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100
parents are of the agricultural type, and who have drifted into
town in search of higher wages. These children may be reared
in poverty, but for one generation the effects of town life are
not sufficiently marked to lower their physique. As contrasted
with these, in the other schools the children are often derived
from homes where the parents come from generations of town
dwellers, where small incomes do not permit of a sufficient holiday
in the summer, and where there are no relatives living in the
country to whom the children can be sent for a change of air.
These children are intelligent, but their height and weight are
smaller than those of the country type, and they seem specially
prone to glandular overgrowth, enlarged tonsils or adenoids, which
retard their later development.
In former reports we have laid stress on the factors of
improper and unsuitable feeding as a cause of malnutrition, and
under the economic conditions of the district it is hard to find
a remedy for this. As so many of the women are engaged in
laundry work, they have no time to prepare a proper meal in
the middle of the day, and often the mothers do not return
home until evening. On questioning the children, we find they
are given slices of bread and butter for a mid-day meal, or we
are told, " We hots something up for ourselves"—an answer
given by a diminutive member of a large family.
An alternative to this is that the children are given coppers
to buy food, and then the diet selected is more remarkable than
nutritious, and the habit thus formed of passing over plain, wholesome
food clings to the children through later life.
On enquiry in the poorer parts of Acton, it is found that
the principal meal of the day is supper, held at varying hours,
but usually far too late for children. This is unsuitable from
many hygienic reasons. The children eat a heavy meal before
bed-time, which leads to indigestion, disordered sleep and night
terrors; their sleep is often taken in rooms heavy with the smell
of cooking and ill ventilated (for the gospel of the window open at
night as well as day is not yet sufficiently preached), and with