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1. Baby 5¼ months, breast-fed and healthy.
2. Baby 4 months, partially weaned at 10 days, wholly at 3 weeks.
3. Baby breast-fed first month, mixed-fed to third month, entirely bottle
after.
4. Baby 5½ months, breast-fed first month, mother returned to work, mixed-
fed since.
5. Babv died of Enteritis in Workhouse three weeks old.
6. Family gone awav. Father a "seafaring man."
7. Emergency case. Twins. Family not destitute.
With such unpromising material, the best method of procedure has been
found to treat these mothers, in the first place, as if they were part of the
ordinary population, by sending them Advice Cards in the usual manner
immediately after the notification of birth, and on their discharge from the
institutions visiting them and advising them or persuading them to attend the
School for Mothers. The majority of these cases being illegitimate, the infants
lire weaned from their mothers, and the mothers escape attention by removal.
THE CHILDREN ACT, 1908.
It is much to be regretted that the Metropolitan Borough Councils have no
power under the Children Act, 1908, Part I., Infant Life Protection, Sections
1 to 11 inclusive, and Part II., Prevention of Cruelty to Children, Section 12.
The last mentioned section would be much more valuable in the hands of the
Borough Councils than in those of the County Council and Boards of Guardians,
not for the purpose of prosecution so much as for the purpose of bringing
sufficient pressure to bear upon the parents to make them stir themselves to
procure necessaries for their children. Section 12 enacts that a parent who
fails to provide medical aid, food, clothing, or lodging for a child under 16
years of age, or being unable to provide such medical aid, food, clothing or
lodging, fails to procure the same under the Acts relating to the relief of the
poor, is liable to a fine of £25, and, in addition, to imprisonment with or
without hard labour for six months. This legislation intended to impress
parental responsiblity upon the neglectful is unknown to those who most require
its stimulus. There are many others besides the parents of illegitimate children
who would be benefited and benefit their children if they could be galvanised
into realising and shouldering their responsibilities.
HOME OFFICE INQUIRY, 1908 & 1909.
Results as regards the Feeding of Infants.
In last year's Annual Report the results of the complete inquiry for the
Hume Office into births and occupations in a selected area were fully set out.
From those results the modes of feeding the infants have been extracted and
arranged in the table appended hereto. It will be observed that of the
infants born during the year 1908 in Somers Town, that is Ward VI. (SubDivisions
4 and 5 of East St. Pancras), no less than 61.4 per cent. were entirely
breast-fed for over six months, that 68.9 per cent., or close upon 70 per cent.,
were entirely breast-fed for over 3 months, that only 6.5 per cent. were handfed
from birth, and that only 12.3 per cent. were hand-fed before the second