GAS MASKS FOR INFANTS
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR,—Apropos of your article, "Air Raid Precautions," I should like to ask whether any solution has yet been found to the problem of respirators for very small children. As far as I know, there has not. At any rate, no publicity has been given to any such solution, so that, apart from evacuation, which is not yet planned out, and could probably only be applied to the most populous areas, e.g. Central London, but not the whole of Greater London, the public has not been offered any protec- tion against poison-gas for the most helpless of its members.
A kind of gas-proof tent is, I believe, contemplated for infants in arms, but a frightened child between the unreasoning ages of eighteen months and four years could.neither be kept forcibly enclosed for any length of time without suffering great terror, or induced to wear a gas-mask if it could• possibly tear it off.
Surely a study of the methods used in other " prepared " countries ought to provide a solution. Germany, for instance, declares herself prepared for war in every detail. What respirators are available for tiny children in Germany ?
It does not only need mothers like myself to realise the importance, actual and psychological, of this problem. It is quite time the whole country was told what chances, if any, there are for an adequate form of protection for small children.
—I am, yours faithfully, THERESE VOGLER. zg Claremont Close, London, N. r.
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