Report of the proceedings of the National conference on infantile mortality : held in the Caxton hall, Westminster, on the 23rd, 24th, and 25th March 1908, president - Right Hon. John Burns.

  • National Conference on Infantile Mortality.
Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Report of the proceedings of the National conference on infantile mortality : held in the Caxton hall, Westminster, on the 23rd, 24th, and 25th March 1908, president - Right Hon. John Burns. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    force by the Guardians. It might be put into force by any person. He thought that was not sufficiently realised. Any person who proved to the magistrate that he was acting in the interests of the child could put into operation the clauses of the Prevention of Cruelty to Children Act, 1904. He saw no reason why the pro- visions of that most important Act for the prevention of cruelty to children should be left to a voluntary society which was more or less always struggling for subscriptions to carry it along. He felt, speak- ing at any rate for a big town like Sheffield, that they got clusters of the population living outside any public opinion, and to deal with those areas and those families they required more drastic action. In his opinion the Boards of Guardians through their relief officers came across what information was necessary to put the Act into operation. The magistrates would require no convincing that the relieving officer was acting in the interests of the child. The Guardians had power not only to co-operate with the National Society, but they could do the whole thing themselves, and there was plenty of room for competition between the different bodies in putting the different Acts into force. He thought the education committees through their attendance officers should put these Acts in force, and the health committees through their medical officers of health, also the police. His point was that these matters should not be left to a voluntary society. They were among the most important provisions of the statute book and it was an absolute anomaly to leave them to a voluntary society. That society was not too well supported. One of the speakers had said they wanted forty more inspectors. They had got all the inspectors and officials they wanted. It was simply a question of allowing a number of their bodies to co-operate with the National Society, and in a few years if those more drastic measures were adopted they would have an infinitely higher standard for the treatment of children and they would stamp out a great part of that neglect which went on at present. Mrs Greenwood, as a practical worker among the poor for the last eight years, referred to the two classes of mothers mentioned by Dr Hope. Of course they all came across those exceptional women who on very small means kept their children and their homes clean and tidy, but they were exceptional, and they were certainly most exceptional geniuses. On the other hand those mothers who so continually neglected their children and who were so intemperate and so difficult to deal with, she thought they must feel that many of those mothers were the result of drunkenness on the part of the parents, underfeeding and neglecting themselves. There were the fathers of those children whom the prison chaplain told them of that morning. They who had to deal with them felt how difficult it was to awaken in them any ideal at all and to get them out of their bad ways. With these mothers, each successive child, if it did not die, survived in a miserable and rickety condition. With