The Examiner. Published MONDAY WEDNESDAY, AND FRIDAY. WEDNESDAY. MAY 2.

Woodville Examiner, Volume XXII, Issue 3868, 2 May 1906, Page 2

The Examiner. Published MONDAY WEDNESDAY, AND FRIDAY. WEDNESDAY. MAY 2.

The subject of infant mortality is attracting a good infant deal of attention in mortality, these days, and it is clearly high time that it did. Mr H. Rider Haggard’s utterances on this important question are entitled to respect and are weighty. At the annual meeting of the Lowestoft and Yarmouth Branch of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children Mr Haggard said that a sphere of usefulness towards which be hoped to see future efforts of the society directed was the prevention of infant mortality. He quoted the mortality during the year past of children under one year of age as amounting per thousand in Liverpool to 196, in Birmingham to 197, in Leeds to 175, in Plymouth to 172, and in London to 146. It was, he said, an unnecessary death-rate arising from various causes as certified by medical men, and improper feeding was one of these causes. Considering what the feeding was the fact was not surprising. There were parents who seemed to be devoid of the first elements of intelligence, and who gave to infants the same food they were eating themselves, thus killing them by the score. Overlying was quoted as another frequent cause of mortality, another was the employment engaged in by married women, which meant that they had to leave their infants in some creche, taking them there in the raw morning and fetching them again in the cold night, and Mr Haggard said he could not exclude from the black list the matter of infant life assurance, which, to put it in the mildest way, must help to make parents careless of the lives of children. The experiments of the Mayor of Huddersfield were referred to to show bow preventable such a state of affairs was, a working party of ladies being in this case instituted to go about and give mothers information as regards their children, and a pecuniary consideration being held out to parents whose infants attained the age of one year in safety. The result was a reduction of the death-rate from 122 to 64 per thousand, or over 50 per cent. Mr .Haggard proposed that the law for the suppression of private creches should be made more stringent, and that the society should, by its investigations, help to ensure its enforcement. Dealing with the same subject, Pearson’s Magazine calculates that no fewer than 70,000 infants are sacrificed yearly to the double-beaded monster IgnoranceLaziness in Eugland and Wales, and these figures are given ; —“ In 1904 the total deaths in England and Wales were 549,393. Of this number 137,490 were of children under one year old. These deaths (137,490) were approximately oneseventh of the total number of births —944,703. Half of the children died from preventable causes.”

We are threatened with a motor boat that will cross

crossing the Atlantic in two THE Atlantic days. There is no lit two days, finality to its speed. Indeed, given a fast enough speed when it leaves New York, the boat will be in Liverpool by next tide—or even sooner. For the present, however, the modern time of two days is allowed for the crossing. How this extraordinary seed is brought about was disclosed by the inventor, Mr Ridley, who exhibited a model of the wonderful boat at Madison Square Garden, New ¥ork, a few days ago. “ I use water for the propelling power,” Mr Ridley said. “ There is a 4Hn pipe running from the bow of the boat to the stern. As the boat goes along the water comes through the tube to the centre of the boat where I have a small kerosene ra tor of 10 horse power. Here 1 generate gas by a secret system, and ibis g is enters the cylinder. The water going through the tube forms a piston in the cylinder, a';d at each explosion of gas is driven down and out, through the rear of the tube against the main bedy of water. Thus the faster the boat goes the faster the water comes through, uud the more speed is supplied. No greater power can bo obtained than by tin’s ok thud.”