"ALIEN'S" LETTER FROM ENGLAND.

Otago Witness, Issue 3334, 6 February 1918, Page 50

"ALIEN'S" LETTER FROM ENGLAND.

(Specially Written for the Ladies' Page.) November 19. WITH THE CHILDREN. The first mention I have seen of Santa Claus this approaching War-C'hristmastide is in connection \vit/h bombs! A letter in the Daily Mail from the house governor of the London Hospital, Whitechapel that East End district swarming with children of the poor, says : —"The London Hospital has, from its position near the docks and in the East End of London, been more affected by the air raids than perhaps any of the other hospitals in London. It 3 staff, both doctors and nurses, have become almost accustomed and hardened to the experience of having bombs dropped all round* it. It has many times had to provide help for poor East Enders brought to its doors as the result of the Huns' methods of conducting war. At the time of the full moon its basements are crowded with the poor who run for shelter. All these experiences and scenes are familiar to us. There is one less obvious effect of these raids, and that is the effect upon the children. Among the volunteers who have come to help us in these times of stress is Dr Warner, one of the consulting physicans of the hospital, and also one of the bestknown authorities on the child mind. He has, taken up the duty of seeing out-patients daily, and hundreds of children pass through his hands. Thf« show signs of the effect of the raids —lack of sleep, the strain of being brought from their homes night after night to some place of shelter, and taken back at 2 or 3 o'clock in the chilly, morning air; and there is, of course, the actual fright of the gun-fire. The children become sleepless and worn, and their faces become expressionless and set. Laughter and. imagination go. And -the way to bring the child back to the babyland of laughter and play" is to help the imagination and therefore I want some toys very badly—dolls and puzzles and bricks and toy-trains. The children do not "want bromides aAd chloral," said Dr Warner; "they want toys and play. From j the mothers' point of view the closing of ! schools at air-raid time is wrong. Of course : it is useless for the children with their tired little brains to go to school to study, j but they should go to play, to romp with | other children, and to get away from their j dreary .homes. Imagine the tired mother I of five or six children, up haJf the night. ' and next dav, when she might be getting a little rest, Jeft with a family of peevish children to attend to." So comes the plea for toys with which to amuse and distract the attention during those hours of_ cold and misery—often) of hunger and /as well as fear. And never has Santa Claus been importuned in a more pathetic cause. I shall never forget the children as I saw -them in a tube station while an air-raid was in progress, white and wildr eyed with fear. Even when no raid, on moonlight nights the mothers keen' them up to be ready for the "take cover" warning expected every moment. There are no cellars in their own honfes—no space for separate accommodation —their mother's fear is easily seen and reacts upon them; they hear, too, all the talk of the grown-ups, and realise, alas, only too well the full extent of their danger and the frightfulness they fear, for they have seen the destruction of their neighbours' homes. Since the bombing of the schools some of the children have "been so nerve-shattered that they faint awav if a form falls over or if there is any sudden noise. Many of these children of the East End are at all times under-fed and "below par," and physically unfit for the extra strain of

these terrible nights of watching, which take it out of even robust and wellnourished. An occasional night of a raid , anybody but the extremely nervous or weak can experience without much strain perhaps, but the frequently-recurring raids which we have endured during the past two years want nerves of steel, and a constitution to withstand no loss of sleep and other discomforts, the deadliest of which is the chill from a warm bed to a cold cellar. The British climate, especially at this time of year, plays into the hands of the enemy. We all know the power of mind over body to heal or destroy, and men and women of reason and education can find recreation even in thought and memory during the visitations of Huns; and the people who take the precautionary measure of retiring to the cellar while the deathships pass over are by no means "cowering." The "cellar parties" are becoming proverbial, and by-and by we shall be having plays and stories headed, A Night in A Cellar," Five Nights in A Cellar, etc. The problem of the nation's children will be one of England's biggest problems after the war. The war will—with its hideous waste of youth—do more to set the true value on child life than all the years of England's peace and prosperity. An army of Britain's children were allowed to die every year that could have been saved. They must be saved if the nation is to maintain its numerical strength. There are no "unwanted children "—at least unwanted by the nation. All the babies are wanted now. Yet, it is stated, 11 are allowed to die every hour. In 1915 870,000 babies were born in England, and 95,700 . of them died before the year was over, although, according to expert opinion, half of them need not have died. With all the women's war work that is going on there is none more necessary than the work among the children to which a number of women—national mothers —are devoting themselves in various ways. The fight for the vote not being the question for the time being, many are*fighting to save for the nation the babies who would be otherwise neglected or abandoned. Before the war foster-mothers could often be found for unwanted babies; but cottage homes at the seaside and elsewhere are under skilful and responsible women, who pilot' these children through their infancy, but for whom a home will be wanted later on, and for whom a stirring appeal has been lately made under the. heading of "Adopt a Baby." Of the thousands of little ones the war will make fatherless every child that is so saved from hardship' or a public institution will be a victim the less, for no matter how excellent the homes in which children are brought up in the mass, their childhood lacks -the home and individual element. There are many married couples who love children, and who have none of their own, who do not lack the means to provide for .a child, and many childless widows, who, were they to adopt, would mean the difference between hardship and loneliness for a child, and instead__of the dreadful sense of belonging to" nobody and being the responsibility and care vof no one in particular the happiness and sense of security of " belonging." The destitute child is a far more worthy hobby than the destitute dog. Now and in the years following there will be many lonely and desolate homes wanting their son, and many desolate children wanting a home. Who responds to love and kindness like a child? What human interest is so great as to watch the unfolding of the child mind and soul, and the response of its body to care and culture? Adopted children frequently turn out a great success —perhaps because the judgment of the adopted parents is more unbiassed in dealing with a temperament which does not present so many traits of their own character. The faults of our own children are our individual reproach, their attainments our individual pride; the faults and attainments of other children are the faults and endearments of childhood. We love less egotistically, less partially, and we make a better job perhaps of the training. There are many people who are doubtless deterred from adopting a child for fear it might not turn out well. But unless the child be of vicious parents of unusnally marked type, the chances are with the child if well trained and cared for; and it is possible, of course, in most cases to be informed of the general trend of the dispositions of the parents. It is suggested that now, while the wave of interest in child-wel-fare is passing over the country, is the time for some public-spirited person to take the matter up and formulate some workable scheme whereby people wanting to adopt a child could be put into the way of the child to adopt. The State would benefit doubly—first in the welfare of the adopted child, and secondly in that every child thus taken into a private home would leave another place m the overcrowded institutions. These institutions are all badly in need of money. "When one considers the more than double cost of upkeep, and all the vast drain on the resources of the nation and the individual during the war, it says something that such institutions as Dr Barnardo's Homes have been able to keep their heads above water. Many private charities have had of necessity to be discontinued, and the homes are feeling the pinch. It must be gratifying to those who have generously helped this great work of child-rescue not only to know the marvellous percentage of civilian successes it has produced from unpromising foundation, but the fine men and heroes it has sent into the army and navy. ' The Foundling Hospital and other State orphanages have also a fine record of their waifs and strays, i But were these homes for homeless children twice as large and twice as many they could not accommodate all those who need a home. New Zealand is often quoted in this country as an example to England conx corning child-welfare. Lord Plunket, the late Governor, is one of. those greatly

concerned over the waste of child life here. Young children, ho 6ays, are still dying twice as fast as people who are past their prime. Infants are dying five times more quickly than people who have reached 55, and he asks, What are we going to do to stop it? The death rate under the age of 12 months recently reached the appalling figure of 130 per thousand. Improved sanitation and the activity of the health officers have done much to bring down the death-rate of the infants, but still we are faced with these figures, and, with the terrible toll on the battlefield, we cannot afford it. With the idea, says Lord Plunket, of taking an active part in the infant welfare _ 'campaign now being carried on, a provisional committee, of which he is the chairman, has been formed in London, and, as you will know,, Dr Truby King, " the founder and inspirer of the Koyal New Zealand Society for the Health of Women and Children," s*is 5 *is coming over to help—and with his experience his help will mean much. Just outside London, says Lord Plunket, there is being started a babies' hospital on similar lines to Dr Truby King's hospital in New Zealand, where qualified nurses will be able to obtain special training in modern baby welfare, and nursing mothers will be invited to go and learn for themselves, and the experience in New Zealand promises that they will soon do valuable propaganda work themselves. There is also a similar hospital being started in London. Lady Beatty, wife of Admiral Beatty, is doing a "splendid work among the

children of our dead heroes. Her idea is that the State's duty towards these children is " feed them, clothe them, educate them." And she states from her intimate knowledge that the State is doing better by the war widows and orphans than ever before in its history, and also that the mothers of the children, with very few exceptions, are worthy of their trust: the drunkards and the worthless mothers are the exceptions. Lady Beatty's work is specially among the widows and orphans of sailors. She says that long ago she used to say to the Admiral: Speak to the ben, and tell them that if anything happens to them I will look after their wives and children." And the men when they went home on leave used to do so, and in hundreds of cases the wives have sought her aid. The Jutland Fund supplements the Government allowance. As soon a 3 it was possible after the Jutland battle she.got into touch with the widows—about 400 of them, with an average of four children each,—and where urgent help was needed money was despatched within 24 hours, and a cheque every month. But with food, clothes, boots, and everything at such abnormal prices'., the fund,"like others, needs money. Santa Glaus will not come to very many poor children this Christmas in England. It was a very submerged child on Christmas Days past who did not know something 6f !the meaning of "suffer the children " in a passing hour of happiness. The enormous and wide-reaching Christian and social charities spread out myriad feelers after the children of the poor and brought them to the feast of the Child. The newspaper funds, the Church funds, the Royal funds, the countless private funds fed the hungry little ones for that one day at least, and the generosity of artists provided their pantomimes, etc.- —gave them a joyous experience of the wonderful world where there is roast meat and pudding and oranges every day of the year. Or was! But there will be verv few oranges for anybody this Christmas—certainly they won't stuff up the toe of the stocking'of every little boy and girl who has a stocking to hang up for Santa Clans' to fill, for, much as that

benevolent person may desire it, and near as he gets sometimes to working miracles, he can't quite accomplish the impossible, having to bring most of his good things to England in ships. And for the first 1500 cases (where last year there arrived 60,000 cases) of this season's oranges the highest prices recorded in the history of this fruit were obtained in the wholesale market — a piece; which looks very like_ 8d or more before they reach the retail customer. This time 1915 116,000 cases were sold where the 1200 were bid for the other day. . It will bo a lean Christmas pudding year, for the chief ingredients—raisins, sultanas, currants, and peel—are now unobtainable by the general public, and no fresh supplies are expected until the festival is past. Only the households who have already received supplies or have puddings left over from a previous year will have the real thing on the table. Some of the great stores,, perhaps, who began to prepare for this Christmas when last was past, will probably have puddings to sell at famine prices. But this will not help the great majority. The Government sent buyers to Greece two months ago to purchase all the available raisins and currants, and takes, possession of every shipment that arrives to secure the fruit for the -army. When one thinks of the thousands of rich, luscious puddings turned out of the King's kitchens at previous Christmas tides, and the Daily Mirror puddings, and all the other puddings stirred and served by famous or simple people alike, all for the

children, one grieves to think how they will lack this year. Since beginning the writing of this letter the appeal for toys for "Bombed Babies" has been responded to in a wonderful manner. Thanks, to the swift generosity of the public, within a day or two all the toys and money to purchase them that the London Hospital needed were sent from all parts of the countrydolls, teddy-bears, trains, paints, wooden bricks, picture books, toys of all sorts, — and nursing sisters were despatched to the big stores to lay out the money.