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ailments. The boots and shoes are certainly cheap, but useless
as proper coverings for the feet.
Even leather shavings and cardboard—the so-called
leather board, are sometimes used in making boots and
shoes.
9.—The Wastage of Human Life.
A feature of the Congress was the popular lecture dealing
with "The Wastage of Human Life"—in the course of
which lecture the great value of Municipal Milk Depots,
both actually and as object-lessons, was extolled. Infantile
mortality was a disgrace to civilisation, and the chief cause
of such mortality was the improper feeding and rearing of
infants and children, due to the lamentable ignorance of
present-day mothers and their unwillingness (or inability) to
naturally suckle their offspring. Every child born had the
right to demand by all the laws of God and nature a fair
chance. A series of lantern slides were shewn, illustrating
the different methods of rearing children, and the remarkable
savings of life that had been already accomplished by
the Glasgow Municipal Milk Depot, since its institution
(photographs of infants, before and after being fed with the
Municipal Milk, being thrown upon the screen).
Whilst during 40 years the general death-rate had fallen
30 per cent., the present average infantile mortality rate is
for England and Wales 152 per 1,000 (i.e., out of every
1,000 infants born, 152 die before reaching the age of one
year). The Scotland rate is 127, and the Ireland 104, whilst
Sweden and Norway shew only rates of 99 and 94 respectively.
Of this mortality, 75 to 100 per 1,000 may be taken
as non-preventable, the rest is preventable. The mortality is
much higher in some districts than in others, and in some
parts of a district than in others; the rate may be, at times,
as high as 300 per 1,000. Early information of all births is
needed (compulsory registration within forty-eight hours,
instead of, as at present in England and Wales, six weeks).
Health Exhibition.
There was nothing strikingly new in connection with the
Health Exhibition, but many fittings and appliances and inventions
were set out in such a way as to be interesting