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Only those who have actually visited the cases and tilled in the Home Office
Inquiry Forms can fully appreciate the difficulties involved in filling in the
Working Sheets and Summary Tables.
The personal equation plays an important part, not only of the personality
of the visitor, but also that of the mother visited. Midwives, Health Visitors
and C.O.S. Workers look at things from different points of view and with
different eyes; while as to the mothers, some could give exact and definite
information, others were somewhat inconclusive, while with others it was
felt that what they said was not necessarily true at all. (See also pp. 74
and 75 of the Proceedings of the Infant Mortality Congress, 1908 )
Re Industrial Employment of Mothers.—On the original Inquiry Forms this
was sub-divided into industrial employment before present pregnancy, during
present pregnancy, and after birth; whereas on the Working Sheets and
Summary Tables " industrially employed " had no definite period-signification.
The Working Sheets and Summary Tables have often therefore been
sub-divided into (a) During this pregnancy and (b) After birth; but the two
main divisions into which all the cases were grouped were :—
(1) Mothers never "industrially employed" at all, either during
pregnancy or after birth.
(2) Mothers " industrially employed" for any time whatsoever, either
during pregnancy or after birth or both.
By " industrially employed " we have understood any sort of employment
at ail, that is for gain, whether at home, or in factory, or workshop, or elsewhere.
Hut it must be remembered, that the majority of these St. Pancras
mothers have irregular and uncertain employment, such as odd days charing,
washing, cleaning : also that the period of employment varies very considerably,
sometimes for a part of a week only, sometimes for a whole week. When the
father is " out of work " the mother will get work, but when the father is " in
work" the mother will stay at home. (Moral- Regular work and good
wages for the father should be the aim of those people who wish mothers to
stay at home and tend the baby.)
From the Summary Table I. (of " cases under inquiry ") it is seen that out
of 414 cases of infants the mother was not "industrially employed" at all in
300 cases; and " industrially employed," and this only to a very varying
extent, in only 114 cases; therefore St. Pancras may be regarded as useful
in the widespread Home Office Inquiry, at least as a control and comparison.