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that the first touch is given towards the manufacture of a degenerate,
unemployable, and pauper class which in its own turn saps the vitality
of the next generation.
Extreme poverty, mental and physical infirmity, drink and
immorality are well-nigh insuperable barriers in the way of improvement.
Yet even here much can be done to educate and to humanize.
The interest and sympathy of the visitor are in themselves an
encouragement to the mother to do well and some small sacrifice
or effort urged on the mother by the visitor for the benefit of her
child may, if met with success, mark the beginning of a new era in
the home. Among the better-class mothers ignorance and stupidity
are the great difficulties to contend with. The problem for the visitor
is again one of education, difficult—yet not so difficult as in the former,
and it is in this class that the larger number of marked improvements
are noted.

The Council have appointed Miss Margaret Horn, the Honorary
Secretary of the Health Society, as their official Health Visitor in
connection with the Notification of Births Act. About 11,000 visits
were paid in connection with infant-life in Westminster in 1908.
Dinners for Nursing Mothers.—Through private benevolence, a
scheme has been inaugurated whereby expectant or nursing mothers
may obtain a good meal daily for 2 months before and 9 months after
confinement on payment of one penny. Only women in real want are
supplied, and the dinners must be consumed on the premises.
A fund has also been provided at the Westminster Hospital, by
Lady Campbell Clarke, to provide food for necessitous persons
attending the out-patient department, under the direction of the staff.
The meals are to be given in the hospital itself, but certain provision
is made which will enable such things as milk to be taken away for the
benefit of such children who may require it.
Infant consultations have been continued during the year with
good results.