View report page

12
6. Mortuary and Laboratory Attendant.
7. Caretaker of Smallpox Hospital and Disinfecting Station.
Posts 6 and 7 are temporarily in charge of J. Madle, whose own work as
disinfector and transport officer is temporarily being done by C. Adams.
BELGIAN REFUGEES.
At the old Strand School (Milltield House) are mainly men, and those
men who have been found to rt quire strict discipline; whilst the men with
families are mainly at the old Strand Workhouse near by. Here, Dr. Beels
(late of Antwerp) lives, and he also acts as medical officer for both institutions,
whilst Mr. S. Pallin is their lay superintendent.
The average daily number of refugees and resident staff for 1915 is taken
as 690, but the real numbers of the former are subject to fluctuation.
The Local Government Board has directed me to include the refugees
amongst the resident population, so that the vital statistics of this report have
been made out in two forms, i.e., with or without the Belgians, in order to
allow the statistics of 1915 to be comparable with past and future years. In
the past the poor people in the buildings of the Strand Guardians have been
regarded as " foreigners " from a statistical point of view.
The men are working every day up to 2.30 p.m., at tailoring, wood-chopping,
shoe repairs, carpentering, gardening, etc.; the women at the workhouse and
the men at the school house as cleaners and in the laundry. Rooms for reading
and recreation are at their disposal.
The children are supervised by a resident Roman Catholic priest; nuns
and voluntary workers come daily to teach. The women sew and knit, not
only for themselves and families, but for their compatriots in the trenches who
are fighting the modern Huns of Germany.
Through Tottenham Labour Exchange the men obtain work outside and
are absorbed into the general population, and so become real "Edmonton
residents." Some couples have opened shops and restaurants in the neighbourhood.
Perhaps horse flesh will become a regular article of diet in their homes
and cafes, as in Belgium. Some young women and girls have taken up
domestic service.
As regards infectious diseases.—Thirty-two cases were notified:
20 scarlet fever, 4 diphtheria, 4 enteric and 4 erysipelas. A child,
four years old, died of measles in the North-Eastern Hospital of the
Metropolitan Asylums Board, and its death was recorded in the list of outside