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13
(b) Uncleanliness.—With reference to uncleanliness the really
significant figures are to be found not in Table II on page 46, but
in Table V on page 54.
More children were examined than last year and more children
actually and relatively were found to require treatment.
There is a tendency throughout the country to place the
cleansing of verminous children where in ordinary cases it should
rest, i.e., on the parents—and, as Sir George Newman says in his
report for 1928, there is much to be said for this attitude.
My own opinion is that unless the circumstances are exceptional,
actual cleansing of children by a public authority should only be
done in default, and that whenever carried out a prosecution should
follow—the parents being prosecuted for the child having been off
school. It is to be remembered that the High Court has decided
that absence from school by reason of exclusion for being verminous
is not sufficient excuse and is punishable.
I wish once more to say that there is no hardship whatever in
proceeding with every coercive measure you have to enforce
absolute cleanliness so far as infestation is concerned amongst
boys.
I do not see why every boy with an infested head should
not be excluded forthwith and the parents proceeded against.
This year, as last, I want to make it perfectly clear that the
greater part of the figures submitted to you of dirty people are
children who are constantly dealt with and that, generallv speaking,
the standard of cleanliness in Barking, is commendable.
It is for this reason that the parents of children habitually
infested are a greater nuisance, and I do feel that the mothers of
Barking who are striving to keep their children scrupulously clean
should have every support the Committee can afford them and that