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108
Among the evils resulting from unsuitable clothing are
rounded shoulders, hollowed clavicles, deficient air entry to the
lungs and poor thoracic development.
As regards the clothing of older girls, there is a marked
difference in the wards of the district. In some of the schools,
most of the scholars wear gymnasium costume for routine work,
and as this is made on the lines of the costume designed in the
syllabus of Physical Exercises as laid down by the Board of
Education, it is both rational and hygienic in type.
Unfortunately, in the poorer parts of Acton, the old-fashioned
busked corset still holds sway, with its rigid lines and unyielding
form. There seems a deep-rooted conviction that girls' figures
require " support," but it is a great pity that growing bodies
should be encompassed by clothing which prevents elasticity of
movement. It is practically an impossibility to perform drill
or physical exercises efficiently with these unsuitable garments,
and yet this occurs in the very schools where drill is most essential
to overcome the tendency to lateral curvature produced by the
care or carrying of heavy babies while the mother goes out
to work.
There seems to be an increasing tendency to purchase readymade
clothing at the shops, and the value of timely repairs to
save underclothing is not understood. Garments are either held
together with a multitude of pins—not of the safety type—or
in some instances the children are sewn into their clothes, which
are not removed until the weekly bath comes round. (In cases
like this it is not difficult to understand the occurrence of " missed "
cases of scarlet fever, where the disease is of a mild tvpe and
the rash has faded before the ablutions of Saturday night.)
During medical inspection, it is not infrequent to find quite
new garments, obviously bought to do honour to the occasion,
or to save further enquiry if the bodies of the children had many.
fleabites. On one examination, a child was seen in rather ragged
clothing surmounted by a collar of real lace, of whose value the