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10. A mother wrapped her baby's legs tightly in a long roller
towel to make them grow straight. " If you start young, they
will grow quite straight and handsome ; if you leave the legs loose,
they will grow sideways and knock-kneed."
When the towel was unwound the baby's legs were blue, cold
and very much pinched and warped.
11. An Italian baby had bronchitis. It was placed " for
warmth " between two feather beds.
12. The mother had twins. One died. The other wasted and
got rapidly worse until the mother, on a suggestion of a neighbour,
put a large doll in bed with it. From this time the mother
averred that it immediately began to improve. " Dolls often cures
babies, specially when doctors have no hopes and gives them up.
It's a sort of 'fluence or something like that, I think,"
The father was out of work. He had been " smashed up at
a beano."
13. The father was a casual hand at a butchers and earned.
lis. weekly. The baby had bronchitis. The family occupied one
room only. The mother had completely undressed the child and
was washing it in a room without any fire. There was no coal,
coke, or firewood in the house.
The Mothers.— In the poorer parts of the borough the
mother is sometimes the chief or even the only support of the
family. She does her household work, and, as soon as possible
after her confinement, resumes her usual occupation as a bookfolder,
laundry hand, charwoman, office cleaner, ironer, machinist,
or making cardboard boxes or artificial flowers.
Some are homeworkers and endeavour to continue the work
even when lying-in.
In one house, the mother grieving at her husband's unemployment
and at the gradual pawning of the household goods,
obtained work as a machinist.