EPIDEMIC WIDOWS

Evening Post, Volume XCVIII, Issue 137, 8 December 1919, Page 8

EPIDEMIC WIDOWS

PROVISION FOR SPECIAL CASES

Referring to allowances to epidemic widows, the Public Health Journal states : "Allowances are not given to widows in cases where the children are placed in homes, the woman herself being in good health and quite able to work. The allowance is given for the purpose of enabling the children to have the mother's care and attention and the home upbringing; the allowance certainly not being given to enable women to get rid of their responsibilities in this •respect. Peculiar situations have, however, sometimes arisen—for example, a case came before the Department of a woman with two children,. aged nine and eleven. The woman goes to work at a local hotel, returning at night. Her two children are at school during the day; and the case, therefore, is entirely different from the case of a woman with infants or very young children who require their mother's care and attention, and could not be left by themselves, if a hard-and-fast rule were adhered to this woman's allowance of £1 5s a week would have to be stopped, which would mean that she would probably bo working for nothing, as she would hardly be receiving more than this amount for the work she was doing. It is presumed that she would undoubtedly prefer to receive the _31 5s a week without having to work, and such a hard-and-fast rule, therefore, would tend to place a premium on laziness. In another case a -woman with three children, aged eleven, nine, and three, was receiving the usual allowance of 10s 6d for each child together with _31 5s for herself. She has, however, now obtained employment as a housemaid at the rate of £1 7s 6d a week. It would be similarly undesirable if the whole of her allowance were stopped. In cases such as this the Minister' has approved of boards being. informed that, though they should not give the full allowance of £1 5s a week, they would be allowed to give an allowance up to 10s 6d a week, each case being specially reviewed after the lapse of, say, twelve months.