View report page

40
Maker, Cobbler, Commercial Traveller, Copper Smith, Electric
Light Wiring Hand, Engineer, Enameller, Electroplater, Fireman,
Fitter, Fish Frier, Hat Maker, Hair Dresser, Iron Trimmer,
Jam Maker, Jewel Case Maker, Lamp Cleaner, Lamplighter,
Machine Hand, Machine Ruler, Motor Fitter, Portmanteau
Maker, Postman, Plate Cleaner, Sadler, Sailor, Shunter, Skin
Dyer, Shutter Fixer, Silver Refiner, Sculptor, Solderer, Tailors'
Cutter, Teacher, Telephone Fixer, Typefounder, Thermometer
Maker, Watchman, Watchmaker, Washer, Window Blind Maker,
Wigmaker (1 each).
Ten per cent, of the parents had been out of work for some
considerable time, 16 per cent, were in casual employment,
"doing odd jobs." Many of those who are in regular employment
have perforce to live in a hand to mouth manner. Their
wages are small, and their rents are, from a wages standpoint,
comparatively high. And in Finsbury the economic and labour
problem is at bed rock bottom the most serious difficulty in
connection with the saving of infant lives.
The prevention of infantile mortality is, in Finsbury, the
vention or alleviation of poverty.
The key to the situation lies in the hands of the mother. If
the mother has to work to support the family, or to supplement
the earnings of an idle, dissolute husband, the baby is robbed of
its natural sustenance, and is left daily in charge, it may be, of a
careless, reckless and dirty nurse; its nutrition suffers, it wastes,
it becomes ill and dies.
And it should be obvious that a sanitary survey of the premises
will not procure breast feeds for the infants; an increased number
of visits will not constrain the husband to work or relieve the
mother of the unequal task of maintaining the household. The
remedies are not tempered to the disease. The founding of
dinner centres would, however, allow the mother to continue to
breast feed her baby for a longer period, and thus give it a
firmer start; the establishment of creches, would enable the child
to be cleanly fed, and well supervised when the time came for
the mother to resume her employment.