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100
Two of the consumptives notified were in the families of home-workers.
As in previous years, I have continued to take an interest in the dirty and
neglected children of the district Poverty and ignorance, more frequently
than deliberate neglect, account for the condition of these children, and
encouragement and teaching, together with a sympithetic interest in the
family as a whole, seem more adapted than do punitive measures to give results
of permanent value for the life of the children.
The greater part of the year has been given to work arising from the
voluntarily notified cases of consumption. On this subject I submit to you a
separate report.
The question of home work has a special interest at this moment in view of
the movement for the regulation of the wages of home-workers. This movement,
whatever view may be taken of the desirability of the proposed measures,
is a welcome recognition of the fact that the deplorable condition of many
home-workers is rather the result of economic causes than of any special
laxity of sanitary administration.
In this district we have very little of the worst class of home work, and
there is rarely any occasion to interfere with the home-workers' conditions.
In so far as they are undesirable, they are neither more nor less so than those
of other persons of the same earning capacity. The home-workers themselves
in our district are an industrious and deserving class. Some work at home
because they are not young enough or not strong enough for factory conditions.
Others work at home so as to supervise their families, and at the same time to
earn some contribution to the support of parents or children. Others again
work so as to keep in touch with the industrial world, and to keep their
deftness of touch and general skill unimpaired. In the uncertainty of men's
employment precaution of this kind on the part of married women out-workers
is not without justification. Possibly these workers, who are not entirely
dependent on their earnings from outwork may tend to bring down wages and
so to injure those who work for their livelihood, but occasionally their partial
independence enables them to refuse unfair terms, probably with good effect.
The usual clerical work accompanying the work of inspection, including
notices, notifications, reports, registers, etc., etc., has been done.
I am, Sir,
Your obedient Servant,
M. E. Bibby,
Sanitary Inspector of Workshops (Women).