Page:Women Wanted.djvu/351

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
THE RISING VALUE OF A BABY
317

for which it was designed. That Jimmie should sleep alone, is one of the primary directions at the school. Of course, it is clear that this is hygienically advisable, and there is another reason: these crowded London areas are so crowded that even the one bed the family usually possesses is also overcrowded. With some five other children occupying it with their mother, there was danger that Jimmie would some night be smothered. "Overlaying," as it is called, is the reason assigned in the death certificate for the loss of a good many London babies.

BETTER BABIES ARE PRODUCED

Jimmie in his banana cradle slept better than any of the other babies had. He had a little more air. Also he was cleaner than the others, because his mother had learned that dirt and disease germs are dangerous. But it is not easy, you should know, to keep children clean where every pint of water you wash them in must be carried up stairs from the tap on the first floor and down stairs again to the drain. A frequent bath all around in the one stewpan that perforce must serve for the purpose is out of the question. But there was a real wash basin now among the new household furnishings that Mrs. Smith was gradually acquiring. There are so many things that one goes without when one's husband is an ordinary labourer at the limit line of 18s. a week. But when he becomes a soldier and you get your regular separation allowance from the government, you begin to rise in the social scale. Mrs. Smith,