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69
work was casual or irregular, because the husband was ill,
crippled, or paralysed, or because the husband was out of work.
Eight per cent. of the tenements had dirty walls, dirty bedding,
and dirty kitchen utensils. In 23 per cent. of the whole number
the families lived and slept each family in one room. In 45 per
cent. the tenements contained two rooms. Fourteen per cent. of
the tenements were overcrowded. In 62 per cent. the occupants
slept in a bed or floor-bed in the kitchen. This use of the kitchen
for sleeping purposes may be taken as an index of crowding.
Thirty-two per cent. of the households showed marked evidence
of poverty. Ten per cent. of the tenements had no cupboards.
Twenty-six per cent. had only one cupboard. In these homes it
is usual to find the women's hats, clothes, or soap kept in the top
compartment; the bread, margarine, sugar and tea-dust in the
second; and the wood and coke in the lowest compartment. There
were many difficulties of home nursing. The mother was a wageearner,
had to go to work, and delegated the treatment to a neighbour
or to a careless young girl. The mother had many other
young children to look after, and was unable to give proper attentipn
to the ailing infant. The mother herself was an epileptic, a
cripple, or suffering from illness. The husband worked by night
and slept by day, so that the mother attended to the baby only
when it cried, so as not to disturb the father's sleep. The mother
had excessive homework, had lodgers to care for, and was therefore
unable to devote much time to her child. In the one-roomed
tenements, there "was hardly space to turn round." Many of the
rooms were crowded. The household utensils were dirty and unlit
to be used for nursing purposes. Many of the tenements were
in dark basements. In the poor homes the baby had no separate
cot, there was no hot-water bottle, or even a hot flat iron to be
used as its substitute.
What more may be done —The following suggestions are
advanced:—
1. The establishment of maternity and child-welfare centres in
various parts of the borough, for the purposes indicated in np
earlier part of this report.
2. The founding of crèches.
3. The institution of dinner centres for nursing mothers.