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32
Whooping Cough 10
Measles 10
Diarrhœal Diseases 5
Enteritis and Diseases of Digestive System 25
Bronchitis and Pneumonia 51
Debility and Marasmus 24
Premature Birth 53
Congenital Malformation, Atelectasis,
and Injury at Birth 12
Meningitis 5
Convulsions 18
Suffocation in bed with parents 5
Syphilis 6
Other causes 34
258
In August, 1912, we prepared ourselves for an increase in
infantile mortality, the more so because for 12 months there
had been strike upon strike and there was much destitution.
Although we did not suffer as badly as the boroughs across the
river, yet we were affected, and the very poor were greatly
distressed by the hard times. Only a generation ago the rich
deserved the epithet of meddlesome. The new rich do not
bother their heads about the poor, and they close their eyes
to the agony along the banks of the Thames. Slumming is no
longer fashionable among the well-to-do, and only the State
cares. It is all very well to say that the starving can fall
back upon the Poor Law, but the fact remains that in
spite of the Poor Law women and children starved during the
strikes in the midst of plenty, and will starve at intervals.
Children have been known to go naked and hungry, and tiny
infants to be fed on flour and water. However we look at it,
we cannot get rid of our responsibility for their suffering, and
when an industrial war takes place, it is the duty of every man
and every woman to see that the helpless do not suffer, whatever