CIVILIZATION.
[TO THE ED/TOR OF SPECTATOR." J
SIR,—In an evening paper for February 15th I found the following paragraph m— "During an inquest on a three-months-old baby at Lambeth the mother, 'Mrs. Clara Palmer, who lives at Lollard Street, Lambeth, stated that she had to wean the baby when six weeks old in order that she could return to work. She was a machine `layer-on,' and earned 8s. Gd. a week. In answer to the Coroner, the mother said she had to work six days in the week from eight in the morning until seven. Her wage was is. Gd. a day. The Coroner : It is incredible. I cannot believe it. That is not 2d, an hour. Why do you go to work P The -witness replied that her husband had been in the Army Service Corps and had only just started work as a restaurant porter. She lied bad to go to work for six months while expecting the child. The Coroner said he had had no idea that such ]ow wages were paid to women for such work. It was really dreadful to hear that a mother had to work such hours up to such a short time before giving birth to a child, and that so soon afterwards she had to go back to work at such a miserable rate of wages. The jury returned a verdict of 'Natural Death."
Comments, if the facts are correct, are as superfluous as italics. But if our Legislature is at present wholly incom- petent to cope with this abominable state of things, could not
our juries at least underline the profound irony of their verdicts with a rider censuring, the system, if not the individuals, producing it F—I am, Sir, &c., Goldsmith Building, The Temple. ST. JOHN LUCAS.
[That such things are a terrible evil, that they demand the most anxious, the most sympathetic, and the most assiduous attention of the nation, and that every effort must be made to find a remedy, is clear beyond all question. But let us seek a true remedy and not be content with quack medicine merely because it is loudly and audaciously advertised. A course of some deleterious, though much puffed, drug may make the case 'incurable. The essential thing is to find the real cause of the disease.—ED. Spectator.]
Previous page
