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a lowered vitality and physical weakness which renders them
liable to contact infectious and other microbic diseases. They
have a tendency to develop chronic ailments, such as catarrh,
adenoids, and rheumatism with its sequelae.
In speaking of the homes of the people, one could
not realise before we had a cleansing station how many
homes are or were verminous, but now that we have
notifications of the names and addresses of verminous children,
we are able to follow each case to the home, and by disinfection
get at the root of the filth. Many beds are found in a terrible
state of decay, and others, as Pepys used to write about, "are
comfortable but verminous." So full of vermin are some of
the beds that one can almost imagine the sleeper turning over
and over through the night with that old Nicaraguan saying
upon his lips, " Have patience fleas for the night is long."
Notwithstanding, but rather because of such a state of things,
the visits of our female inspectors in this connection are resented
more than in any other work they do, and frequently to gain
their point in these houses they must possess the patience of
Job and the alpha and omega of their whole creed must be
tactfulness.
Although we find disregard to the most elementary laws
of health amongst the very poor, we find a little higher in the
scale totally the reverse. The mother, trained in the school of
experience and necessity, in houses with a rent from 25 to
35 pounds is practical, and brings up her family to be useful,
industrious members of society. As we get higher in the scale
where servants are kept, it is appalling to think of the number of
anaemic and strumous girls one sees. These girls have never
been practically taught the most elementary laws of hygiene and
housewifery, and very few of them know anything about cooking
Few open their own beds on getting up in the morning, although
it is one of the first things a girl should learn. In fact these
poor neglected girls of the better classes are not even taught