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116
Weighing day at the depot should be open to breast-fed
infants that they may be used for purposes of comparison.
(A large number of breast-fed infants are brought to the
Woolwich Depot for weighing).
Roughly about 60 per cent. of depot-fed infants may be
classed as normally healthy."
Use of School Playgrounds.
56. In former years I have reported as to the great
importance of there being good provision for the playing of
games by children. This want is partly met by the school
playgrounds, but, as is shown in previous reports, these playgrounds
are not used to anything like the extent which is
desirable.
In March, 1909, a letter was received from the St. Pancras
Borough Council, calling attention to this fact and asking the
Woolwich Borough Council to support St. Pancras in a recommendation
to the London County Council as to the exhibition
of notice boards showing when the playgrounds were opened.
I recommended that the Council should also be asked to arrange
for the opening of more playgrounds on Saturday and Sunday.
Healthy children must play and those who can not use playgrounds
will probably play in the street and so interfere with
traffic and run the risk of being fatally injured. The London
County Council replied that notice-boards were already in
existence and that they were considering the opening of
additional playgrounds on Saturday and Sunday in this Borough.
Unfortunately, though notice-boards exist, they are not as
prominent as is desirable, and the use of playgrounds does not
seem to be encouraged by those in charge of them. No doubt
one need is for the organisation of games. If there are no
properly organised amusements children are liable to get into