STORIES OF THE POOR.

Otago Witness, Issue 2812, 5 February 1908, Page 71

STORIES OF THE POOR.

m j SOME OF THE CAUSES OF INFANT MORTALITY. By M. Loane, author of "Love Stories of the Poor," etc. When the general public is worked up to a momentary interest in the fact that fifty thousand infants of less than a. year old have died in one town within 10 years, they seem to form the impression that this implies the of fifty thousand mothers ignorant, careless, cruel, or .hopelessly poor,. They are. under a delusion something resembling that which made a lady-say to-an elderly widow, "Two thousand drawees ! That implies four thousand whole families -feinted aid disgraced, perhaps 60 or 70 members in each, besides the two thousand homes utterly broken up." "My dear," she replied, "you cannot calculate it in that way. Divorce and and separation and all that kind of thing run in families like gout or* consumption. A single family in a single generation may supply a dozen instances." A. ROLL OF DEATH. In district work I have rarely been in a house half an hour before I have been told how many children the mother has, the number she has lost, if any, their age at death, and the immediate cause. Over and over again I find families of all sizes from two to three up to 14 or 15 unbroken by the death of any child under the age of 10. On the other hand, within a very short space of time I oame across a girl of 19 who ihad already lost three infants, young women of 24 and 25 (cousins) who had each done the same, a woman of 28 Who had lost six, an older woman who had lost 11, "only one of them old enough J to say ma," and another who had lost 14 out of 18. Six women had thus already accounted for 30 premature deaths. As several of them were young, and even the eldest openly expressed the desire to have thref* more, "So's I can say I've had 21," while showing complete indifference as to whether they and the miserable remnant of the "18 lived: or died, they will probably at least double this number before their own lives end. In the present outcry with regard to infant mortality it seems also to be taken for granted that the death of every infant might, with a reasonable amount of maternal care, have been prevented, and that its continued life would necessarily have been a joy to itself, a satisfaction to its family, and a benefit to the community. If it dies, all the "blame is thrown upon the mother, and little or no attention is gi- en to either prenatal conditions which cirse the birth of so many infante unfitted to struggle with the ordinary circumstances of life, or to general surroundings over which the mother has practically no control, and which .may nullify her irost anxious and painstaking efforts. A large proportion of the direct attempts to save infant life, are doomed to failure because" the feeble little plants will wither whatever is done for them, or aTe injurious to the state Because they will prolong miserable existences only to die in childhood and early youth, or in the "successful" instances to live just long enough for their progeny to continue the' enormous death rate and to fill workhouse schools and orphan asylums. What we have to do is to improve the general conditions of life, and then healthy babies will be born and hold their own against the normal number of germs without any -scientific tampering with their food. ' | A healthy infant, wherever it makes its appearance, is an extraordinarily tough creature, but, as someone remarked before -bacilli were known to dance by the million on every Jieedle's point, "Babes are fed on milk and praise." Unless the mother is healthy they cannot have the first, and unless all her time is given up to her family they cannot have the latter. In homes where wives are not wage-earners the children ore all born longs and queens, and reign absolutely until deposed by their successor,' and even then they still reign over some aunt or grandmother. A STRANGE CONTRAST. j /he working-class mother is too com- i monly addressed, as if infant-rearing were as simple and certain a matter as the j addition of two and two. Cnaeo often' occur when she may be excused for believing that it is a much more complicated problem that she is called on to work out, and that some of the factors are not only unknown to her, but are extremely obscure to scientists. Just eighteen months ago a boy and a- girl were born during the same spell of bitter frinfcry - weather, in cottages side by side, each with the same wretched, jSreless bedrooms. . Each was the eighth child of a woman over 40 years of age, and was Teceived by the same midwife. The boyls motherwas drunk many times during the months preceding bis birth, and had several furious quarrels with her husband, .a heavy drinker (not a drunkard), a very violent man. He had knocked uer down at least ' three times, and once at midnight, armed with a knife, had chased her round the , backyard threatening to kill her. The-H house and everything connected with it ! was indescribably dirty. The woman was drunk when the child was born, drunktwo days after his birth, and working about the house a week later. When the i boy Was a. few months old ehe waa often sg stupid with dxiak ihat^ as £ac neigh- j

* bours expressed it, /'She don't -know the * poor child's head from his heels" ; one man assured me that he- met her carrying it head downwards, and another, father of a much cherished family, told me, "It made me shiver to see her handle it I took it from her arms, and roared at her to try and bring her to her senses." When the child was vaccinated she was in such a condition that with the doctor's eye still on her she wiped away the vaccine from its arm. Fot some totally inexplicable reason that boy was born healthy, and has remained so", and there is every prospect of his growing up. The girl baby had sober parents of afcind and affectionate disposition, and she was idolised and waited on by the entire family. "If she was a queen," said the neighbours, "they couldn't do more for her." The father even insisted, a most unusual -thing among the poor, that she was to be taken out of doors twice a day, weather permitting, and that she was to go at least a. mite away, "and not I always, w breathing ihe^ air -about the house." JTevertheless, "she was always .ailing, and died four months ago. "MOJHEKHOOD" LESJSONS. " A favourite suggestion, intended to, cope' with the undeniable ignorance of the . lowest class of mother, is to teach, the <»re of babies to all little girls at an age when decent working-class parents ' pride themselves on children's complete ignorance of the physical facts of .life. It may or may not be an <rror of 1 judgment on their part, but we have no right to force such instruction upon their 1 children with what they consider unseemly prematureness than we have to instil rigid dogmatic religion with equal unsuitability to their state of mental development. Such matters are best taught at continuation schools, lectures on nursing, mother's meetings, etc. In private houses if the husband was less ignorant and prejudiced than the wife, I sometimes found it best to bestow instruction upon him, and leave him to see that it was carried out. Men of the upper classes do not in the least realise-how much working men care for their infant -children, and how much they do for them. ,In numberless homes if- the baby jjets a , scratch or a bruise, or meets with any ' j of the almost inevitable ups and downs , of child life, the mother's first exclamation is, "What will her father say when he comes home!" A CAUSE OF MORTALITY With regard- to, needless and avoidable loss. of infant lile, one of the moss fruitful causes is illegitimacy. What the | mental and moral value might have been ! of the enormous number -of nameless unildren who perish from neglect, poverty, ignorance, or wilful cruelty, no one could presume to say, but a very large proportion, of them are the children of young and vigorous people, and as a class they are born healthy and with physical powers rather above than below the average. The usual poverty of the mother and the practical impossibility of at once earning a living for a child and taking care <w it day and night, accounts for many deaths, Ignorance for many more, but lack of affection probably causes most of alLj Maternal love is largely supported by maternal pride and by all the props of fpmily life, and can rarely stand w-ithout them. Except in sentimental fiction^ the • unmarried mother seldom pays her child all the compensating tenderness that she ' owes to it, and the father's duties are, > as a rule, entirely evaded. -Even^if marriage .subsequently takes place between the parents, I believe it would be founds on examination that the death rate among these eldest children and the physical con-* dition of the survivors would not bear comparison with that of the children born subsequently. As an experienced Londoner briefly expressed the matter, "Talk o' stepmothers^ why they aren't in it with women who've got a child born be- , fore marriage and a child born after. If the first one lives, and most often it don't, it's just a slave to the others." -Anything that tends to the reduction of illegitimacy, whether improved general education, the efficient protection of weakminded girls, higher wages of women, or earlier marriage of men must also tend to the reduction of infant mortality. THE MOTHER JN THE FACTORY. The paid labour of married womenj more especially of factory workers, leads-inevit-ably to, great loss of infant life. The mother who has nothing to do but look afteT her home and her children does not invariably do it, but the factory hand cannot, even if she destroys 1 her own health in the ceaseless straggle to accomplish duties not only excessive but incompatible. How can she possibly pay for j aa good attendance for her children as she could give them herself if she remained at home, and if she cannot do this what profit is there in her work? There are fundamental abjections to creches as to" every means of palliating and therefore encouraging evils that ought not- to exist, but I will "simply mention an obvious and practical one that ought ' to appeal to every mother. In order to benefit by a creche, infants have to be carried through the streets at times fixed by the mother's working hours, and en- 1 ■ tirery regardless of weather or the season ' of the" year. If the child is left at home the probability is that it k under the t charge of some person either young and ignorant or old and feeble, or why should • they accept the work and the rate of payment? Home industries are injurious to '. child life, and not always in a less degree < than factory work, for not only are the mother's time and- attention taken up ' by the work, but the aic, light, and space of the home are quite inadequate. Moreover, the mother probably toils much longer hours for much smaller pay than if she .were under factory regulations,, thus injuring her health far more, and affectr ing that of her children, bom or unborn. BAD HOUSES. Bad housing causes incalculable loss of infant and cMW life, Rerhapa almost as

much as over-crowding, but as the two so frequently co-exist one cannot well distinguish between the evils caused by each. Over-crowding is more easily lealt with by legislation than bad housing, and it would often be necessary to visit a house a doz«fl times at different seasons of the year, before grasping its full possibilities of injuring' health, especially the health of ahildren too young to attend school or to be much out of doors.

But when all allowances lave been mads for the complications of the problem j>f child rearing, and foi circumstances oven which the women of the working classes cannot be said to have' much control, th 4 fact remains that a very considerable num*ber of women lose healthy and promising children owing either to their own apathy, fatalism, Ctrl pa bk ignorance, credulity, or sheer laziness. The only remedies to be suggested are betteT genera.! education and more, detailed moral training, especially) the inculcation of a sense of responsibility, an improved public opinion which would! make parents infinitely more ashamed to own that they bad lost their children than ■ that none had been given them, and in* I creased --efforts, in all directions and among ■ all classes-,* to teach women and girls above the age of 14 or: 15 the care needed by; infants and young children. This is con< sidered an age of instruction, but it seem* to met thatf we are losing very much bj{ the fact that all but professional fceacheraf appear to be afraid to open their mouthe f even after 20 years' practical acquaint* ance with a,, subject, and ~ too much in* clined to believe that everyone in th«| ; present generation knows all that pertains | to their own and their childpen's bodilyj I salvation, and that if they do not da what they ought to do it is because they} ,have knowingly rejected the ways of wisdom. Every successful mother of children ought to be a teacher to ber acquaintances, whatever position in life theyi /nay hold. Ignorance of maternal duties is by no means confined to the poorest persons. Theße are'soine sorapß of the conversation between two well-dressed women! of the lower middle class, overheard in a( railway carriage a few weeks since. One* had a child of six' months of age with' ; 'her, to whom she gave as much milk in, one hour as it ought to have had in eight*, while the other ceaselessly stuffed a little girl of three* "She don't .eat mnch as ai« rule, but she's ate lovely all the way downi from London" (four hours' journey). "I'va lost three," cheerfully. "I've lost five," -boastfully, , "and this one has been laidl out' twice foT dead. TIL tell "you how 1| f lured her. I always give it to her if she'j( "a bit run down. Snails' crushed In thei< shells and s^uose through muslin mtH brown sugar. There's nothing like it. My mother always says she couldn't have saved pie and my brother without it. Shft lo3j> nine."