercised in arranging
for the baby's sleep in the daytime, cheap cots are fashioned out
of banana crates, orange boxes, galvanised baths or washing
coppers padded and lined, clothes baskets, empty compartments
of chests of drawers, upturned lids of sanitary dustbins or washing
coppers, or discarded old-time perambulators.
Some babies were premature and delicate. Others were dirty,
flea-savaged and bug-harried.
It is a curious commentary upon the social conditions of the
borough that some of the filthiest babies may be found in the
relatively better placed families in mean streets, while some of
the cleanest and bonniest babies may be seen in poverty-stricken
tenements and in families who " don't know where the next penny
is to come from."
Some of the babies were ill, suffering from measles, bronchitis,
pneumonia, diarrhoea, thrush, sore eyes, sore navels, sore buttocks,
rupture, harelip.
Many of the infants are left during the mother's absence in the
care of quite young girls, from 10 to 16 years. So many instances
of these immature, careless and ill-tutored nurses are discovered
that it is well now to realise the significance of the fact and to
devise means to deal with the evil which is a growing one. It is