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Infant Welfare.
21
lantern lectures and baby show. The exhibition was lent by the
Women's Imperial Health Association, and we were helped by the
Women's Co-operative Guild and several ladies in the district.
The Price of Food.—The following report was submitted
by the Health Visitor:—
" On making inquiries of the mothers with regard to milk and
increased price, and whether the children are having less milk or
milk puddings, I find it is not the price of milk that the mothers
feel only, but everything else. The very poor never have bought
much milk, using chiefly the condensed milk. They have only had
a half-pennyworth or a pennyworth at a time, so that they have
not felt the increased price of 2d. per quart. The better class of
people still get the same quantity as before, not feeling the extra
price of milk so much as sugar, bread, and potatoes, and coal for
cooking purposes. The poor people are feeling the price of bread
and sugar, and it has been very difficult to get any facts about anything
else, that being the main thought in their minds. I do think
that something out to be done about sugar, that is food that
children require more than adults, and the grocers have not much
sugar to sell, so of course sell to their best and regular customers,
and the poor have to go without. The same with the meat; one
mother told me she had not had a bit of meat for weeks. The
cheap bits of trimmings they used to be able to buy cheaply can
no longer be got, as the butchers do not trim the joints, and in that
respect, as well as with sugar, the poor have to go without, as they
cannot afford the full price of meat. Also the better class are
buying the cheaper joints and bones, and the poor have no chance
at all. Milk puddings are not made much now, not because of the
milk, but the sugar. Puddings require an amount of sugar that
cannot be spared out of the small amount of sugar they can get.
Milk puddings take rather a long time cooking, which means gas or
coal being burned a long time. At one house 1 was in this last
week they were living in a small back room because the fire grate
took less coal than the kitchen range, and a pan of potatoes was
cooking on the fire, which was the family dinner."