THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK BY GERTRUDE M. TUCKWELL AND CONSTANCE SMITH LONDON DUCKWORTH AND CO HENRIETTA ST. COVENT GARDEN All rights reserved Puhlis/ied l()oS. ReissueJ igio HO 9 ^ ^-^ PREFACE In order to secure accuracy, and to make this handbook as complete as its Hmits will permit, the writers have consulted expert opinion in connection with the different classes of laws of which it treats. A considerable amount of such opinion has been placed at their disposal, to the great advantage of the work they had in hand ; and they stand debtors in many quarters for advice and assistance freely given. Their special thanks are due to Miss Stirke, to Miss Nora de Chaumont, and to Dr. Stephen Miall, while thanks must also be offered to the Industrial Law Committee for permission to print matter which had previously been prepared for their use. G. M. T. C. S. 1293298 CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION i THE WORKER IN CHILDHOOD .... 13 I. The Infant 15 Infant Mortality and Married Women's Labour — The Dangers of Artificial Feeding — Value of Rest before Confinement — The Feeding of In- fants— Methods of Feeding — Other Points on the Care of Infants — Health Visitors and Schools for Mothers — Registration, and Notification of Births Act — Creches and Day Nurseries — Board- ing-out of Infants — Vaccination II. Education AND Training 29 Period of School Life — Enforcement of School Attendance — Van-dwellers and Canal-boat Children — Continuation Schools, Technical Training and Apprenticeship — Schools for Morally Neglected or Refractory Children — Reformatory Schools — The Feeding of School- children— Medical Inspection of School-children — Defective Children — Epileptic Children — vii viii CONTENTS PAGE Blind, Deaf and Dumb Children — Special Schools of the L.C.C. — Wage-earning School- children— Effect of Child Labour — Employment of Children Act, 1903 — By-laws under the Act — Street Trading — Children's Courts and Pro- bation Officers — Begging — Children in Theatres — Children and Dangerous Performances — Children and Public - houses — Cruelty to Children — Rest and Recreation for Children — Children's Country Holidays — Clubs for Children III. State Children 70 Differing Systems of Education — Afflicted State Children — State Children and Apprenticeship— The M.A.B Y.S. and G.F.S. THE WORKER AT HOME 77 Character and Environment — Housing and Sanitation — The Public Health Acts — Enforce- ment of the Acts — Infectious Diseases — Phthisis — Disinfection — Isolation and Hospital Treat- ' ment — Infected Rubbish — Letting Infected Rooms — Exposure of Infected Persons — Busi- ness Forbidden to Infected Persons — Measles — Landlord and Tenant— Distraint for Rent — Lodgers — Law of Husband and Wife, Wills, Affiliation, &c.— Separation of Married Persons Appendix: (a) Husband and Wife . . • • 95 Marriage — Liability of Husband for his Wife's Debts and Wrongs Committed by her — Judicial CONTENTS ix ^ PAGE Separation — Rights of a Widow on the Death of her Husband Intestate {b) Affiliation Orders, or Bastardy Orders . lo THE WORKER AT WORK . .... 109 Factories — Workshops — Numbers — Sanitation — Abstract — Ventilation — Temperature — Over- crowding — Lime-washing — Sanitary Conve- niences— Drainage of Floors — Workers' Repre- sentations -Danger from Machinery — Fencing Machinery — Cleaning Machinery in Motion — Accidents — Fire — Local Authority — Construc- tion and Fastenings of Doors Employment i«3 Certificate of Fitness for Employment Hours of Work 125 («) Factories and Workshops — {b) Domestic Workshops — Meal - times — Overtime — Employ- ment outside the Factory or Workshop Holidays 131 Laundries and Bakehouses 133 Sanitation, Safety — Hours — Notice — Special Sanitary Requirements — Bakehouses — Hours in Bakehouses — Sanitation in Bakehouses Dangerous Trades . 141 b X CONTENTS PACK Truck and Particulars 145 Payment in Kind — Payment in Kind Illegal- Exceptions where Payment in Kind is Legal — Deductions for Damaged Goods — Deductions for Materials — Deductions for Fines — Law as to Deductions, for Fines, Damaged Goods, Materials — Particulars Shops i53 Law as to Deductions — Law as to Employment — Employment in Shop and Workshop — Seats Compensation 156 Legislation — Workmen's Compensation Act — Notice and Claim Coal Mines 162 THE WORKER IN SICKNESS AND WANT . . 167 I. Sickness and Incapacity 170 Confinement — Restaurants for Mothers — Sick- ness— Accidents — Samaritan Funds — Convales- cent Homes — Special Hospitals — Homes for the Dying — Homes and Pensions for Incurables — Dispensaries — MetropolitanProvidentMedical Association — Surgical Aid Societies — Invalid Children's Aid Association — Spectacles — In- sanity— Lunatic Asylums — Procedure in Cases of Insanity — Idiots and Imbeciles — The Feeble- minded— Epileptics — Blind, Deaf, and Dumb — Cripples — Inebriate Homes and Retreats CONTENTS xi FAGS II. Aids to Thrift 196 Trade Unions — Women's Trade Unions— Co- operative Societies —Friendly Societies — Choice of a Friendly Society — Dividing Societies — President Medical Associations — Burial and Assurance Societies — Post Office Insurances and Annuities — Building Societies — Savings Banks and Parochial Clubs III. Help in Distress 211 The Charity Organisation Society — The Poor Law — The Guardians of the Poor — Election of Guardians — Discretionary Powers of Guardians — Classes Relieved — Method of Application for Relief — Amount of Relief — Legal Responsibili- ties of Relations ; Legal Power of Guardians THE WORKER AS CITIZEN 223 INDEX 235 INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION Some time ago a little popular handbook on the Industrial Laws, written mainly by one of the authors of the chapters which follow, and edited by Mrs. H. J. Tennant, was published by the Industrial Law Committee. There has been a considerable and continuous demand for it, but the demand has in many instances been accompanied by the suggestion that a more comprehensive handbook is needed, which should comprise all the regulations designed for the protection of the worker, from infancy till old age. To meet that further demand this book has been written, and since, in the present stage of the development of State enactments, many voluntary agencies exist to supplement legal regulation, an account of these has been included. In the chapters will be found refer- ences to such societies as those which inform or assist the mother who is handicapped by 3 4 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK poverty in the fulfilment of her home duties, and to the agencies which intervene to protect those forsaken little ones who are the children of the State. A sketch is given of the principal associations which aid the worker in the evil days of sickness and want, for which slender earnings have negatived all possibility of per- sonal provision, as well as a short statement of the claims which, as a citizen, the worker is called on to fulfil. This handbook has nothing to do with theories, but treats only of society as it is, and of the agencies which exist for the protection and amelioration of the worker's life under present conditions. It is hoped that while the book will find a public among those who are in touch with the industrial world, it may also be of service to the workers themselves. Laws, if they are to be more than a pious expression of the standard of justice which public opinion has reached, must be completely enforced ; and this enforce- ment depends largely on the knowledge and activity of those for whom their protection was designed. At the present moment our laws are imper- fectly enforced. Investigation frequently brings INTRODUCTION 5 to light not only individual instances of breaches of the law, but systems of illegal practice which have received the sanction of custom. It is true that many " complaints " are received by the authorities from the workers and their friends, but these bear small relation to the total number of breaches of the law. Yet the regulations broken have been created largely at the instance of workers themselves for their own protection, and while on the one hand the principle of self-respect entails the giving of a good day's work to the employer, on the other to mutely accept improper conditions or over- work is as great a breach of such a principle as to "ca-canny." Some examples will point our meaning. The following instance shows the growth and conse- quence of an illegal practice. Not long ago there was a strike among some factory workers in a south country town against further reduc- tion of an unusually low rate of wage, and the secretary of the Women's Trade Union League, summoned to the spot, investigated the workers' grievances. The practice of giving out work to be done after employment in the factory or workshop both before and after the dinner-hour 6 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK is illegal, and the value of such a provision for the protection of the workers' health and life is ob- vious. Inquiry showed, however, that in this dis- trict the custom of giving out large quantities of work was of long standing. After a day spent in the factory, work was carried on in the home till late at night. Nor was the obvious result of damage to the health of the workers the only result : the tendency in unorganised trades to bring down wages to the lowest level on which the worker can subsist had produced the further consequence that wages had been gradually reduced till the workers earned, by working day and night, in factory and home, the sum they originally obtained for their legal day's work in the factory. The ignorance of the workers and the public abetted the un- scrupulousness of the employers, and an illegal practice was gradually set up. Official autho- rity may forbid the practice and prosecute the offender, but it has no power at present to restore the original wage. As a consequence, the worker, with greatly diminished earnings, resents as interference the operation of a law the beneficence of which would have been recognised had it been consistently applied, and INTRODUCTION 7 may attempt for some time to evade its regula- tions by secretly continuing the practice of taking work to the home. Individual cases of suffering, as we have said, are numerous. Men, seriously crippled by accidents from machinery, constantly compound for lump sums far smaller than those to which they are legally entitled. The case of the woman who was so terrified, by the receipt of a telegram from the insurance company, that she took ^5 down in lieu of all further claims, is a flagrant example of the abandonment of their rights, through ignorance, by the workers and their friends. The Public Health Laws, administered by the local authorities, and providing protection for the worker at home, are as frequently ignored as those which regulate industry, and complaints, filtering through to such volun- tary societies as The Women's Trade Union League, The Industrial Law Com- mittee and The Christian Social Union, tell of structural disrepair in the home, of damp, dirt, and other abominations remediable by law. We have not, however, to fight ignorance of 8 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK the laws of the State alone. Ignorance of the laws of life — such as is shown by our infant mortality returns and by much that appears in the reports on the employment of wage-earning children and work of the little ones at home — is even more serious. There is nothing in the world so sad as wasted work, and to contem- plate such work is too often the teacher's lot. Consider the case of that child on whom all possible thought and care are expended during the hours of school in vain, because the strain of employment out of school hours, on an ill- nourished frame, has undermined its capacity for the assimilation of knowledge ! Again, take the teacher's experience in many a case when a once promising pupil revisits the old school, after the years of elementary teaching are done. If the minimum of legal require- ment as to elementary education alone is ful- filled, if Continuation Schools do not at once carry on the mental discipline of the early school years, and the child is plunged straight into a routine of manual labour, the eager and receptive mind soon becomes deadened to intellectual impressions, the promising child has coarsened and grown mentally apathetic. INTRODUCTION 9 In such instances a system of State education, which, whatever its deficiencies, might have helped to equip the individual for inteUigent citizenship, has failed. Some of those in touch with the workers may be loth to urge parents to exercise the real self-sacrifice often involved in refusing to make use of their children's labour. It seems hard to them that parents should be asked to refrain from taking this means of adding to a weekly wage perhaps barely sufficient for maintenance. They cannot, however, persist in this attitude if they consider the evils wrought by child- labour — a wrong both to the individual and to the State. To deprive children of the time needed for sleep and school and play is to take from them the means of accumulating the strength and knowledge which is their future capital. Anaemic, sickly, and possessed only of a certain manual dexterity, they enter the industrial struggle in many instances so ill- equipped that before long they swell the ranks of the unemployed, and finally of the unem- ployable. Thus those of us who tacitly accept the employment of children in the present gene- ration as a necessary social evil are intensifying lo THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK a thousandfold the troubles with which the next generation will be called to grapple. This brings us to another most important aspect of the question. Ignorance is criminal, whether we view it from the standpoint of the individual or of the community. " It is good to feel one belongs to something bigger than oneself," was the dictum of a woman who had for the first time joined a trade organisation. Corporate feeling, the sense of common action towards large ends, the merging of individual struggle in collective effort, these are the levers of progress, these are the lessons of citizenship. Ignorance of the organisation and trade laws which exist for their own occupation is as great a breach of citizenship on the part of the worker as is the neglect to use his or her political and municipal powers to the best advantage. The sense of responsibility in civic as well as in political matters is too often lacking. It is true that in each district there is generally to be found a group of ardent workers, keen to educate their fellows politically, but these workers form often but a small proportion of the whole. INTRODUCTION ii The bad lighting and poor sanitation of a district bear testimony in many a place to the workers' apathy on questions of public welfare, as does in others the meagre proportion of workers' votes registered at the Parliamentary poll. We urge realisation of public and private duties, not without a full appreciation of the difficulties in the way. The most terrible feature of depressed and super-sweated labour is a dull acquiescence in its lot. Yet an appreciation of the value of knowledge on points which affect their children's welfare increases among the poorest, as the readiness with which they avail themselves of such schemes as the St. Pancras School for Mothers, under the Medical Officer of Health, or lay to heart the teaching of Health Visitors, bears witness. It would be difficult to find a working class audience opposed to schemes by which mothers could be saved from the necessity for wage- earning and set free for home and child. Intelligent complaints as to breaches of the labour laws come to us increasingly from those affected. The labour movement of these last years, now fully recognised by all parties in the 12 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK State, has made articulate the workers' claims for a larger share in political control. It is on this movement that the hopes are fixed of those who have loved and tried to serve the people. To the men and women who take part in it we look both to advocate those reforms which will in the future secure to all a wider and a fuller life, and to train themselves for the use of those larger powers presently to be theirs, by appre- ciating and applying every power they already possess. THE WORKER IN CHILDHOOD THE WORKER IN CHILDHOOD I. THE INFANT Infant Mortality and Married Women's Labour. — The public attention has lately been aroused, and the public conscience rendered seriously uneasy, by statistics showing the high rate of infant mortality which, despite the great advance in our standards of housing, hygiene, sanitation and living that has taken place during the last half century, continues to prevail in this country. While the general death rate has been steadily going down, the infant death rate has only slightly decreased. In recent years it has remained stationary ; indeed, in some of our great industrial centres it is actually going up. This rate, which stands at an average of 138 per 1000 births for England and Wales, rises as high as 208 in the great textile towns of Burnley and Preston, 15 1 6 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK whilst some of the densely populated northern towns of the second and third class come not far behind. As a rule, infants have a much better "chance of life" in the rural districts than in the towns ; though an exception has been found to this rule in the case of those rural districts where married women are largely engaged in field work. Residential towns have also a good record as against those in which manufacturing operations are carried on. Yet here, too, we find exceptions to our rule ; Brighton, for instance, having a very high infant mortality rate — and a great number of mothers employed outside their own homes, chiefly in domestic service. Although a number of causes — among which must be reckoned over-crowding, in- sanitary conditions, extreme poverty, the diffi- culty of obtaining pure milk and of preserving it when obtained, from contamination, together with the ignorance of mothers who have had no opportunity of learning how to bring up a child (a difficult and delicate business) — contribute to produce the terrible annual tale of 120,000 infant deaths, all inquiry goes to show that the occupation of mothers in industry is an important factor in its making. How else shall we account THE WORKER IN CHILDHOOD 17 for the fact that in prosperous Lancashire, where wages are good and the conditions of living among workers more nearly satisfactory than in perhaps any other part of the kingdom, we are faced with such an infant death-rate as has been quoted in the case of Burnley and Preston ? The great body of Medical Officers of Health, especially that division of it whose work lies in the manufacturing districts, are almost unanimously of opinion that it is the absence of the mother from home which is the principal cause of the waste of young life, since that absence necessarily deprives the child when only four weeks old, not only of its mother's care, but of its natural food. The risks inherent in hand-feeding may be inferred from some figures lately given by the Medical Officer of Health at Bury. In that busy and thriving town, 3609 children were born during the years 1904-5-6. Of these, 2498 were wholly breast-fed ; mi wholly brought up by hand ; 71 only out of the former number died, but 2,33 o( the latter.* The Dangers of Artificial Feeding. — It follows from what has been said above that * These figures represent respectively an infant mortality of 24.4, and of 299.8 per 1000 births. 1 8 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK the mother of an infant under one year old should in every case where it is possible abstain from employment other than domestic duties during the first year of that infant's life. It must be remembered that, apart from the fact that no artificial foods really nourish a baby properly, and that the feeding of a child on such substitutes for mother's milk is inevitably attended with considerable risk, such artificial feeding renders the infant far more liable to be attacked by the diseases peculiarly fatal to infancy than it would be if naturally brought up. For example, infantile diarrhoea, which every summer sweeps away crowds of little victims in our towns, is pronounced by the doctors to be at least seven times more fatal in the case of hand-fed than of breast-fed children. It must further be borne in mind that those children who recover from these diseases, or who struggle without succumbing through the trial imposed upon their constitutions by insuffi- cient or improper feeding and other forms of neglect to which they are subjected in the absence of the mother during the first months of their existence, frequently grow up impaired in physique and vitality, unfit to maintain their THE WORKER IN CHILDHOOD 19 footing in the battle of life, with every prospect of becoming at an early date a burden on their friends or on the community. It has been medically proved that the children born in what are known as " bad infant-mortality years " show a remarkable proportion of sickly, feeble- minded, or otherwise defective survivors. Value of Rest before Confinement. — Where the mother is engaged in working for wages, and can lay aside her occupation during the last few weeks before the birth of her child, it is most desirable that she should do so. An interesting experiment in France has lately shown that where this course is followed the children born are far finer and healthier than those whose mothers have worked con- tinuously up to the time of their birth. The Feeding of Infants. — In cases where the mother is absolutely unable, by reason of ill-health or stress of circumstances, to nurse her child, the baby should be fed on cow's milk only, to which a little water and sugar have been added. This milk must invariably be warmed, and should be carefully protected from dust of every kind. Dust, especially town dust, contains germs of disease, and is there- 20 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK fore full of danger. Skimmed milk should never be used, as it simply starves the baby. Condensed milk, if used at all, must not be left in a tin which has been opened. The use of con- densed milk is, however, to be avoided as far as possible ; and the establishment in many places of municipal milk depots, where sterilised milk, specially prepared for infants, may be obtained in sealed bottles, should render its use more and more infrequent. Since babies under six months old need nothing but milk, and cannot properly digest anything else, it follows that the very general practice of giving them mis- cellaneous food and drink, such as tea, cheese, or pieces of pudding, is not only unnecessary but most injurious. Numbers of children die annually in consequence of this habit on the part of parents. Those who are left in the care of a neighbour, who may or may not know anything about babies, while the mother goes to work, suffer even more frequently from im- proper food. I n cases where the neighbour is not conscientious, or where she is a professional baby-minder, the administration of drugs and opiates " to keep the baby quiet" is frequently superadded to a diet of sops and herrings. THE WORKER IN CHILDHOOD 21 Methods of Feeding. — Bottles should be tubeless and capable of easy cleansing. A proper feeding-bottle is not necessary where expense is an object ; any glass bottle smooth inside and without corners will serve, with a rubber teat fitted over the mouth. Bottle and teat must be thoroughly washed and soaked after each occasion of using. The baby should be fed at regular intervals, and never " because it cries." The crying is not usually due to hunger, as many young mothers are apt to think, but to some other cause of discomfort. Other Points on the Care of Infants. — The baby should always sleep alone. If a regular cradle or cot cannot be provided, an orange, banana, or egg box filled with shavings under a blanket will make quite a comfortable nest for the little one. Infants should be warmly clad, particularly about the stomach and bowels. Their clothing should reach to the throat and wrists. Fresh air is particularly important for young children : therefore the baby should go out whenever the weather is fine ; but it should not be kept out late at night (sleep being almost as important to an infant as food), and it should never be 22 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK taken out when suffering from illness of any- kind. The rooms in which it lives or sleeps should be kept well ventilated. A baby suffers much more quickly from impure air than a grown-up person. Health Visitors and Schools for Mothers. — Many young women when they marry know little or nothing about the care of children. Their girlhood has been spent in the factory or the workroom, and they have had no opportunity of learning things which are essential to the rearing of a healthy infant. To meet this want of knowledge, which has been largely brought about by the increasing employment of women in industry, and, we must add, by a certain unwillingness on the part of the women of the elder generation to abandon methods of bringing up which have become traditional, even in face of their dis- astrous results, many Local Authorities have appointed Health Visitors, who work under the supervision of the Medical Officer of Health for the district, and whose special office it is to instruct mothers in the important art of child- rearing. These visitors are now to be found in country districts as well as in boroughs, and THE WORKER IN CHILDHOOD 23 we may look for a very large extension in the near future of their numbers and work. Where Health Visitors proper are not yet a part of the administrative system, instruction in the care of infants is frequently given by a woman Sanitary Inspector, who is specially trained for this part of her work. The result of such instruction is already seen in several places in a remarkable reduction of the infant death-rate, and in the improved condition of the children who survive. Schools for mothers, in which instruction to the parent is combined with medical advice for the child, have also been established by certain municipalities and voluntary agencies, and show a tendency to multiply. These may most profitably be frequented by young married women anxious to do their best for their children. It should be remembered that such attendance involves no confession of special ignorance, but only such ignorance as is com- mon to every girl, whatever her circumstances, on entering upon married life. The woman of means confesses to it when she seeks an experienced nurse for her baby. Hitherto no counterpart of that experienced nurse was within the reach of the working woman, but 24 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK Health Visitors and the new schools for mothers are beginning to supply such a counterpart. Registration, and Notification of Births Act. — The birth of a child must by law be registered within forty-two days of the birth by the father or mother at the office of the District Registrar. If they fail, the duty of registration devolves upon (i) the occupier of the house where the birth took place ; (2) a person present at the birth ; (3) the person having charge of the child. It is important that this duty should be punctually fulfilled, as, apart from the penalty attaching to its non- fulfilment, inability to obtain a copy of the birth certificate may at a later date in the child's life seriously injure its prospects. Neglect to resfister until after the child is three months old involves the attendance of a superior official and the payment of fees. In addition to this old obligation of registra- tion, there now exists in many districts a further obligation to notify the birth within thirty-six hours to the Medical Officer of Health. There is a penalty for failing to notify, and notification must be made even when the child is stillborn. (The Early Notification of Births THE WORKER IN CHILDHOOD 25 Act, although not made compulsory on Local Authorities, has already been adopted by a con- siderable number of such authorities, and will, it is hoped, shortly become of general applica- tion.) The object of this notification is to apprise the Medical Officer of Health at the earliest possible date of the fact that a baby has been born, and so to enable the Health Visitor to give advice and instruction at the time when advice and instruction are most needed. The notification must be made by the father, or, failing him, by the person in attend- ance on the mother. It may either be handed in at the office of the Medical Officer of Health, or sent through the post, either by letter or on a post-card. The practical value of such a measure as this, where it is in force, is so evident that it is needless to insist upon it. Creches and Day Nurseries. — We have dwelt on the great and urgent need of the presence of the nursing mother in her home. Cases, however, unhappily occur where this appears to be practically impossible, and where the need of supplementing the wages of an ill- paid breadwinner, or, in the case of the sickness, unemployment, or desertion of the husband, of 26 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK acting as the breadwinner herself, forces a woman to consign her baby to the care of others. She may have relatives to whom she can confide it during the day, and, so long as these are competent as well as kindly persons — a decrepit grandmother, however affectionate, is to be avoided — they will probably be the mother's best choice as caretakers. But where the choice lies between an ordinary neighbour (still more where it lies between the woman who takes in several babies as a means of livelihood) and a public or parochial creche or day nursery, the balance of advantages is certainly with the latter. Creches are not in themselves desir- able institutions, and the best-managed of them cannot, it is plain, fully supply the place of a mother's individual care and particular affection. But they secure to their inmates certain sanitary conditions, and a maximum of light, air, space, and cleanliness, for which there is no guarantee in the home of the irresponsible neighbour or " minder "; the children are kept warm and safe from danger of fire, and are preserved from the worst forms of improper feeding. As a remedy for the present distress, then, the municipal or parochial creche may be accepted ; but always THE WORKER IN CHILDHOOD 27 with reluctance, and only in default of better things. Boarding-out of Infants. — It is scarcely needful to say that this is a practice strongly to be deprecated. Unhappily, we have to acknow- ledge that in a very considerable number of cases, and notably in that of the infants of un- married mothers, it is for the moment the only solution of a difficult situation. A penniless girl who is also a mother has generally no choice between going into the workhouse, and boardinor-out her infant while she earns her own and its livelihood. To place it in a recognised home or institution would, as a rule, involve complete and permanent separation of mother and child ; for although certain societies, such as the Church of England Waifs and Strays, occasionally accept the care of older children while the mother is getting together funds to set up a home of her own, they do not, and, for obvious reasons, cannot, do this in the case of infants. Consequently a home has to be found for the child with private persons. Where payment is made for the keep of the baby, and more than one child is taken in, these, homes must, by the provisions of the Infant Life 28 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK Protection Act, be notified to the local authority, which has power to fix the number of children that may be received in them. They are in- spected by specially appointed officials ; and at the time of going to press a proposal is before Parliament to extend this inspection to homes where one child only is received. Since many of the worst cases of neglect and cruelty which have of late years been brought to light by the efforts of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and in other ways, are found to occur in these one-child homes, such extension would certainly seem desirable. Notice has also to be given, under penalties, by any one who receives a child under two in con- sideration of a sum of money paid down. Vaccination. — The law requires that infants shall be vaccinated within six months after their birth. No expense is incurred in the vaccina- tion of children, which is carried out in each district by the Public Vaccinator, who visits children in their homes for the purpose. There is a penalty for leaving a child unvacci- nated, unless, within the prescribed period, an affidavit pleading " conscientious objection '' has been made by the father in the presence of THE WORKER IN CHILDHOOD 29 a justice of the peace. Before making up their minds to lodge such an objection, parents will do wisely to consult a sensible and experienced medical practitioner, in order that they may hear the arguments for as well as against vacci- nation clearly put, and be qualified to come to a decision in the matter. It should be noted that in Germany, where the Vaccination Law admits of no exceptions, cases of smallpox have almost ceased to occur. II. EDUCATION AND TRAINING Period of School Life. — Five is the age at which school attendance becomes compulsory. Many children are, however, sent to the ele- mentary schools at three, the lowest age at which the education authorities will consent to receive them. Such premature forcing of creatures who are no more than babies into the system, necessary inelastic, of school lessons and school discipline is much to be deplored, though we readily admit the temptation to the poor mother, having, perhaps, only a couple of rooms in which to carry on the combined business of cook, housemaid, 30 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK laundress, nurse, and needle-woman, to send those babies for a certain number of hours daily to a place where they will be at least out of harm's way — and hers. The school age of the child is supposed to extend over the period from five to fourteen ; but in some districts by-laws reduce the leaving age to thirteen, while the certificate showing that the child has passed Standard IV. will in agricultural dis- tricts exempt from attendance even earlier. In respect of children employed in field-work, special exemptions are granted which, after the children have made up a certain number of attendances, set them free during the remainder of the year. Attendance may also be reduced to half-time in the case of children who are over twelve years old who have passed the standard fixed by the local by-laws, and for whom a labour certificate has been produced from the Local Authority, which must be satis- fied, before it grants the certificate, that the child will be " beneficially employed." Enforcement of School Attendance. — Attendance at school is enforced by the Local Education Authority, acting through its School Attendance Officer. There are three THE WORKER IN CHILDHOOD 31 valid excuses for non-attendance, and three only : sickness ; the fact that there is no school within two miles to which the child can go ; or proof that he or she is being efficiently taught in some other manner. The intervention of the School Attendance Officer may sometimes appear harsh and inconsiderate ; but he is undoubtedly a force for good in preserving to children who would otherwise be deprived of them the advantages of that education which is to equip them for their part in life. Parents are often slow to perceive that by keeping their children at home to run errands, mind the baby, or help the mother in some form of home industry, or suff"ering their school attendance to become irregular, they are robbing those chil- dren of the only capital with which it is in their power to endow them. So with early with- drawal from school. Doubtless in many cases this action is due to the poverty of the parents. But not in all. Fathers and mothers who could, by a little exercise of forethought and self-denial, allow their boys and girls to remain at school till they are fourteen, or even later, or to complete their education in a technical or trade school, take them away just as they are in 32 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK a position to learn intelligently and to make practical use of what has been taught them, in order that they may add a few shillings a week to the family income by employment in some unskilled occupation — thereby fixing their posi- tion for life in the ranks of those untrained and ill-paid workers who are always the first to recruit the army of the unemployed. Van-dwellers and Canal-boat Children. — These children are theoretically subject to the same laws of school attendance as are binding on those of the ordinary worker. Canal-boats and vans must be registered with the Sanitary Authority as places of residence if so used, and the children dwelling in them are then supposed to attend school in the place of registration. Practically this supposition seldom finds fulfilment. In the case of the van drawn up by the roadside to-day and miles away to-morrow, it seems almost beyond the wit of man to enforce school attendance upon its small inhabitants. Nor where children travel with their parents on board a canal-boat is the task of the Education Authority much easier. Fortunately an increasing number of canal- boat men now have homes on shore, where the THE WORKER IN CHILDHOOD 33 children are left while the boat is absent, and to which the husband and father returns periodically. Continuation Schools. Technical Train- ing and Apprenticeship.— Under this head- ing may be briefly cited the existing agencies which carry on the education of the workers' children beyond the elementary school stage. Some of the brighter and more gifted of these children, whose parents have, with true wisdom and affection, permitted them to carry their education to the full limit of the elementary school course, will pass, by means of scholar- ships, into the secondary Council school, there to qualify themselves for callings requiring more extensive and scientific training. For others the Polytechnics and Evening Continua- tion classes will do much in the way of building upon the foundations laid in the provided or voluntary school. Attention has been seriously given of late to the national danger involved in permitting our young people to grow up uninstructed in any skilled trade, and a move- ment in favour of the revival of apprenticeship is the outcome of the feeling of well-founded alarm which realisation of this danger has 34 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK aroused in the minds of thoughtful persons. Apprenticeship Committees are springing up in all parts of the kingdom, and workers have here to their hand a great opportunity of which they should not fail to take advantage on behalf of their children. The trade schools of the London County Council now train girls as well as boys for various callings during a period varying from one to two years, and send them out to begin their working lives, not as learners whose best hope is that they may be able to pick up a few shillings weekly while acquiring a smattering of information in con- nection with their trade, but as fully equipped and competent wage-earners- Technical train- ing centres have also been established within many county areas, and the organisation of technical lectures and classes in villages now brings opportunities within the reach of a class of children to whom they were hitherto lacking — the sons and daughters of the ao-ricultural labourer. Schools for Morally Neglected or Re- fractory Children. — There are to be found in every town a certain number of children who are the despair of the teacher and the School THE WORKER IN CHILDHOOD 35 Attendance Officer, Of these the larger pro- portion may be fitly described as " morally neglected." Sometimes they are orphans, under the nominal care of indifferent or brutal relatives, more often the offspring of surviving but vicious or drunken parents ; a few are of that " outcast " type which has served as model for so many pathetic pictures, belong to nobody, and live in some mysterious way by their wits. The last-named class does not attend school at all ; the others attend infrequently and irregu- larly. Where parents exist, they must in the first instance be held responsible for the non- attendance of their children ; and it is therefore best, in such cases as we have cited, to begin by referring them to the School Authorities, Where mothers are keeping a child at home to help paste match-boxes or wire artificial flowers, or where the father's too frequent visits to the public-house cause deposit at the pawnshop of the boots indispensable to appearance in the class-room, a magistrate's attendance order, made on the application of the School Attend- ance Officer, and followed by a fine of five shillings if the order is not obeyed, will gene- rally have a salutary effect. Children there are, 36 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK however, for whose frequent truancy neither parents nor circumstances are altogether re- sponsible. For these comparatively rare ex- amples of a peculiar temperament — creatures who seem to be possessed by a wandering spirit of adventure, and in whom one is led to suspect lingering traces of a nomad ancestry — there is the truant or day industrial school, to which they may be sent on demand of the School Authority. The truant schools repre- sent the mildest form of discipline in these cases, the periods of detention being usually short. In the certified day industrial schools, industrial training and one or more meals a day are provided in addition to elementary education, and the child spends the entire day at school, only returning home to sleep. Chil- dren who are found begging or frequenting the company of known thieves, children under twelve charged with slight offences, and refrac- tory children under fourteen who are in the care of a parent, may be sent to these schools, as well as those who have simply failed in school attendance. Parents who have a refrac- tory child may, even when no attendance order is in question, obtain for it admission to a certi- THE WORKER IN CHILDHOOD 37 fied day industrial school if the Local Authority- supports their request. In that case the parent is liable for a payment of not less than i^. a week. Where the child is sent by a court of summary jurisdiction, and not in conse- quence of an attendance order, the parents have to pay a contribution towards its main- tenance, but this must not exceed 25. a week ; and if the parent is not in a position to pay, the Board of Guardians may provide the neces- sary contribution. The effect of the training in these schools, on naughty children whose naughtiness is beyond the methods of correc- tion which suffice for maintaining discipline in an ordinary elementary school, is frequently most happy. In the certified industrial school proper children are entirely maintained, their board, lodging, and clothing being provided, together with industrial training and education. This class of school was established under the Indus- trial Schools Act for children "apparently" under fourteen whose circumstances expose them to moral danger. A homeless child found wandering about the streets without visible means of subsistence, a child begging in public 38 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK places, a child having no parents or whose surviving parent is serving a term of imprison- ment, a child frequenting the company of thieves or prostitutes or living in a house of ill-fame, is held to be a fit subject for an in- dustrial school ; and any person may bring such a child before two justices of the peace or a police-magistrate with a view to his being sent to one of these schools. Children under twelve who have committed a criminal offence which is not a felony may also be dealt with under the Industrial Schools Act, unless the magis- trate sees fit, as he often does, to dismiss the little offender with a whipping. Parents are also at liberty, as in the case of the certified day industrial school, to ask for admission for a refractory child ; and this right extends, in respect of children maintained in a workhouse or workhouse school, to the Board of Guar- dians and their local representatives. Children under fourteen who are in the care of a mother convicted of crime at thetimeof her conviction, and are without proper guardianship, may also be sent to an industrial school. In aggravated cases of non-attendance children are sometimes sent to such a school under the Education Act. THE WORKER IN CHILDHOOD 39 A licence to live anywhere save in the home chosen for him by the industrial school managers is not allowed to any child until eighteen months have expired after his entry into that home ; and though children may not be detained after they reach the age of sixteen except with their own consent in writing, they remain until they are eighteen under the school managers' supervision. The home in question may be the school itself, the dwelling of the child's parent, or that of any trustworthy person whom the managers see fit to select. After eighteen months of detention, the child will be allowed to lodge out, but only with a person holding a licence from the school managers. (This licence has to be renewed every three months.) At any time, if the child's behaviour is not satisfactory, or the managers think its recall necessary for its protection, it may be brought back into the school, and there detained for another three months, and then again placed out on licence. The fact that the child is only "out on licence" is no bar to its being apprenticed, if its conduct has been good during its absence from the school. It will be seen that the whole plan and pur- pose of the industrial schools system, which is 40 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK under the inspection of the Home Office, Is directed to maintaining supervision over the child until it arrives at the age of eighteen. It is only by sustained effort and careful training that any permanent improvement in a character injured by neglect or immoral influence in early years can reasonably be looked for. Grants are made from the Treasury for the custody and maintenance of the children in industrial schools ; in addition, parents are liable, if their means allow, for a payment of ^s. a week. In choosing a school for any child magistrates are bound to select one in which the religious teaching is that of the persuasion to which the child belongs. Reformatory Schools. — Really vicious children are, we believe, few and far between ; and even where such exist there is good argu- ment for dealing with them on wholly different lines from those along which we habitually pro- ceed to the punishment of the adult criminal. Reformatory schools, which deal with children between the ages of ten and sixteen who have been convicted of some offence punishable with penal servitude or imprisonment, are intended to take the place of detention in gaol in the case THE WORKER IN CHILDHOOD 41 of such youthful offenders. Children sent to certified reformatory schools must be there detained for not less than three nor more than five years. In the regulations governing their working and management reformatory schools are closely allied to the industrial schools already considered. The Feeding of School-children. — We have oriven a brief sketch of what is belnor done o o for the mental and moral traininof of the workers' children. But how about their physical welfare ? Are we taking any steps to secure that? Is the national consciousness alive to the fact that if you would have a healthy mind you must secure a healthy body for it to dwell in ? Until lately we should have been bound to reply ** No" to all these questions. Before last year it was left entirely to voluntary charity to relieve the wants of suffering school-children set to work their way through the school syllabus on empty stomachs. We have now, in principle at least, abandoned the old plan of insisting that children shall learn to read while carefully refraining from any inquiry as to whether they have first breakfasted. The Provision of Meals Act, and the Relief of School-children Order which pre- 42 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK ceded it, may not go very far, but they at least lay down a basis for possible action. By the Order managers of schools have acquired the right to make application to the Guardians for allowance of relief in respect of any child under sixteen who is attending their school and who is suffering from inadequate nourishment. If it is found that the father of the child habitually neglects to provide it with proper food, the relief must be given by way of loan, and will be re- coverable from the parent. But if the Guardians are not of opinion that neglect is responsible for the child's inadequate feeding, and hold its case to be the result of poverty or lack of employment, the relief may be granted as a gift. If given by way of loan, the Guardians, before taking action, must notify the father that it is so given. Under the Provision of Meals Act local Educa- tion Authorities are empowered to help voluntary associations for the feeding of necessitous school- children, by furnishing the plant and the service required for the cooking and distribution of meals ; and may also, with the sanction of the Board of Education, impose a rate of not more than one halfpenny in the pound towards pro- viding the cost of food. THE WORKER IN CHILDHOOD 43 Particular schemes for the feeding of school- children may be open to objection, and it is cer- tainly desirable not to relieve the parent of his responsibility when his circumstances permit him to fulfil it. But this much is clear : unless we are willing to let physical deterioration go on unchecked, unless we are prepared to sacri- fice, not the rising generation only, but genera- tions to come, to a policy of non-interference, we cannot permit any further forcing of the intellects of half-starved children. There is no sadder page in the Dundee Social Union's admirable " Report on Medical Inspection of School-chil- dren in Dundee " than that which records the rapid deterioration of the Dundee elementary school child in the first few years of its life: how, coming into the world a fairly average specimen of infant humanity, it fails more and more, as time proceeds, to conform to accepted standards of weight and height, until at thirteen it is found to have sunk below them permanently and hope- lessly. As it happens, the danger of undermining parental responsibility is carefully provided for both under the Provision of Meals Act and the Local Government Board Order. In the former 44 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK case the Education Authority, unless it is satis- fied that the parent cannot pay, has power to recover the amount spent in providing meals for the child as an ordinary debt. In the latter the Guardians may recover any relief given by way of loan in the County Court. Medical Inspection of School-children. ■ — A further most important step in the pro- motion of the health and well-being of school- children, and, indeed, of the nation at large, has been taken in Clause 13 of the Education (Ad- ministrative Provisions) Act of 1907. This clause imposes on the local Education Authority the duty of providing for the medical inspection of children "immediately before or at the time of or as soon as possible after their admission to a public elementary school, and on such other occasions as the Board of Education direct." As the local Education Authority is further empowered, under the clause, to make arrangements (which must be sanctioned by the Board of Education) for attending to the chil- dren's health and physical condition, we may hope to see in the near future a marked dimi- nution of the mass of preventable suffering which results from the neglect in childhood of ail- THE WORKER IN CHILDHOOD 45 ments in their beginning easily remediable. It is impossible even to compute the number of blind, deaf, diseased, and invalid members of the community who might, with a little timely care and advice, have grown up complete and healthy men and women. The Dundee " Re- port " already quoted informs us that in the five selected schools examined — schools which included a considerable number of the children of well-to-do artisans, as well as of those belong- ing to very poor families — only 26 per cent, were able to show eyes with normal refraction, and only 55*5 per cent, ears having power of normal hearing. The state of the children's ears was pronounced by. the specialist who examined them to threaten in quite a number of cases not only complete deafness, but disease dangerous to life. " Hundreds of children in the Board schools of Dundee," he writes, "are growing up with more or less damaged hearing, which, if taken in time, would be curable, but for want of this becomes permanent, and which must seriously damage their prospects in after- life." It is further noted that these partially deaf children are frequently so dull as to be almost incapable of profiting by instruction. In 46 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK one school not a single child under eight could show a normal throat ; and here children of low or defective mental capacity were strikingly- numerous. Again, another of the examining doctors reports the condition of the hearts of the girls examined by her to be markedly un- satisfactory. To many such girls the physical exercises imposed upon them as part of the regular school course were attended with great risk, and could only issue in injury rather than benefit to their health. These facts, which can be easily paralleled in London, in Edinburgh, and, indeed, in all our great centres of population, make it clear that a regular system of medical inspection will be invaluable in checking inci- pient disease, in saving endangered sight and hearing, and in preventing the choice of unsuit- able occupations. Such inspection has its eco- nomic as well as its hygienic and humanitarian importance. For children handicapped on their entry into life by ill-health, arrested develop- ment, imperfect sight and hearing, have little or no chance of becoming really self-supporting, and become, sooner or later, in some form or other, dependent on the State. We may not be able to rise at once to the standard of Prussia, THE WORKER IN CHILDHOOD 47 where individual medical inspection is an annual event in the school, but the three examinations during the period of school life recommended by the Education Committee of the London County Council should yield valuable results, especially if supplemented by regular visits from the School Medical Officer. Inspection by trained nurses, as it is carried on in London and other educational areas, is also valuable, especially in promoting cleanliness and a more rational sys- tem of clothing, and in checking such grotesque and insanitary practices as those reported to obtain in certain districts, of sewing the younger children into their clothes. Medical inspection of schools is as yet in its infancy, and it depends largely upon those workers who are parents whether it shall have the beneficent development which its promoters desire to see. As the Permanent Secretary to the Board of Education remarks in his circular on this subject, " the home is the point at which health must be controlled ultimately." Parents should, then, second earnestly and intelligently the efforts which are made by the Education Authorities for their children's physical welfare ; and this not only by following out the recom- 4-8 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK mendations of the school doctor or nurse, but by striving to reproduce, as well as may be, in their own homes the improved hygienic con- ditions which medical inspection will certainly introduce into many of the schools attended by their children. Defective Children. — In every large school will be found one or more children who are below the average child in point of memory, power of attention, and general intelligence. If such children continue to attend only an ordi- nary school, their peculiar needs are, almost necessarily, neglected by the teacher, who can- not, in justice to the great body of those under his charge, concentrate on these unfortunate little ones the special care required to awaken and educate their dormant intellect ; while, if they do not go to school at all, that intellect remains, in the majority of cases, altogether unawakened, and the merely defective child too often sinks by degrees into the imbecile. Neither is the lot of children who are not, in the expressive phrase of the people, "all there " a happy one in play-time, if that play- time is spent among comrades normally endowed. Children are often cruel, with the THE WORKER IN CHILDHOOD 49 cruelty that is born of ignorance, to one another, and a sturdy, healthy little boy too often takes, at ten or eleven, the pleasure in teasino- a defective class-mate that he took a few years earlier in dismembering" flies. For the protection of the children referred to, special schools and classes have been instituted by the Education Authority in London and many of the larger towns. They are not as yet sufficiently numerous to accommodate half the defective children of the kingdom, but it is certain that an extension in their numbers may be looked for in the near future, and in the meantime no pains should be spared by parents, teachers, or friends of defective children to ofain for them admission to such schools where they exist. The whole power of the child to become self-supporting in later life, as well as orderly and happy during its earlier years, will generally depend on such admission. In some localities, guides or conveyances for taking to school those children who are too feeble-minded to be safely allowed alone in the streets are provided by the Local Education Authority. In certain cases the Authority may make provision for boarding out defective so THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK children in the neighbourhood of a special class. Defective children must remain at school up to the age of sixteen. Epileptic Children. — The School Autho- rity has power to make similar provision for children who are epileptic ; and, as the minds of epileptics are apt to be affected by their bodily condition, it is much to be wished that these powers should be used. Hitherto they have remained a dead letter. The only attempt to meet the special case of epileptic children is to be found in those voluntary institutions which will be treated of in their proper place in chap. iv. of this handbook. Blind, and Deaf and Dumb Children. — Parents and their advisers — parochial or social workers — often imagine that if a child is blind, or deaf and dumb, there is no need for it to attend school. This is a mistake. The law enforces the education of such afflicted children, and the Education Authority is empowered to provide the special instruction which they need. If there be no school giving such special instruction within a reasonable distance of the child's home, the School Authority is empowered to board it out in a home conveniently near the THE WORKER IN CHILDHOOD 51 certified school that it should attend, and may- incur expenses for its maintenance, including clothing and its conveyance to and fro. Parents are liable for a contribution to these expenses, to be agreed upon between them and the Local Authority, with appeal, in case of disagree- ment, to the arbitration of a magistrate. The payments made by the School Authority in such cases are not of the nature of Poor Law relief, and bring no disability upon the father who accepts them for his child. The sixteen- year age limit of school attendance applies to blind, and deaf and dumb children as well as to the defective and epileptic. Special Schools of the L.C.C.— In the London area there are now special schools for children suffering from the two highly infectious diseases of ophthalmia and ringworm. The infectious nature of the latter complaint is generally recognised, but many people are hardly aware that ophthalmia is equally " catch- ing." A great deal of the blindness which exists in this country arises from neglected ophthalmia, especially in the case of new-born infants. Children are, of course, only sent to these special schools under a medical certificate 52 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK or on the report of a nurse-visitor employed by the School Authority. The services of nurses in detecting ophthalmia and ringworm in the early stages are of inestimable value. Wage - earning School - children. — Ex- perts are agreed that there has been little if any diminution in the number of children of school age employed as wage-earners since the late Mrs. Hogg began her campaign on behalf of the child toilers of the nation a dozen years ago. Still the wasteful process of using up that national capital — most precious of all — which consists in the lives, health, and strength of its citizens continues to prevail among us to an extent undreamed of by those who are not in the habit of studying industrial questions ; still parents, blind to their children's interests and their own, daily sacrifice the whole future existence of those children to an immediate gain measured at the outside by a few shillings, often by a few pence, weekly. Still, the half- timer of twelve starts for the mill at half-past five in the raw cold of a Lancashire winter morning, to work there from six to one, with a half-hour's interval for breakfast, run home to dinner, and then rush into school to struggle THE WORKER IN CHILDHOOD S3 or slumber through two and a half hours of compulsory instruction. Still we have such cases as that of the little milk-carrier, aged eleven, forced out of bed at five in the morning in all weathers to make a round of three miles, carrying a can weighing thirty pounds, repeat- ing the same round in his dinner-hour, between morning and afternoon school, and spending his evening in cleaning the cans ready for the next day's labour ; or that of the child — recently before the Bradford magistrates — who, her father having given a false certificate of her age, was found employed both as a half-timer in a factory and in one of the pantomimes, so that her day's work altogether extended from 6 A.M. to II P.M. Nor must it be supposed that the number of children so employed is inconsiderable. If we take 200,000 as the figure representing the wage-earning school- children of the country, we shall probably be well within the mark; addition of the 100,000 half-timers employed in mills will bring the number of child labourers up to 300,000. Effect of Child Labour. — The effect upon health and development of all this prema- ture toil is deplorable. Where the pressure of 54 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK circumstances is so great as to be almost irre- sistible, as in the case of the half-starved home- worker who calls in her children's aid, before school and after it, in her task of making match- boxes or carding hooks and eyes, it is easy to find excuse for her action. But what shall we say to those parents who, although the breadwinner of the family is in receipt of decent wages, pre- maturely exhaust their children's strength and render their education a farce by sending them out to hawk newspapers or engage in some other form of that most objectionable employment for the young, street trading? The medical evidence tendered during the Home Office inquiry in connection with the issue of the London County Council By-laws showed most impressively how injurious in many cases is the effect of child labour on the child's physique, and how frequently children working long hours are found on medical examination to be suffer- ing from heart complaint and nervous diseases. The effect upon intelligence, except in those cases where the employment is of a nature not unsuited to a child, healthy in itself, and strictly limited in duration, is equally marked. Nor is the moral question involved to be overlooked. THE WORKER IN CHILDHOOD 55 The vast majority of children regularly em- ployed in this country are engaged in street trading, and every experienced police authority which has given its views upon the subject pronounces street trading to be the worst pos- sible occupation for a child. Not only does it disincline the boy or girl to steady occupation in later years, but it brings about almost immediate deterioration of character and manners, leads the child into evil company, and frequently causes him to become an offender against the law. It is by way of street trading that the majority of the children charged with criminal offences in police courts arrive in the dock. Employment of Children Act, 1903. — This Act, which was preceded in point of time by local Acts in certain great cities, has for its object the protection of children from excessive and positively injurious work. The statutory provisions of the Act are few, being confined to the following points : No child may, unless the Local Authority makes a special by-law (which has to be sanctioned by the Home Secretary before it becomes of force), be employed between nine at night and six in the S6 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK morning. No child under the age of eleven may be employed in street trading at all. No child regularly employed half time may be employed in any other occupation. (In certain places this double employment was formerly notoriously common.) No child is to be employed to lift, carry, or move weights so heavy as to be likely to cause injury to the child. There are also clauses intended to safeguard children against employment in injurious and unhealthy trades, and empowering the Local Authority to send to the child's employer a medical certificate show- ing the child's unfitness (where such unfitness exists) to lift specified weights or engage in specified occupations. The further regulation of child labour is left to the Local Authority m each case, power being given to such Local Authority to make detailed by-laws under the Act as to the age at which employment may begin, the hours of employment, and the speci- fication of trades in which children may or may not be employed. Power is also given them to regulate all the details of street trading, on condition that the poverty or bad character of persons asking for a licence shall not be allowed to influence the grant of that THE WORKER IN CHILDHOOD ^1 licence. The Local Authority is further directed to have " special regard to the desira- bility of preventing the employment of girls under sixteen in streets or public places." By-laws under the Act. — By-laws under the Act require the confirmation of the Secretary of State, who must before confirm- ing them consider any objections which are addressed to him on the subject of the pro- posed by-laws by persons whom they may affect, and may, if he considers it necessary, order a local inquiry to be held in respect of these objections. So far (March 1908) three counties, sixty-nine boroughs, and seven urban districts — that is, 79 out of 266 Local Authorities capable of making by-laws under the Act — have availed themselves of their power to do so. These by-laws vary con- siderably both in extent and severity. Some, like those of the London County Council, go the length of fixing an age (in this case eleven years) below which all employment for wages is illegal, and fix also very precisely the number of hours in the day and week permitted as working hours for children ; others do not touch em- ployment in general at all, and are confined to 58 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK regulations in connection with street trading. A few contain a special clause prohibiting the employment of children in some unhealthy trade peculiar to the particular locality. Street Trading. — It is not possible, nor would it be useful, to enter in this place into the details in which the various existing by- laws reo^ulatine street tradingr differ from one another. Copies of the by-laws can easily be obtained by all persons interested from the Local Authority of their own town or district. Certain features common to most of the by- laws may, however, be here noted. The pro- vision of the London County Council by-laws that a girl under sixteen shall not be employed in street trading unless accompanied by a parent or guardian frequently appears ; much rarer is the total prohibition of such trading by girls under sixteen. The by-laws of the borough of Hornsey not only contain this pro- hibition, but forbid street trading also to boys who are under fourteen years of age, and direct that no child shall be employed in step- cleaning, billiard-marking, or as lather-boy in a barber's shop. Nearly all the by-laws pre- scribe the wearing of a badge. This is a useful THE WORKER IN CHILDHOOD 59 regulation, since it ensures that street trading by children shall not be carried on without a licence, and brings all the children engaged in this occupation under the direct supervision of the authorities. Children's Courts and Probation Offi- cers.— It has been shown by Miss Adler, whose special experience and authority in such matters is generally recognised, that an intimate connection exists between the subject of street trading and the question of children's courts, since, as has already been stated, street trading itself is the principal cause of a great number of juvenile offences. The practice of sending children to gaol for trivial acts of wrong-doing is happily on the wane, and, by the " Children's Bill," must cease altogether after the beginning of 1 9 10. But, even where no sentence of im- prisonment is pronounced, very considerable and, indeed, irreparable harm may be done to a child by placing it in the cells on its arrest — should this arrest take place on Saturday the detention will necessarily last over Sunday — and introducing it into an ordinary police court, with its degrading associations and objectionable company. Neither should children requiring 6o THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK licences to appear in theatrical performances be compelled, as at present, to present them- selves in a police court to obtain them. Chil- dren's courts have already been established, with the happiest effects, in several places ; and now, by the new Children's Bill, there will be provision made for juvenile courts through- out the country. Along with the children's court will come, necessarily, the children's magistrate, whose sole business it will be to deal with child cases ; while the provision of detention homes, being made obligatory on every police authority, will secure all children from making premature acquaintance with the interior of a prison, even for a few hours. The fact that over 3500 children are brought before police magistrates every year in London alone is proof that, by these new provisions of the law, we shall be getting rid of an evil influence which has hitherto annually played its part in an immense number of young lives. Further, under the already existing Probation of Offenders Act, the only remaining argument for sending a child to prison — namely, that his offence is not serious enough to justify his committal to a reformatory school — has been THE WORKER IN CHILDHOOD 6i done away with. Instead of being sent to gaol for three or seven days, the child can now be returned to its home, having been placed under the supervision of a trained Probation Officer, whose business it is to watch over and advise it during the prescribed period of probation. In many cases, this period of probation under the watchful care of a wise and kindly friend may well prove the turning-point in a naughty child's career. Wherever it is possible, special Probation Officers, to be called Children's Pro- bation Officers, are to be appointed ; and par- ticular stress is laid on the appointment in all cases of an educated man or woman, having real experience of industrial and social matters in the district. The Secretary of State has recommended that in the case of boys and girls of school age the Probation Officer shall be a woman. Since the duties of the Probation Officer include not only the regular visiting of the child on probation, and the making of periodical reports on the child's behaviour, but the giving of advice and assistance, espe- cially in the matter of finding suitable employ- ment, a very large field of useful work is here opened. 62 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK Begging. — Begging, whether openly carried on or partially disguised by a pretence of sell- ing matches or boot-laces, is another of the causes frequently leading to the arrest of children. Since such begging is nearly always the result of pressure put upon the child by the parent or guardian, it furnishes an additional argument for the establishment of special courts, and of a reformatory process in which the child shall not be treated as a criminal. Here too the work of the Probation Officer will be invaluable. Children in Theatres. — Reference has been already made to the magistrate's licence which must be obtained before a child is per- mitted to engage in a theatrical performance. The magistrate must satisfy himself as to the physical fitness of the little performer and the respectability of the place where it is to be employed. In the case of children engaged by the manager of a travelling company, the licence has to be renewed in every town visited. This last provision is a very valuable safeguard to children "on tour." In many companies the children are well cared for, both their bodily well-being and their education receiving THE WORKER IN CHILDHOOD 63 conscientious attention ; but the life of late hours, excitement, and self-display cannot be looked on as healthy or desirable, and it is matter for congratulation that no child under ten may now be employed in a theatre. The theatrical work of children is mainly done during the pantomime season in our large towns, but ballets and costume pieces employ a certain number of children at other times in the year. Children and Dangerous Performances. — By a special Act, persons causing any boy under the age of sixteen, or any girl under the age of eighteen, or any child, to take part in public exhibitions which shall be held by a magistrate to endanger life or limb, is subject to a penalty. Such persons may also be proceeded against under the Prevention of Cruelty to Children Act. Children can con- sequently only be employed to perform as acrobats or in connection with a circus when they have a magistrate's licence to do so. Children and Public-houses. — Children under fourteen may not be served with intoxi- cants on licensed premises, unless these are delivered to them in sealed bottles. This is a 64 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK very salutary provision of the law, since, apart from removing from the child temptation to drink on its own account, it puts a check upon the too prevalent habit of employing children to fetch liquor for parents at home. Many by-laws made under the Employment of Children Act contain a clause providing that no licensed child eng-aofed in street tradinof may enter a public-house to offer its wares for sale. Neither may any child under eleven, nor, between nine at night and six in the morning, any girl under sixteen or any boy under fourteen, be employed in singing, danc- ing, or any other kind of performance in a public-house. Cruelty to Children. — It is within the power of a magistrate to take a child out of the control of its parent if the parent either ill- treats or wilfully neglects the child. Every now and then some ghastly case comes to light in which children are found to have been systematically tortured by parents apparently endowed with a natural love of cruelty, or allowed to perish through want of care and nourishment, in order that the parent may obtain the sum of money payable by an insur- THE WORKER IN CHILDHOOD 65 ance society on the death of the child. Even those of us who most strongly hold that almost any home is better than no home at all are ready to admit, that in such cases as these, the law which removes the child and detains it in a place of safety, until the magistrate has selected an institution or person where it can be received until it is sixteen years of age, is a beneficent one. Parents who send their children out beg- ging or cause them to perform in public-houses contrary to the law, or allow them, being less than eleven years old, to engage in street trading or public performances, or have them trained with a view to their taking part in any dangerous exhibition, may similarly be deprived of the custody of their children. Persons who are not actual parents, but have " the custody, charge, or care of" children, are subject to the same law, which also holds good in the case of persons exposing children in such a manner as is likely to injure their health. The section of the Prevention of Cruelty to Children Act which deals with the last-named class of case enables the authorities to take action on occa- sions where, for instance, an unfortunate baby is exposed to the inclemency of a winter day on £ ^(i THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK a street piano, or in company with a "happy family", in order to excite the compassion of the passers-by. Parents who are deprived of the custody of their children for any of the reasons detailed above do not thereby escape their pecuniary responsibility for those children. This is well, since such escape would, in the case of a brutal or callous parent, often lead to aggravation of cruelty. As the law stands, these unnatural parents are compelled to contribute to their children's maintenance the sum fixed by the court in which their case is tried. Rest and Recreation for Children. — It is a relief to turn from the darker side of child life to consideration of the provision made for the health and pleasure of children of school age. If a child is to develop satisfactorily, and to live a healthy as well as a happy life, it ought to spend a considerable portion of its time in play. Country children, whatever the hardships of their lot, generally manage to achieve this desirable end without much difficulty. But for the little town-dweller the space to play in is often Wanting. The home is at once too narrow and too full of business and human life to afford THE WORKER IN CHILDHOOD 67 even a corner for the games of childhood ; at the same time, careful parents shrink from allowing their children to make a playground of the streets. Life in the streets does, indeed, sharpen the children's wits ; but it also gives them a precocious knowledge of evil, and rubs off the bloom of childish innocence in a fashion pitiful and deplorable to see. It is to meet the children's want of a place to play in that the Children's Happy Evenings were instituted ; and their institution was doubtless a very im- portant event in the history of English child- hood. But an evening of play once a fortnight, or even once a week, is poor measure for a growing child, restless and high-spirited, or depressed by the circumstances of a poverty- stricken home; and the consciousness that some organisation of playforming part of the children's daily lives is needed has led of late years to the creation of Play Centres, by which this need is more fully met. The vacation schools created by the sympathy and enterprise of Mrs. Humphry Ward represent an attempt, highly successful as far as it has gone, to provide the swarm of forlorn children left unoccupied in city streets during the long summer holidays with a place 68 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK of refuge where they may not only amuse themselves happily and safely, but may at the same time learn the rudiments of crafts and occupations for the teaching" of which the crowded curriculum of the ordinary school day leaves no opportunity. Children's Country Holidays. — Un- doubtedly the best form of vacation school for a city child is to be found in the fields and lanes of the country. Even an occasional day in sur- roundings other than those unlovely ones in which so many of our children pass their lives is worth something both to mind and body ; but, if much and lasting good is to be effected, the holiday must take the form of a stay in country surroundings. This is secured to those children who are sent away under the auspices of the Children's Country Holiday Fund, which works throughout London by means of its local com- mittees. The holiday provided by this fund lasts a fortnight, and is passed in a country cottage home selected by its visitors. Parents and guardians contribute to the expenses of the holiday, and the children sent are selected after careful consultation with their teachers. The grounds of selection are that the child needs THE WORKER IN CHILDHOOD 69 change, and has no friends in the country whom it can visit. Children who require medical treatment do not come within the scope of this fund's operation. But another society, the " Sunbeam Mission," makes it its special busi- ness to provide holidays for children who are crippled or suffering. Clubs for Children. — Clubs for children of school age are still comparatively few in number as compared with those which exist for the benefit of their elder brothers and sisters. There is, however, a growing tendency to establish clubs for younger girls and boys, to which they may go during the last year before they leave school, and there is no doubt that these places, under the guidance and supervision of a good club leader, provide a useful prepara- tory school for the more independent life of the senior clubs in which membership will be obtained when the child goes to work. 70 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK . III. STATE CHILDREN Differing Systems of Education. — Hitherto we have been dealing with children naturally under the care of their own parents or of some person occupying towards them the position of a parent. A word must be said before closing this chapter of those little ones who are, in the eye of the law, only the children of the State. Formerly these children were permitted to live in workhouses in close contact with the adult inmates. But the evils of this system have long been recognised, and State children are now, in the great majority of cases, separately provided for. The system of up- bringing and education varies in different Unions. In some all the children of the work- house are brought up together in a large barrack school; in others the Guardians have established district schools on the cottage home system, often — as in the case of the Kensington and Chelsea District Schools at Banstead, and of the Shoreditch Cottage Homes at Hornchurch — at a considerable distance from the borders THE WORKER IN CHILDHOOD 71 of the Union. The Shoreditch Cottage Homes, built to accommodate a foster-mother and thirty children in each, are eleven in number, and, with the workshops, bakehouse, swimming- bath, stores, chapel, schoolroom, band-room, infirmary, and infectious disease hospital at- tached to them, form a village settlement. The drawback to such settlements is that, all the children being Poor Law children, there is little incentive to intelligence and energy, such as comes by association with the world outside workhouse institutions. For this reason the "scattered" homes system favoured by some Boards of Guardians may be considered better than the settlement plan. Such homes are provided in or near the Union, they frequently contain only ten and never more than twenty children, and the children have no special school of their own, but attend the public ele- mentary school of the district. The boarding- out system — another method of providing for State children — is also largely resorted to by Guardians in the present day. Here again the operations of the Guardians are no longer re- stricted to the limits of their Union. They may board out children in such places as they 72 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK think proper to select, but no child may be boarded out who is not either an orphan or deserted. Boarded-out children must be be- tween the ages of two and ten ; but an exception is allowed in the case of a child above the age of ten who has a little brother or sister below that age, and can be placed in the same home. The children are placed under the care of foster-parents, cottagers, who are not allowed to receive more than two children at a time, except in the case of brothers and sisters, and then must not receive more than four. A boarding-out committee is responsible for find- ing suitable homes and for superintending the conduct of the home after the child has been placed there. The Local Government Board has laid down a number of regulations providing for proper accommodation, food, clothing, and education in the case of a boarded-out child ; and, in case of dissatisfaction on the part of the boarding-out committee, children can be with- drawn by the Guardians at a week's notice. The fact that there are five children already in a family, or that an adult lodger is taken, dis- qualifies that family for receiving a boarded-out child. A member of the boarding-out com- THE WORKER IN CHILDHOOD 73 mittee must reside within five miles of the cottager's home, and the child must be visited and reported on by a member of the committee at least once in every six weeks. Quarterly reports from the master of the public elemen- tary school attended by the child are also required. Opinion is very sharply divided on the merits of the boarding-out system as op- posed to education in district schools or '* scat- tered" homes. It seems probable that where inspection is thorough, constant, and competent, a system which makes the child the member of a family is, especially in the case of girls, to be preferred. But it must be admitted that it exposes the children so boarded out, under certain circumstances, to considerable danger. Afflicted State Children. — Defective or imbecile children, children who are blind or deaf and dumb, are usually placed by the Guar- dians in special institutions. State Children and Apprenticeship. — The Guardians have powers to apprentice chil- dren or to send them out to service. It is not necessary that a child so apprenticed should be actually in the workhouse, nor even that its parents should be in receipt of relief at the 74 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK time ; but, as apprenticeship by Guardians is considered a species of relief, the child of an able-bodied man is not held a fit subject for it. If the child is under fourteen a medical certifi- cate of fitness for the proposed trade has to be obtained ; and if it is in the workhouse the master must vouch for its general capacity. Inquiries must be made as to the residence, trade, &c., of the proposed master ; the consent of the child himself has to be obtained ; and in case of apprenticeship to sea service the inden- ture must be attested by two justices of the peace who have satisfied themselves that the boy has consented, that he is healthy and strong, and is being bound to a proper person. Many boys are sent by the Guardians to train- ing and Coastguard ships to be trained for service in the Royal Navy. Guardians are also permitted to establish training ships. A register of those under sixteen placed out as apprentices or in service is kept, and they must be visited and reported upon twice a year by a Relieving Officer. The M.A.B.Y.S. and G.F.S.— In the business of placing out girls in service the Metropolitan Guardians avail themselves largely THE WORKER IN CHILDHOOD 75 of the assistance of the Metropolitan Associa- tion for Befriending Young Servants, an excel- lent voluntary society which for years past has done admirable work in finding situations for young, untrained girls and watching over their subsequent career in service, as well as in assisting them to provide themselves with the necessary preliminary outfit. The registries of the Girls' Friendly Society also perform a useful work in putting girls into touch with domestic employers. THE WORKER AT HOME THE WORKER AT HOME Character and Environment. — Few will be found in these days to deny the effect which surroundings produce upon character, or to dispute the truth of the assertion that among those whose circumstances have accustomed them to unprotesting endurance of discomfort, dirt, and indecency the moral standard will necessarily be low and the power of moral initiative in abeyance. The dumb tolerance of intolerable things so common in the very poor is a sign of weakened spiritual force as well as of lowered physical vitality. Indignation, though it be indignation only against a leaking roof or a foul drain, horror and disgust, even when the evils which excite them are to be found in connection with the material dust- bin, are wholesome sentiments. Absence of such 79 8o THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK sentiments in the face of provocation argues atrophy of the soul as well as the senses. In such an atrophied condition, we are forced to conclude, do many of our people drag out existence. Were they alive to the misery of their state they would surely put their hand to the work of remedy. Housing and Sanitation. — Much of that misery is remediable. Take, as an instance, the ill-health, moral evils, and general wretched- ness caused by bad housing, overcrowding, and defective sanitation. In town and country alike are to be found roofs that leak and walls that run down with water ; both too frequently suffer from the absence of proper sanitary accommodation — one tumbledown closet, in the city slum, perhaps serving half a dozen large families — and lack of a pure and sufficient water-supply. Ill-smelling ashpits and dust- bins and the effluvia arising from untrapped sinks create a constant danger to health, or the presence of a donkey in a neglected stable hard by the dwelling poisons the air breathed by its inmates. In the country the windows will not open ; in the towns they are often so small as to let in only a modicum of light, and the little THE WORKER AT HOME 8i children of the family, and even the grown- up inmates of the dirty room, grow daily more wan and unwholesome-looking in consequence. Stairs are rickety and breakneck, and full of holes — we have known West London tene- ments in which the visiting of families resident on the upper floors involved acrobatic feats performed in almost complete darkness ; cellar- dwellings, with all their injurious results to physique and their subtly degrading influence on morale, are not even now unknown to our civilisation. (In Liverpool in 1907 there were 2016 such dwellings, with 6337 inhabitants.) Overcrowding, though it has diminished within the last ten years, is still a monstrous evil — to be found in the agrricultural labourer's cottaore, where a family of ten, including father and mother, grown-up lads and girls, have nightly to dispose themselves in two bedrooms, as well as in the single tenement room which, while it serves every possible domestic use and purpose for several people, may very likely be a work- room as well. And people accept these things as though they were the result of natural laws, instead of being — as in the majority of cases they are — the outcome of man's carelessness or F 82 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK cupidity, and at the same time a defiance of the law of the land. The complete transformation of the slums must be a work of time. But much may even now be done, by wise and vigorous use of existing legislative provisions, to amend the worst features of slum life. The Public Health Acts. — In waging war against conditions which infect and deeply injure, if they do not utterly destroy, home life, the workers and those who desire to be their friends will find their best weapon in the Public Health Acts. The definition given in these Acts of nuisances is so wide that it will cover many matters which at first sight we might hesitate to describe by that term. *' A nuisance is something which either actually injures or is likely to injure health, and admits of a remedy, either by the individual whose act or omission causes the nuisance or by the Local Authority." From this definition it will be seen that any act producing results injurious to the health of neighbours may be legally stopped. For ex- ample, pressure can be brought to bear upon a manufacturer who allows offensive refuse to accumulate in a place where it affects his fel- low citizens, whose factory chimneys give off THE WORKER AT HOME 83 volumes of black smoke, or whose factory drains discharge themselves into malodorous open ditches and pools. Among " remediable " nuisances are to be included general " disre- pair " of buildings : roofs that have ceased to be watertight, damp walls, defective paving of yards, want of light and ventilation, old rat runs, general dirtiness ; defective water-supply, uncovered or dirty cisterns, pollution of water used for drinking and washing purposes by its connection with the closet ; and nuisances arising from defective fittings of sinks and closets. The repairs necessary in the case of such nuisances, being " structural " repairs, fall upon the owner of the house, and not upon the occupying tenant. Where the latter is a weekly tenant, the owner is, in addition, responsible for cleaning, whitewashing, and re-papering the interior of the dwelling at reasonable intervals. Absence of a sufficient water-supply in London renders a house legally " unfit for human habi- tation." Unfortunately the rule is less strict in some provincial towns, while in villages many houses are without a water-supply at all, and even the filling of the kettle necessitates a journey to and from a well which may be at 84 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK some little distance from the tea-maker's home. In London the provisions in respect of sani- tary accommodation require one w.c. in each house for every twelve persons sleeping on the premises ; in the provinces the standard varies ; but the great point is that the pre- scribed standard should in all cases be main- tained by the Local Authority, and this, by reason of public apathy and indifference, is a duty in which it frequently fails. The Local Authority has full power over drains, ditches, and yards which are allowed to fall into an offensive condition, over places in which animals are kept, and in respect of ash-pits and dust-bins. The keeping of animals in a town is attended with peculiar difficulty, if no one's health or comfort is to be injured by their presence. Horses, when stabled near a dwelling, must be kept very clean, all manure from their stable being removed daily ; and it should be borne in mind that fowls are apt to breed disease among their human neighbours unless great care is exercised and the fowl-house lime-washed at regular intervals. The Sanitary Inspector has the right to order the removal of any animal which is not properly kept. THE WORKER AT HOME 85 Ash-pits and dust-bins should be placed as far as possible from the dwelling, and kept covered ; no decaying matter should be emptied into them. The only safe way with vegetable refuse is to burn it. Once a week at least the dust-bin should be emptied, and if the dustman fails to call at the appointed time complaint should be at once made to the Local Authority by letter. The removal of dust is provided for at the public charge out of the rates, and any attempt to extort " the dustman's 2^.'* is entirely illegal, and ought to be resisted. Nor has the question of overcrowding been overlooked by those who drafted the Public Health Acts. 300 cubic feet of space is the minimum allowance for each person in a room used as a sleeping room only. Where the sleeping room is a living room as well the requirement is 400 feet. Enforcement of the Acts. — All these conditions, then, which so nearly affect the life and well-being of the worker at home, are under the control of the Local Authority, and can be modified by its action. That action of • a remedial kind is so frequently wanting is in great measure due to the backwardness of the 86 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK people themselves in taking advantage of laws framed for their protection. Yet a few lines addressed to the Medical Officer of Health would, in the case of most of the evils just enumerated, have beneficial results. It is true that not all Local Authorities administer the Public Health Acts with equal vigour ; with some, indeed, administration is deplorably lax. But here too the people have the remedy in their own hands. The Local Authority is not a nominated, but an elected body ; and if the electors would make it clear in the polls that they were determined to have the law fully and fairly administered in their district the Acts would speedily become a beneficent reality where now they have only a name to live. Infectious Diseases. — The special legis- lation directed of late years against the spread of infectious diseases has been of incalculable benefit to the community. To it we owe, in large measure, the comparatively low death- rate of many of our great towns, and the decrease of certain forms of infectious disease among us. Under the Infectious Diseases Notification and Prevention Acts precautions can be en- THE WORKER AT HOME 87 forced against the conveyance of infectious diseases. There are only a certain number of infectious diseases termed " notifiable diseases " — i.e., that must by law be notified to the Medical Officer of Health for the district where the sick person is living. These are : Small - pox, Cholera, Diphtheria, Membranous Croup, Erysipelas, Scarlet Fever, Typhus, Typhoid or Enteric, Continued, Relapsing, and Puerperal Fevers. Phthisis. — It is also now recognised that phthisis — or " consumption " — is an infectious disease, and that infection is quickly spread by spitting. Local Authorities in increasing numbers make regulations with regard to spitting, and in many districts have adopted the voluntary notification of phthisis, in order that instruction may be given to the sufferer and disinfection of the premises carried out after death or removal. In consumption fresh air and simlight are the two great essentials. In every dwelling where there is a consump- tive person the window should always be 88 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK kept open, and all unnecessary hangings, such as heavy curtains, removed. In case of epidemic diseases other than those mentioned the Local Authority may, if it thinks well, pass a resolution adding to the list, either temporarily or permanently. During an outbreak of small-pox, chicken-pox is gene- rally classed as a notifiable disease. Some authorities have also added influenza when an epidemic is raging. The resolution must be confirmed by the Local Government Board. Disinfection. — Any room or house and all bedding, clothing, &c., likely to be infected from one of the above-named diseases must be disinfected by the owner. This may be, and in London usually is, done by the Sanitary Authority, and if any article has to be de- stroyed, or suffers unnecessary damage during the process, the Sanitary Authority may com- pensate the owner. Isolation and Hospital Treatment. — Where it is not possible for the sick person to be properly isolated, it is enacted that he may be removed to hospital. Treatment in fever and small-pox hospitals is entirely free, but it does not pauperise the person who accepts it. THE WORKER AT HOME 89 Infected Rubbish. — No one must know- ingly put any infected rubbish into the ash-pit, or "give, lend, sell, transmit, remove, or ex- pose " any infected article without its being previously disinfected. Letting Infected Rooms. — No one must let for hire any infected house or part of a house without first having it disinfected. And any one letting a house, knowingly making a false statement as to the presence or recent presence of infectious disease, or on ceasing to occupy a house after an infectious disease failing to have it disinfected, is liable to a heavy penalty. Exposure of Infected Persons. — If any one is suffering from any of the diseases men- tioned he is forbidden to expose himself in any public place, or to use any public vehicle, such as a railway carriage, cab, or omnibus. Any one in charge of a person so suffering is subject to the same rule. Business Forbidden to Infected Per- sons.— A.11 those trades or businesses likely to spread the disease, particularly the clothing trades, the milking of animals, fruit picking, or any occupation connected with the prepara- tion or handling of food. 90 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK Measles. — By a recent by-law of the London County Council all the above regula- tions with the exception of " notification " apply to measles, which is now held to be a "dan- gerous infectious disease." By "notification" is meant compulsory notification by medical practitioners. Measles is for children a parti- cularly dangerous illness, and should by no means be considered, as it frequently is, a malady of no account. It is often fatal in weakly chil- dren, and lays the seeds of many diseases of a serious nature. Elementary schools are compelled to notify the existence of any infectious disease to the Medical Officer of Health. This regulation enables much o"ood to be done in the visitation of sick children at their homes, and the distri- bution of leaflets showing the danger of the illness and the necessary precautions that should be taken. Landlord and Tenant. — The vast majority of our workers are weekly tenants, a fact which renders their relation to the man whose house or room they hire, or to the company in whose buildings they rent a flat or tenement, one of extreme simplicity. Non-payment of a single THE WORKER AT HOME 91 week's rent gives the landlord right of eject- ment, but if the tenant is not in default he is entitled to a reasonable notice to quit, not exceeding a week. In practice few landlords give notice to quit on a single failure to pay the week's rent. Distraint for Rent. — In the case of distraint for rent it is to be noted that the workman's tools, as being his means of livelihood, may not under certain circumstances be seized along with his other goods and chattels. This is a point worthy of remembrance, and one with which the persons most concerned are not always acquainted. To a tailoress fallen on evil days the question of preserving her sewing-machine, very likely her single posses- sion of any value, from the general wreck of her household goods is one of vital importance. Its retention may mean for her the difference between ultimate return to wage-earning and in- dependence and permanent sojourn in the work- house. The wearing apparel and bedding (including the bedstead) of the tenant or his family and the tools and implements of his trade to the value of ;^5 are to that extent privileged from distress. But apart from the 92 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK absolute privilege to the ^5 limit, tools and implements of trade are privileged only when there is other sufficient distress on the premises. Lodgers. — The continued presence of a lodger who refuses to quit, although his rent is many weeks in arrear and he has no prospect of paying it, is often a cruel embarrassment to working men and women who depend on the lodger's payments for the ekeing out of slender weekly earnings. It is therefore well to know that where a week's notice, personally given, is disregarded by the lodger, a magistrate's order for ejectment may in some cases be obtained. The law of notice in respect of a lodger is the same as that with regard to a weekly tenant. Law of Husband and Wife, Wills, Affi- liation, &C. — In an Appendix to this chapter will be found a short statement of the law of husband and wife, including the procedure necessary to obtain a separation order, and an explanation of the rights of a widow on the death of her husband when that husband has died intestate. Since the making of wills is a generally neglected duty, it is important that a woman so left,° or her advisers, should know THE WORKER AT HOME 93 how to proceed. At the same time it may be said that the neglect of will-making is to be regretted, and that, for the peace and comfort of families, it would be an excellent thing if all persons who have anything to leave, though it be no more than the furniture of two rooms and a modest sum in the Post Office Savings Bank, would clearly designate the person or persons to whom they wish to bequeath their property. The making of a simple will presents no diffi- culties : a form can be purchased at almost any stationer's, and the use of legal phraseology is quite unnecessary. Testators must, however, be careful to sign their wills in the presence of two witnesses, neither of whom must be a person to whom anything is left under the will. If the second of these rules is transgressed the person in question will lose his legacy. Separation of Married Persons. — It has been thought that the Appendix will be useful to some readers, and especially to those who may be called upon to advise in cases where a wife proposes to separate from her husband, or the maintenance of an illegitimate child is in question. While separation of married persons, like marriage itself, should never be undertaken 94 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK lightly or unadvisedly, circumstances arise in which it appears the least of two evils. Thus, a woman mated to an habitual drunkard, who spends her hard-won earnings on whisky and so deprives his children of bread, may feel bound for the sake of those children, if not for her own, to take the step which will remove them from an atmosphere conducive to their moral degradation as well as their physical misery. Maintenance for the wife should always be insisted on in separation cases. To allow a worthless or cruel husband to escape scot-free from the burden of supporting the woman whom his misconduct has driven out of her rightful home, is simply to place a premium on bad behaviour. APPENDIX BY STEPHEN MIALL, LL.D. (a) HUSBAND AND WIFE Marriage. — The requisites to a valid mar- riage are : 1. The parties must be of the required age, which in the case of males is fourteen years and of females twelve. 2. The parties must not be within the pro- hibited degrees of relationship. 3. If either is under twenty-one the consent of his or her parents or guardians is necessary. 4. The formalities required by law must be complied with— i.e., the marriage must be solemnised after previous (i) Publication of banns, or (2) Grant of a common or special licence if according to the rites of the Church 95 96 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK of England, or, if according to those of the Roman CathoHc Church, or those of the Congregational, Wesleyan, or other Dissenting Churches, after obtaining a Registrar's certificate with licence ; or, should the parties not wish to have a religious ceremony, then after obtaining a Registrar's certificate without licence, which enables them to be married at a Registry Office. Liability of Husband for his Wife's Debts AND Wrongs Committed by her A husband is liable in respect of the debts contracted by his wife and wrongs committed by her before the marriage, but only to the extent of the property he has acquired through her. He is liable for the debts contracted by her after the marriage, provided his wife has acted (i) As his express agent — e.g., when he gives her permission to purchase goods. APPENDIX 97 While the husband and wife are living together the husband is liable for debts con- tracted by his wife in respect of necessaries supplied to her. Necessaries mean goods suitable to the social station of her husband. If the parties are living apart, as a general rule the wife has no authority to pledge her husband's credit. But the husband is liable if they are living apart on account of his own misconduct, and his wife is left without adequate means of support ; and if they are living apart by mutual consent, and he fails to pay her a reasonable or agreed allowance. (2) If a husband is in the habit of paying his wife's bills, the tradesmen naturally assume that she has his authority to pledge his credit, and that makes him liable to tradesmen who rely on such an assumption. To escape this liability the husband must warn the public that for the future he will not be responsible for debts created by his wife, and he must pre- serve evidence of such warning. The only safe way in which this can be done is for the husband to give notice to each individual tradesman at whose shop his wife is known to have been served. G 98 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK A husband is liable for all wrongs committed by her whilst they are living together, even if they have been committed without his authority. He is even liable though they are living apart (unless by judicial separation) for wrongs com- mitted by the wife whilst they were living together and with his authority. Judicial Separation A married woman has under the Summary Jurisdiction (Married Women) Act, 1895, a cheap and summary remedy equal to the decree of judicial separation of the Divorce Court for various specified offences. If her husband has been convicted summarily of an aggravated assault upon her, or convicted upon indictment of an assault upon her and sentenced to pay a fine of more than ^5 or to a term of imprisonment for more than two months ; or if her husband has deserted her, or is guilty of persistent cruelty to her, or of wilful neglect to provide reasonable mainten- ance for her or her infant children whom he is APPENDIX 99 legally liable to maintain, and shall by such cruelty or neglect have caused her to leave and live separately apart from him, or if he is guilty of habitual drunkenness, a married woman may apply to a Metropolitan police magistrate if in London, or to any court of summary jurisdiction acting within the city, borough, or district in which any such conviction has taken place, or in which the cause of complaint has wholly or partially arisen, for an order for judicial separation and for an allowance for her maintenance. By the Licensing Act, 1902, a married man can, if his wife is guilty of habitual drunken- ness, apply to a Metropolitan police magistrate if in London, or to the justices of the peace for the district if in the country, for a similar order. The order which can be made may contain all or any of the following provisions : (i) That the applicant be no longer bound to cohabit with the husband (or wife). (2) For the custody of the children of the marriage. If the wife is the applicant, the custody of the children under sixteen may be given to her. If the husband is the applicant. loo THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK there is no such limit, and the court may entrust the children to the care of some person other than the husband. (3) That the husband shall pay to the wife personally or to any officer of the court or to some third person on her behalf such weekly sum not exceeding £2 as the court may con- sider reasonable, having regard to the means of both husband and wife. (4) For payment by the applicant or the husband (or wife), or both of them, the costs of the court, and such reasonable costs of either of the parties as the court may think fit. In cases where the husband applies to the court on account of his wife's habitual drunken- ness the justices may, instead of making an order for separation, with the consent of the wife order her to be committed to and detained in any inebriates' home the licensee of which is willing to receive her. To obtain relief under these Acts the appli- cant must apply to the justices for a summons within six months after the offence complained of, except in the case of desertion, when there is no limit of time fixed. No order can be made on the application of a married woman if it be APPENDIX loi proved that she has committed an act of adultery, provided her husband has not con- doned or connived at or by his wilful neglect or misconduct conduced to such act of adultery. If judicial separation by the Divorce Court is required a lawyer must be consulted. Rights of a Widow on the Death of HER Husband Intestate On the death of her husband without leaving a will a widow has the following rights, each of which will be shortly noticed : 1. A life interest in a portion of her late husband's real estate (freehold land and houses) if he died without having made a will. 2. A certain interest in her husband's personal estate (leasehold land and houses, money, stocks, and shares, &c.). 3. A right to take out letters of adminis- tration and to collect and distribute her husband's estate. 102 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK 1. If the husband left any real estate it will usually be necessary to consult a lawyer. 2. Under an old statute passed in the reign of Charles II., when a man possessed of personal estate dies without having made a will any surplus that remains after the payment of his funeral expenses and debts is to be distributed between his widow and children (or if any of his children die in his lifetime leaving issue, then between his widow and the representatives of his children), the widow taking one-third and the children (or their representatives) the remaining two-thirds of the amount of such surplus. Should he die without leaving any issue, his widow is then entitled to one-half of the surplus and his other next of kin to the other half. On the other hand, should he die leaving no issue, and the net value of his pro- perty does not exceed ^500, the whole of such property belongs to his widow absolutely. If the value exceed ;^500, the widow is entitled to ;^500 in addition to the half-share of the residue of the property. 3. The court will grant letters of administra- tion to the widow unless there be reason to the APPENDIX 103 contrary — as, for instance, if the parties are separated. The procedure to obtain a grant of adminis- tration is as follows : Where the estate of her late husband does not exceed ;^ioo in value a widow may, if she resides more than three miles from the registry of the Court of Probate having jurisdiction in the matter, apply to the Registrar of the County Court in the district of which her late husband had his fixed place of abode at the time of his death. The Registrar, on being satisfied of the identity and relationship of the applicant, will fill up the usual papers required by the Court of Probate for the purpose of granting administration, and will swear the applicant and attest the bond. The papers are then forwarded by the Registrar to the registry of the Court of Probate having jurisdiction in the matter. In due course the letters of adminis- tration will be sent to the Registrar of the County Court, who will hand them to the widow on payment of the requisite fees, which vary from ^s. to i^s. In a number of cases the widow need not 104 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK trouble to obtain a grant of administration, the most important being : (i) If her late husband was a petty officer or seaman in H.M.'s Navy, or a private or non-commissioned officer in the Marines, and an amount is entered in the books of the Admiralty to the' credit of the deceased, such amount not exceeding ;^ioo. Administration is, however, required if the amount exceeds £ioo. (2) If her late husband, being a non-com- missioned officer or private in H.M.'s Army, was entitled to any pension, prize-money, and pay not exceeding £^0. (3) If her husband, being a merchant seaman or apprentice, was entitled to property in the hands of the Board of Trade, or any agent of the Board of Trade, such property not exceeding ^100 in value. (4) In the case of money on deposit at the Post Office Savings Bank in the name of her husband, in amount not exceeding ^100. (5) Or shares in industrial or provident societies not exceeding ;^ioo. :- (6) In building or loan societies not ex- ceeding ^50. APPENDIX 105 (7) Sums payable to her husband by friendly societies not exceeding ;^ioo. (8) Sums payable to her husband (if in the Civil Service*) not exceeding ;^ioo. In all other cases the widow must, to obtain the property, first take out letters of adminis- tration, for which purpose she should either go direct to Somerset House, if in London, or to a solicitor. {b) AFFILIATION ORDERS, OR BASTARDY ORDERS Any single woman (and for this purpose a widow or a married woman living apart from her husband is to be deemed a single woman) may apply to a police magistrate or justice of the peace for the district in which she resides for a summons against the alleged father. The application must be made : * "Civil Service" includes such Government employees as policemen, postmen, &c. io6 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK (i) Before the birth of the child; or (2) At any time within twelve months after the birth ; or (3) At any time after the birth if the father has paid money for its main- tenance within twelve months after the birth ; or (4) At any time within twelve months next after the return to England of the man alleged to be the father, upon proof that he did not reside in England within twelve months after the birth of the child. If the application is made before the birth of the child, the woman must make a deposition on oath stating who is the father. On the hearing of the summons the evidence of the woman must be corroborated in some material particular by other evidence to the satisfaction of the justices. This confirmatory evidence may consist of letters written by or conversations with the alleged father, or proof of promise of marriage after knowledge of the condition of the woman, or acts of familiarity or APPENDIX 107 other conduct tending to corroborate the evi- dence of the mother. The statement of the woman as to any pay- ment having been made by the alleged father within twelve months after the birth of the child need not be corroborated, but the magis- trate or justice usually requires her to make a deposition on oath before he issues the summons. The order may be either for the payment of a lump sum or a sum of money weekly, not exceeding 5^. a week, for the maintenance of the child. The justices may, in addition, order the father to pay the expenses incidental to the birth, and the costs incurred by the mother in obtaining the order. Should the child die before the order has been made, the funeral expenses may also be added. The weekly sums are payable until the child attains the age of thirteen, unless the magistrate or justices direct that they shall continue to be paid until the child is sixteen. If the mother applies for the order before the birth of the child or within two calendar months after, the justices may, if they think io8 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK fit, order the weekly sum to be payable from the date of the child's birth. The mother cannot appeal against the re- fusal of the magistrate or justices either to grant a summons or to make an order. No order can be made in the case of a stillborn child. THE WORKER AT WORK THE WORKER AT WORK Every one has heard of the great industrial changes which resulted from the introduction of steam power. Work which previously had mainly been carried on in the home was transplanted to great hives of industry, and the factory, with its elaborate subdivision of work, superseded a simpler system. A great work- man's charter has been gradually developed to protect the worker under the present highly centralised condition of labour, in the shape of our code of Factory and Workshop Laws, and it is with these and other labour laws that the following chapters deal. The Factory Inspectors appointed by the Home Office enforce these laws, except those affecting the sanitation of workshops. These are administered by the inspectors under the I [2 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK Local Authority of each district ; but here also the Factory Inspector has supervisory powers, and can act if the Local Authority fails. Factories. — The most complete protection is that given to factories — that is to say, "any premises, rooms, places in which steam, water, or other mechanical power is employed for purposes of gain in making, repairing, alter- ing, finishing, ornamenting, or adapting for sale any article or any process incidental thereto." Workshops. — Workshops (other than do- mestic workshops) which answer to the same definition, except that no power is used and only manual labour is employed there, are also well protected.* As this great mass of workplaces can well be treated together, I will deal first with the laws which protect the workers there. Numbers. — It will be necessary to bear in mind that, save in some exceptional instances, * Domestic workshops are those private houses or rooms or places so made use of where the only persons employed are members of the same family dwelling there. These are not subject to the same regulations as other workshops, though they have special regulations for hours of labour of children and young people. THE WORKER AT WORK 113 numbers make no difference to protection, and that a place in which one worker is employed is a factory or workshop if it comes within the definition given, just as much as if a hundred persons were employed. Sanitation. — There has been a crusade of late years on the subject of fresh air and regulation of temperature, and most educated persons are alive to the need for the applica- tion of these elementary principles of hygiene. Teachers in particular are well drilled in such matters, and great care is taken to regulate the temperature of the schools. One pictures the experience of a child leaving school for some workplace such as those of which we constantly hear. Throughout the cold weather complaints arise as to the absence of adequate heating apparatus in workrooms. In one instance only a tiny gas stove was provided to warm a large area in which many persons worked, while in another the only method was that derived from lighted gas jets and the breath and bodies of crowded human beings. The vitiated atmosphere induces intolerable lassitude and headache, and sometimes absolutely undermines health, and cases of consumption have been direcdy traced H 114 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK by doctors to the atmosphere of the workplace. Sometimes the atmosphere, as in a laundry or jam factory, may be impregnated with steam, and the clothing and hair of the workers wet with moisture, while the water standing in pools on ill-drained floors penetrates the shoes and soaks the feet. In bottle- washing and aerated water factories the workers suffer much from the water which splashes and soaks their clothes. Perhaps even a more fruitful source of ill-health is that which comes from badly arranged and ill-trapped sanitary accommoda- tion adjacent to or opening sometimes into workrooms and poisoning the air with effluvia. In a carelessly conducted place of work very serious moral evils may also be traced to this cause. Insufficient and unsuitable sanitary accommodation, with broken-down partitions, or without doors, and indiscriminately used by the sexes, must affect moral tone ; and we shall have no difficulty in accepting the testimony of H.M. Women Inspectors, as given in their reports, that the scrupulousness of the em- ployers in these matters is an index to the tone of the workplace, and that a high tone or a loose and rowdy one will result from the THE WORKER AT WORK 115 employers' care or carelessness in these matters. These matters are not, however, left to be regulated by the humour of the individual employer, and on all the points I have men- tioned, or shall mention in the course of this chapter, there are laws. Abstract. — In all factories and workshops (other than domestic workshops) a large paper form, known as the abstract of the laws, should be fixed in some place in which it is obvious to the workers, and on this form the regulations which govern the workplace are inscribed, with the name and address of H.M. Inspector, and on this abstract the law as to sanitation will be found. It is an excellent plan for district visitors or persons connected with clubs or classes to get one of these abstracts from King's or Eyre & Spottiswoode's, hang it up in the room, and explain any point which looks technical. This plan has already been adopted by a great many of the clergy and their helpers. Here is a summary of the protection given in sanitary matters. Ventilation. — In every factory or workshop there must be sufficient means of ventilation, ii6 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK and sufficient ventilation must be maintained. Every factory and workshop must be so venti- lated that all impurities generated in the course of the work be removed as far as possible, and in some cases the Inspector can order a fan or other mechanical means of ventilation to be put in. The Home Secretary has power to pre- scribe a standard of ventilation for any class of factories or workshops. Temperature. — It is provided that ade- quate measures must be taken for securing and maintaining a reasonable temperature, and the measures taken to secure this temperature must not interfere with the purity of the air. Overcrowding. — This is illegal. 250 cubic feet of space must be allowed to every person, and when overtime is being worked there must be an allowance of 400 cubic feet of space to each person. This allowance is required also in a workshop (not a domestic workshop) which is used as a sleeping apartment by night. Lime-washing. — Every factory should be lime-washed regularly, and there are special directions as to painting, varnishing, and pre- vention of all effluvia. The only difference THE WORKER AT WORK 117 between the requirements as to lime-washing in factory and workshop is that in the latter the lime-washing is left to the discretion of the Sanitary Inspector, and is not required every fourteen months as in factories. Sanitary Conveniences. — Sanitary con- veniences must be suitable, sufficient, and separate for the sexes. The Home Secretary has power, as for ventilation, to lay down a standard of sufficiency, and this he has done in the clearest manner, so that all the objection- able features in these places of which I have spoken are^now guarded against, where the law is enforced. Drainage of Floors. — It is^provided that where processes are carried on which render the floors sufficiently wet to be capable of drainage adequate means must be taken for draining off the wet. Workers' Representations. — It has been said that it is essential that the workers should know the protection which they as citizens can claim from the State. Every one will be acquainted, however, with cases in which direct complaint or emonstrance either on the ii8 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK part of the workers or that of those immediately in touch with them would simply lead to the dismissal of some worker. The person to be called in on these occasions is the Inspector appointed by the State or the municipality, to see that their regulations are carried out. Should the worker belono- to a trade orgfanisa- tion, that is the proper channel for communica- tion. If, however, as is unfortunately often the case with women workers, the complainant does not "belong to anything," communications can be sent through some such body as the Chris- tian Social Union, the Women's Trade Union League,^ or the Industrial Law Committee. f When it is clear that the case is illegal and there is urgent need for action, communication can be made direct to the Home Office.J In each case such representations will be regarded as confidential. * Address, Miss Macarthur, Women's Trade Union League, Club Union Buildings, Clerkenwell Road, E.C. t Address, Miss Cox, Industrial Law Committee, York Mansion, York Street, Westminster, S.W. X Communications for the Home Office should be addressed to Miss Anderson, H.M. Principal Lady of Factories, 66 Victoria Street, S.W. THE WORKER AT WORK 119 Danger from Machinery. — News of ter- rible accidents comes to us from time to time from the great textile factories in the North. To meet the pressure of modern industry- machinery is worked at its highest speed, and the Blue-books in which the Factory Inspectors report their annual experiences contain accounts of maiming and mutilation and death from machinery. It is not, however, from the elaborate machinery of the great weaving and spinning factories alone that these stories come. Every trade in which machinery is used has its tale of accidents. Workers in aerated water factories, or, indeed, in any bottling factory, are liable to danger from the bursting of the bottles ; many of the workers in tin box factories suffer from the loss of fingers ; cuts, strains, bruises abound. Not long ago a worker reported six cases of accident in one family, in each of which one or two fingers had been drawn into the calendering machine and crushed, with the result that the worker's earning capacity was lessened for life. There are, however, laws which, if enforced, will protect the worker from dangerous ma- chinery. I20 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK Fencing Machinery. — All dangerous ma- chinery must be guarded, and must be main- tained in a properly guarded condition. Cleaning Machinery in Motion. — There have been many accidents from the practice of having machinery cleaned while it is moving, children and young people being sent under the machinery in textile factories to clean it, so as to avoid loss of time through its stoppage. No child may clean machinery or under machinery (other than overhead mill-gearing) while it is in motion ; no one under eighteen years of age, boy or girl, may clean dangerous machinery in motion, and women may not clean mill-gear- ing while it propels manufacturing machinery. Hoists, which are a frequent source of danger, must be properly guarded. Further, if any machinery or any premises used as a factory or workshop are in such a condition that they cannot be used without danger to life or limb, or in the case of the premises to health also, an inspector can obtain an order of summary jurisdiction prohibiting the use of the premises or the machine till premises or machinery have been made perfectly safe. Accidents. — The reporting of accidents is THE WORKER AT WORK 121 so valuable an influence in preventing their re- currence that it may be mentioned among the other requirements for safety. If accidents were not reported to the Factory Department some of the greatest dangers in machinery would remain indefinitely undisclosed. An obligation to report accidents is therefore laid upon occupiers, and the classes of reportable accidents are strictly defined. But this obliga- tion is often neglected, and workers and their friends should report to the Inspector all accidents of which they gain knowledge even though no injury has been caused. Fire. — The terrible fire in Queen Victoria Street, in which several girls were burnt to death, some time ago, attracted public attention to this particular danger to the workers, espe- cially to those employed in the upper storeys of the great buildings of our cities. There is ex- cessive carelessness about this particular danger, and we have visited factories in which the doors of the rooms were locked during working hours, and only opened by the foreman's key, and others in which the exit in case of fire was blocked by furniture or bales of goods. In some instances the doors have been built so 122 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK that they open inwards, and in such a case the rush consequent on the scare of fire would close the doors and turn the room into a death-trap. Local Authority. — The local authority is primarily responsible for adequate protection from fire. This authority must be satisfied that wherever more than forty persons are em- ployed reasonable protection against fire must be made. If, however, the Local Authority has not exercised its powers, the Factory Inspector can act in default as he can in matters of sanitation. Construction and Fastenings of Doors. — In all workplaces built since January i, 1896, where more than ten persons are employed the doors must either slide or open outwards. The locking of doors of rooms from the outside while any one remains inside either in work- times or in meal-times is forbidden, and the means of escape must be kept in good order and free from obstruction. THE WORKER AT WORK 123 EMPLOYMENT Up till now the laws with which we have dealt have affected all workers in factory and workshop. The set of regulations which follow, and which stand by themselves on the abstract, affect both sexes till the age of eighteen. After eighteen years of age the laws dealing with the hours of employment affect women only. So far men's labour is hardly limited, except indirectly, as in the textile factories, where men's and women's labour is interdependent, and where the stoppage of the women's work stops that of the men also. Employment does not necessarily carry with it the payment of wages, and the apprentice who pays or the learner who has nothing, or only a nominal sum, is just as much protected as the most highly remunerated worker. There is no subject which is more fruitful of complaint from the workers than this one of too long hours. Throughout the season in our 124 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK large towns dressmakers are often employed far into the night ; while the pantomime season may keep those who work for a costumiere busy through Sundays and weekdays alike. Laundries, printing houses, in fact every class of workplace in which women are em- ployed furnish examples of overwork. Nor is it women alone who suffer ; children and young persons have often grievous cause for complaint ; and one district worker, for example, reported that children of fourteen years of age were working till midnight in a great fruit-preserving factory near her club. How full and explicit the law is in its pro- hibition of such overwork we are now to see. Certificate of Fitness for Employment. — There is not only the well-known rule that no one between twelve and thirteen may be employed at all unless the standard of pro- ficiency that the local by-laws fix is passed, but for factory children and young persons there is also, up to sixteen, the certificate of fitness to be obtained — a certificate which can be revoked at the surgeon's pleasure. The half-time system, adding as it does to the teacher's difficulties in the districts where it obtains, should apply THE WORKER AT WORK 125 only to the stronger children ; a sickly or very delicate child ought never to be certified by the surgeon so that the exhaustion of manual toil is added to the disabilities which already affect its work. HOURS OF WORK (a) Factories and Workshops. — As far as factories and workshops are concerned, children — i.e., from twelve to fourteen years of age — can only be employed half the time during which the elder boys and girls (the "young persons" — i.e., from fourteen to eigh- teen years of age) work, this time to be taken either on alternate days or in morning and afternoon shifts. When " children " become "young persons " [i.e., at fourteen) they may work whole time, from 6 A.M. to 6 p.m. or 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., in tex- tile factories, or an alternative of 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. is allowed in non-textile factories and work- shops— in each case, of course, with breaks for meals. These same hours are those which are 126 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK worked by women, only that in their case the work may be prolonged in certain non-textile factories and workshops by '' overtime." There are two circumstances in which children of thirteen may turn into "young persons " without waiting for the following year — i.e., if they have passed Standard V., or made 350* attendances a year for five years in not more than two schools each year since they were five years old. Under all other cir- cumstances they must give, however robust, half time to school till fourteen years of age. {b) Domestic Workshops. — Children who work at home are not without protection. In private houses, where there is no machinery to make the place a factory, and no protected person is employed outside the members of the same family dwelling there to make it a work- shop, they may only work in the morning or the afternoon, and the morning or afternoon work must be alternated every seven days. As in factories and workshops, continuous employ- ment for more than five hours without an interval for a meal is prohibited. * In Scotland and Ireland the requirements are different. THE WORKER AT WORK 127 Young persons working at home may work from 6 A.M. to 9 p.m., with four and a half hours for meals ; and on Saturdays from 6 a.m. to 4 P.M., with two and a half hours for meals. The prohibition of employment on Sunday is the only restriction here on the employment of women. Meal-times. — Out of the twelve hours, two hours must be p;iven in the textile factories for meals, and one and a half in the factories and workshops which are not textile, and, to ensure that the workers shall not become unduly exhausted, one hour must always be given to meals before 3 p.m., and no one must work in a textile factory for more than four and a half, or in a non-textile factory or workshop* for more than five hours without a break for a meal. It will be seen that the law allows a very sufficient day's work, particularly since in many cases it is of the most exhausting character. To watch, like the weavers, from six to six, with * This prohibition is no longer laid upon the employment of women in a worlcshop, but in a good many cases longer employment would be checked by the requirement that women must have the same meal-times as young persons. 128 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK attention ceaselessly on the alert ; to sit sewing, like the dressmaker, from eight to eight, with no change of attitude except that which can be made during the hour's break in the middle of the day ; to hurry backwards and forwards con- tinuously, like the child in a fruit-preserving factory, staggering under the still too heavily laden trays of jam — this makes sufficient demand on strength and mind. But of all the points dealt with, probably these regulations as to employment are the most frequently broken. Meal-times are docked, and work is begun before or carried on long after legal hours, with the result of undermined health and frequent collapse. Overtime. — Illegal overtime is the more difficult to check, except by the education of the workers to protect themselves, because in the factories and workshops of certain trades — mainly those in which there is a pressure of work at certain seasons — women may work overtime. This overtime work is carefully guarded. Previous notice must be sent to the inspector ; and thirty days in the year, for not more than three days in a week, two hours at a time, are allowed. If till lo p.m., an extra half-^ THE WORKER AT WORK 129 hour must be given for meals, and the work must never last after 10 p.m. Where the material dealt with is of a perishable nature — preserving fruit and fish, making condensed milk, and making butter or cheese, or preparing cream — fifty days are allowed in the year, and three in the week.* But legal exceptions lead to illegal extensions, and all through the season come complaints of employment till past mid- night, and of endless ruses employed to deceive those who would enforce the law. Employment outside the Factory or Workshop. — One method of overworking, practised by some employers, is that of giving work to be taken home and completed after the legal day in the factory or workshop is over. The pay for such work is generally very small, and it is probably only due to the want of fore- thought and calculation which is obvious among the more depressed women workers that there are any who readily take such work in the hope * Overtime for boys and girls under i8 hardly exists ; there are a few trades in which boys may work at night, and there are certain circumstances under which an extra half-hour may be worked at the end of the day, but the cases are very rare. I I30 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK of adding to their scanty earnings. A member of the Christian Social Union reported a case, in which a girl had taken home pigs to make for a toy factory in the East of London, and having worked till midnight, had only earned sufficient to pay for the gas and cotton needed for the work. In one Midland town it used to be no unusual thing to meet the women wheeling home large bundles of work from the clothing factories, and Sisters and Managers of Workgirls' Board- ing Homes speak of the difficulty they have encountered in trying to stop the practice of brinoine home work, since the frightened workers urged that refusal would lead to dismissal. This home work is illegal. No child, young person, or woman may take out work to do outside the factory or workshop after the legal day has been spent within. Another fruitful source of overwork is the employment of girls and women as shopwomen after their day in the workroom attached to the shop. In this case the law enacts that if a young person or woman is employed by the same employer, both in a factory or workshop THE WORKER AT WORK 131 and in a shop, the total number of hours worked on any day must not exceed that per- mitted in the factory or workshop. HOLIDAYS Such a week as has been described means, even if the law be kept, a very laborious period of work. A week in which the work extends over ten or ten-and-a-half hours each day, and is increased in non -textile factories and workshops by thirty days, on which two hours overtime may also be worked, points to the need for rest at the week's end. Yet there are places in which work is con- tinued sometimes on into Sunday morning, and dresses for pantomimes were being made all through the Sunday before last Christmas Day. The law, however, grants a Saturday half- holiday and Sunday rest. In the textile factories work beorinnino- on Saturday at 6 a.m. or 7 a.m. must end at noon 132 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK or I P.M. as the case may be ; but in the non- textile factories and workshops a longer period is allowed. The day's work beginning at 6 or 7 or 8 need not end till 2 p.m., 3 p.m., or 4 P.M., and this is the law also for children who work at home, who need not cease work until 4 on Saturday afternoons. Sunday is, as has been said, a free day, though Jewish employers (who observe Satur- day as their holiday) may employ Jewish young persons and women on Sunday ; also young persons and women may be employed in creameries for three hours on Sundays. Six other holidays besides Sundays are allowed — Christmas Day, Good Friday, and the four bank holidays ; but any of these days, including Christmas Day, may be changed by the employer upon giving due notice, and another day, or two half-days, given instead.* Compare these breaks in work with the long spells of vacation from which the children pass, and one realises how essential it is that the short holidays should be carefully guarded. Out of all the different regulations dealt * In Scotland and Ireland the holidays are different. THE WORKER AT WORK 133 with, by far the most difficult to enforce will be those for the children and young persons who work at home — their hours and meal-times being the only matters protected here by work- shop law. In no case can deception be more easy. Much may be done to aid the factory inspector by those who are working among the people and visiting their homes, and it is essential that all should be done which is possible, for at present the enforcement of law as to children and young persons' home-work is often the inspector's despair. LAUNDRIES AND BAKEHOUSES A. Laundries There is probably no class of work-place as to which complaints are more rife than in the case of laundries. Representations as to the lateness of the hours up to which work is carried on and excess of work put-in, especially in the busy season, are often made, and investi- 134 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK gation has shown that in London the women in some laundries are still working an indefen- sibly long week. Accidents are common, and we recall an instance in which six accidents — in all of which the girls' fingers had been so crushed in the calendering machine that amputation had been necessary, with the result that their earning capacity was diminished for life — were reported from one laundry. Some of the hardships arise from the fact that this trade is one which has changed enormously in recent years. Appropriate machinery has been developed and invented, without in many cases a corresponding develop- ment on the part of the laundry proprietors. A great deal must, however, be put down, so far as hours are concerned, to the difficulties pre- sented by the law, which are so great in this particular instance, as to render the regulations absolutely bewildering to laymen. Sanitation, Safety, &c. — We say "so far as hours are concerned," advisedly — for by a strange anomaly laundries are in just the same position as factories or workshops, so far as most conditions are concerned. The steam THE WORKER AT WORK 135 laundries where power is used are factories, and the laundries where there is only hand labour are workshops. Complaints as to want of cleanliness, bad ventilation, and impure air, and damage to life or limb are guarded in the laundry by the same regulations as those which have been described as affectino- the factories and workshops. Hours. — When we come to hours, how- ever, the system is exceedingly complicated. They may be in the same position as other factories and workshops, and controlled by the same regulations, or they may be working under one of two other alternative systems, both of which allow the longer hours of 6-7, 7-8, or 8-9, for certain days in the week, and both of which enact that though there shall be a half-holiday in the week it shall not neces- sarily be on Saturday. There are, in addition, many exceptions applying to laundries which add to the confusion. It will be necessary to question the workers in order to discover whether their laundry is being controlled by ordinary factory and workshop regulations, or whether they are working under one of the other systems. This the workers will know by 136 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK looking at the abstract of the law, which has to be hung up in every factory and workshop, so that all may know the protection which is extended to them. As, however, the law in these different systems is difficult to follow, it will be better whenever there seems ground for complaint, to communicate direct with one of the societies previously named,* and let them inquire into the matter. Neither does the law touch the laundries of industrial schools, reformatories, or prisons, which are inspected under other laws, though these places may, by arrangement, be visited by a factory inspector. The factory inspectors can now under certain conditions also visit the laundries of charitable institutions, over which they have modified powers. Special Sanitary Requirements. — Any- one who has visited laundries must recognise that the refjulations I have griven so far are insufficient, and that more must be made. The enormous quantity of steam generated in the wash-house of a large laundry soaks the clothes * Women's Trade Union League, Club Union Buildings, Clerkenwell Road, E.G. ; Industrial Law Committee, York Mansion, York Street, Westminster, S.W. THE WORKER AT WORK 137 and beads the hair of the worker, while the temperature in the ironing-room of any laundry, where the thermometer is not carefully watched, rises to a point which explains the tendency to drunkenness so much quoted against laundry- workers, exhausted as they are and parched with the great heat. In some laundries the stove stands unscreened in the ironing-room, adding to the heat and risk ; or perhaps gas- irons are used and give off noxious fumes. Sometimes the floor is broken and uneven, and the workers stand in the pools of water which have collected by their tubs, and go out with soaking feet and clothes from the great heat of the workplace to the cold of the night air. In the factory laundries — all those in which water, steam, or mechanical power is used — such conditions are illegal. Fans must be put in the washhouses to carry off the steam. The temperature in the ironing-rooms must be regu- lated. Stoves must be separated from ironing- rooms, and gas-irons such as I have spoken of are forbidden ; while, perhaps most import- ant of all, the floors must be kept in good condition and properly drained, so that the 138 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK lung and chest diseases attendant on constant exposure to damp may be as far as possible avoided. B. Bakehouses We rank bakehouses with laundries, odd as the connection may seem, because they are, like laundries, subject to special regula- tion. Bakehouses have long been factories or workshops. There has been from time to time a great deal of complaint about the conditions under which work was carried on in bakehouses, particularly in those under- ground. Every one who knows the tempera- ture which is created by the ordinary house- hold baking can imagine how insufferable the heat is likely to be in places in which bread, biscuits, or confectionery are baked for sale. This heat, increased by the small space and most imperfect ventilation of a cellar, till it becomes like the proverbial stokehole, must be very bad for growing lads, who are often employed, particularly as exceptionally long hours are allowed for them. THE WORKER AT WORK 139 Hours in Bakehouses. — After sixteen years of age lads may be employed from 5 A.M. to 9 P.M. in one day (sixteen hours), if they are allowed seven hours for meals during that time, always provided that the hours which are in excess of the ordinary limit are taken only before or after that limit, not at both beginning and end, and that on a night on which work has been continued late it is not begun before the ordi- nary hour next morning. This, too, is a trade in which all classes — children, young persons and women — may work half an hour extra at the end of the day to finish unfinished work. The knowledge of the risks attaching to underground bakehouses led in 1895 ^o the passing of a law that no place underground must in future be used as a bakehouse unless it was already in existence, and by the Act of 1901 no underground bakehouse can, after January i, 1904, continue to be used unless it is certified by the district council to be fit for the purpose ; well built, light, and well ventilated. Still, many other matters besides hours have to be watched in this class of place, and the different regulations throw a lurid light on the practices which they forbid, and the ingenuity which is I40 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK exercised in economising space, with complete disregard for health, whether of the workers or the public. Sanitation in Bakehouses. — The water- closet, earth-closet, ashpit, &c., must not be in the bakehouse, or opening into it, and no pipe for carrying off sewage must open into the bakehouse. Any cistern supplying water to the bakehouse must be distinct from that supply- ing water to the closets. The regulations as to limewashing, varnish- ing, and their renewal are natural enough. Limewashing must be renewed every six months, while if paint or varnish is used, it must be washed with hot soap and water every six months, and renewed every seven years ; but it is not pleasant to think that the workers may be found sleeping in the bake- house, and that the law has to forbid the practice, and enact that the bedroom must be separate, and must have a window 9 square feet in it, half of which will open, so that, however close to the bakehouse, there may be fresh air and a lower temperature to rest in. THE WORKER AT WORK 141 DANGEROUS TRADES It is possible that the worker may find himself or herself in a workplace in which every regu- lation that we have noted is carefully kept, hours strictly limited, meal-times scrupulously observed, and every provision as to ventilation, sanitation, and safety enforced. Under such circumstances it might now be inferred that the worker's risks are over. This, however, is by no means always the case, for there are a con- siderable number of trades in which the danger of a disease incidental to the occupation is added to the ordinary risks. Every one has heard of the dangers of trades in which white lead is used, and the sufferings which arise for the operative from lead-poisoning in the making of china and earthenware have of late attracted much public attention. Some time ago the subject of " Necrosis," popularly known as "phossy jaw," because of the effect which the phosphorus produces in eating away the bones of the jaw, was matter of public com- 142 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK ment. This, it will be remembered, is the disease from which the makers of matches suffer. These diseases are calculated to rouse public sympathy, because of the great suffering they cause. In cases of acute attacks of lead- poisoning, violent colic, followed by blindness, fits, coma, and death, following each other in the course of a few days, are not unknown, and the torturing death of a lad from the decay of the bones of the jaws first called public notice to the number of victims at a great match factory not long ago. There are, however, as will be seen from the list at the end of this chapter, many other trades which have their diseases of occupation. There are also a num- ber of trades in which certain processes are dangerous. For example, in aerated water factories filling of bottles and syphons is a dangerous process, because these receptacles often burst and the pieces of glass fly. These diseases and also these specially dangerous features are met by legislation. The Home Secretary is gradually making special rules applying to the particular trades, and, when it is remembered that work in docks, on wharves and quays, in warehouses, and building THE WORKER AT WORK 143 operations are among the occupations specially protected, it will be seen that the group of in- dustries guarded by special rules is a large one. As all these rules are different, and specially calculated in each case to meet the dangers of the trade they guard, it is impossible to go into details concerning them here. But the rules are very valuable, and it is important that in the neighbourhood in which one of these dangerous trades or processes is carried on those interested in the welfare of the workers should be acquainted with them. Some of these rules — in the case, for example, of china and earthenware manufacture — aim at raising the age at which the younger and more susceptible workers may be employed, while in the case of the dangerous parts of white lead manu- factories the law has gone further, and for- bidden the employment of women and girls altogether. In every factory or workshop under special rules the rules must be exhibited, like the ''Abstract," in a conspicuous place, and also given to any person working under them if he or she asks for a copy. In Wales the rules must be in Welsh as well as in Enorlish. 144 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK As has been said, it would be unsuitable to give these rules at length here, so that a list of the trades for which, or the processes for which, there are special rules, is added, and we suggest that those interested in any district in which there is one of the trades named should write to Messrs. Wyman and Sons, enclosing three halfpence in stamps, for a copy of the rules which guard that trade. Such trades are bichromate works, bottling of aerated water, brass and alloys (mining and casting), chemical works, dry and dry-salted hides and skins imported from China or from the West Coast of India, earthenware and china manufactories, electric accumulator works, enamelling of iron plates, explosive manufac- tories (where dinitro-benzole is used), flax- spinning and weaving works, lead (red and orange) works, lead (white) works, lead (yellow) works, lead smelting works, lead (yellow chromate of) works (where used), lucifer match factories (where white or yellow phos- phorus is used), paint and colour manufacture and extraction of arsenic, tinning and enamel- ling of metal hollow-ware, plates and cooking utensils, transfers for earthenware and china, THE WORKER AT WORK 145 vulcanising india-rubber by means of bisulphide of carbon, wool and hair-sorting, &c., wool- combing, felt-hatting, file-cutting by hand, lead- dyeing, jute-weaving, brass-casting, &c. TRUCK AND PARTICULARS Some time ago a friend who had given us great help in the work of inquiry ceased active work for a considerable period. In reply to inquiries as to her defection, she answered that she felt hopeless as to the benefit which would arise from the improve- ment of conditions while the women workers were earning starvation wages. She felt, to use Mr. Reeves' phrase, that it was only a " procrastination of death." Every one who works among the people will know how low these wag^es are, sinkinof some- times to 2s. or 35^. a week. We hope for the time when the State shall again, as in old days, intervene to secure the living wage, and obtain " a convenient proportion " of their earnings for the workers, but at the present moment 146 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK the two main directions in which the law touches wages are, by regulations as to deduc- tions from wages and by regulations in certain trades, that workers shall be given in writing the particulars of the rate at which they are being paid. These laws have not only the immediate value of checking certain abuses with which we will deal, but they also form a valuable precedent for the regulation of wages by law. Probably all of us have some; experience of the deductions to which the slender wages of workers are subject. Payment in Kind. — Perhaps the most flagrant of all cases of improper payment are those in which the workers are paid in goods and not in money. Some time ago these cases were very common. Employers of labour started shops and paid their workers, of what- ever class, in kind, and this custom led to the greatest hardships ; all sorts of useless goods were oriven to the workers in lieu of their waee, and a week's work has been known to be paid for in green apples. Instances of this practice are to be found still, particularly in out-of- the-way places, and since the last Truck Act THE WORKER AT WORK 147 one of His Majesty's women inspectors prose- cuted some employers for payment otherwise than in current coin. Payment in Kind Illegal. — This practice, then, is against the law : employers must pay in coin of the realm, not in kind, and no con- tracts they may make with their workmen or workwomen to buy goods at any particular place or in any special manner could be bind- ing on the workpeople. Exceptions where Payment in Kind is Legal. — When the chief Truck Act was under consideration a large number of exceptions were made, however, as it was considered that there were certain cases in which exceptions would be a matter of convenience to the worker. So an employer can provide houseroom for his workers, medicine, firing, and food which is cooked and eaten under the employer's roof, while miners can have their tools provided and provender for the horses they use during their work. But in all these cases in which the em- ployer may deduct money for this practical form of payment he must have a written agree- ment, and the deduction must not exceed the *'real and true value" of the fuel, materials. 148 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK tools and provender. Neither would the law interfere if the workman was ill and the em- ployer advanced his wages, deducting-, when he recovered, from his current wages. There are a few other exceptions, but these are the main ones, and though they are all open to abuse if not closely watched, they are easy to explain to the worker. One readily sees how convenient it might be for the labourer to have his dinner provided or to rent a cottage near his work on his employer's land, and how much it simplifies matters for the individual miner to have pro- vender provided for his horses instead of him- self being compelled to get it. The deductions, however, which workers in clubs or settlements are more likely to come across are deductions for damaged work or for materials used, or iox fines. Deductions for Damaged Goods. — Per- haps some of the hardest deductions which we hear of are those which have for their excuse damage to the work in hand. These deduc- tions are often out of all proportion to the damage done or to the worker's share in it. A weaver may lose a large part of her weekly wage for a flaw in cloth for which she was not THE WORKER AT WORK 149 responsible, and goods may be considered by an employer quite fit to sell when he does not think them good enough to pay for. Deductions for Materials. — There is also a system of deducting from the wages of the workers for the materials which they need for their work. For instance, deductions are made for needles, cotton, lights, and for the cleaning out of lavatories and rooms. It is easy to see that this system, too, is open to plenty of abuses, and that the workers may be charged a great deal too much for materials, and in some cases may even be charged for things they do not want to use. There are excessive charges for needles, instances of cotton being paid for at i^^. a reel more than it would have cost if bought outside, of workers paying for hot water who never used it, and of a general system of deductions from wages for care of the lavatories, even sometimes where the practice of employing any one to do the work had been discontinued, and the workers were expected to do the work themselves. Deductions for Fines. — These, like the other deductions, are so disproportionate at times to the offence that they would be matter ISO THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK for ridicule if their reduction of the already meagre wage did not make them pathetic. There was, for example, the 2^. 6d. fine in a Belfast factory which was imposed on the weavers who went from the hot weaving room, in which the temperature often reached over 90°, to fetch a cup of water from the next room to slake their thirst. In one factory there was a list of fines for various offences, rang- ing from 5^., a fine which is a serious matter when taken out of wages averaging, perhaps, 6^. ; 6d. for laughing was another of the fines, though this seems unnecessary, as obviously work in that factory would not incline the workers to merriment. Besides such examples as these of heavy and singularly cruel fines, there are numerous places in which all sorts of small fines are inflicted. There are, for in- stance, fines for unpunctuality in very many places, though not a few employers conduct their work without fining at all, and dismiss the workers who are not after due caution amenable to discipline. Now as to the law on these deductions. Law as to Deductions, for Fines, Damaged Goods, Materials. — In the first THE WORKER AT WORK 151 place, deductions, whether for fines or for damaged goods or materials, must be "fair and reasonable." Under this category, such fines as those of Belfast would hardly come. The practice of overcharging for materials — deduct- ing '^d.y for example, for reels that could be bought for 2d. in the shops — could not be held by any magistrate to be within the actual or estimated cost to the employer (which must not be exceeded) ; nor could deductions for bad work which are in excess of the loss to the em- ployer be held to be " fair and reasonable." Every worker must know exactly beforehand what deductions his or her employer will inflict, and this can be shown either by a notice, posted where it can be readily seen and examined, or by a contract in writing, which must be signed by the worker ; and whether the deductions are declared on a notice or no, none may be inflicted, whether for fines, damaged goods, or materials, unless particulars of the deduction and its amount are given to the worker when it is inflicted. The factory inspector is the official respon- sible for carrying out this law in factories and workshops. The law also applies to shops 152 ^THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK but, as will be seen in the next chapter, no one has been made responsible for carrying it out. Particulars. — Much industrial suffering arises when the workers have no means of calculating the amount to be received by them for any given piece of work. Inquiries in different trades have brought us frequent instances in which, owing to the absence of any contract, varying sums have been paid to the worker for exactly the same work, so that a worker who has undertaken work in the antici- pation that he would be paid at the rate previously received has found the payment arbitrarily lowered, and protest unavailing. The textile workers first obtained a law by which Particulars in writing of work and wages had to be furnished to them at the time that the work was given out. This legislation was very successful, and the Secretary of State has now power by order * to extend protection to any other trades in which need for such a provi- sion is shown, and the law has been gradually * The copies of " Orders" giving the lists of trades to which the Particular Section is extended, may be got from the King's Printers. THE WORKER AT WORK 153 extended till it covers a very large number of trades, including the whole of the clothing trade. SHOPS The worker who is in touch with shop- assistants, and is anxious to be acquainted with the protection meted out to them by the law, will find that this protection is meagre indeed. The need for protection is considerable. The deductions from which the shop-assistant often suffers are serious. In one shop there was a list of 150 fines, ranging from 55. down- wards, and as the list was never exhibited the assistants had no teaching except that of experience as to when they were offending. The length of hours of work in many shops, the hurried meals and close atmosphere, lead to early breakdown in health, while the con- stant standing often required commonly in- duce varicose veins and internal maladies. Such protection as the law grants follows here. 154 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK Law as to Deductions. — Though the factory and workshop law does not protect the shop-assistant, there are certain regulations on the other points named, and these regulations are, as a rule, enforced by the sanitary inspector, though here and there some wiser local authority has created shop inspectors, whose duty is exclusively to enforce the law in shops. But, unluckily, these inspectors have no specific authority to look after truck ; by a strange anomaly the law to put a stop to fining in shops exists, but no one has been directly nominated to enforce it, so that unless some member of the public likes to take the matter up, or the victim himself chooses to run the risk of becoming a marked man and takes action, as a rule nothing can be done. Law as to Employment. — No law limits the hours of the adult shop-assistant, but the law that no one under eighteen years of age may work for more than seventy- four hours a week, including meal times, can be, and is, in cases where these have been appointed for the work, enforced by the Inspectors of the Local Authority, and in one instance not long ago an inspector took about twenty cases into court at THE WORKER AT WORK 155 once in which girls and boys under eighteen years of age had been worked beyond the legal limits. Employment in Shop and Work- shop.— If by chance the young people are employed both in shop and workshop the limitation is more stringent, the shorter hours of factory and workshop law govern the case, and no one must work for more than ten-and- a-half hours a day. Oddly enough, in these cases the hours of women, otherwise untouched, are limited too ; the employer who, after work- ing a shop assistant all day as a workwoman, brings her to the shop when the workroom is closed, must see, if he wish to keep the law, that her hours in shop and workroom taken together do not exceed those allowed by factory and workshop law. Seats. — Women and girls must now be provided with seats, either behind the counter or in another suitable position, in the propor- tion of not less than one seat to every three female attendants in each room. They often however, fear to take advantage of the pro- vision. 156 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK COMPENSATION Probably every one who reads this chapter will know something about the subject with which it deals, for in a great manufacturing country such as ours, in which machinery is largely employed and work carried on at a very high pressure, accidents constantly occur. The question of what compensation the State insists on for those mutilated in the course of their work, or provides for their dependent sur- vivors in case of death, follows naturally on these frequently recurring accidents. It is not only the adults who suffer ; there are frequently accidents among the half-timers or children who have just left school. A case, for example, has been brought before us in which a boy of thir- teen years of age suffered very severely. The boy was engaged as errand-boy in a newspaper office, but was soon set to work a machine which printed envelopes. The machine was too large for him to reach properly, and he had THE WORKER AT WORK 157 to stand with one foot on a box working the machine with the other foot. Urged to greater speed by his employer, the poor child over- balanced in his efforts to comply and fell for- ward, the hand he put out to save himself being caught in the machinery. When at last the machinery was unfastened and the hand released it was badly mutilated, several fingers were cut off, some as far as the knuckle, and the boy was injured for life. Here the employer himself was to blame for his carelessness in putting an un- taught worker to manage machinery, but often it is not the employer, but a fellow workman, whose negligence causes the accident. Many, for instance, of the lift accidents in which workers have been crushed have been due to some such reason as neglect on the part of the man in charge to signal that the lift was in motion. Of course a good many accidents will have for a contributory cause the carelessness of the workers themselves, more particularly in those trades in which a great deal of risk is inherent in the nature of the work. Constant exposure to danger always leads to hardihood even among the most educated classes, and it is, 158 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK therefore, little likely that the less educated, with less sense of responsibility, will always realise the necessity for precaution. Legislation. — ^There are several laws which deal with compensation for accidents, and legal advice would be needed if action were to be taken under the Employers' Liability Act or at Common Law ; but this is not so often the case with the Workmen's Compensation Act, and we will therefore deal at length with it, so that, if any worker appeals to the reader for advice, he may be in a position to give it. Up to 1898, however terrible an accident might have occurred to a man or woman, and however many dependent survivors might have been left by it, no redress could be claimed from the employers if the accident had happened either throuo-h the ne^lioence of a fellow worker, or if the negligence of the worker's self had helped to cause the accident. Even if the worker had been entirely free from blame this fact was often very difficult to prove, so that there was a great deal of hardship. The alternative laws still exist, and if it is quite clear that the workman has not been care- less, and that his master has been negligent, THE WORKER AT WORK 159 compensation may be got at Common Law or under the Employers' Liability Act, but, if there is any doubt about these points, the worker should be advised to claim compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Act, 1906.* W^orkmen's Compensation Act. — One of the claims of the Promoters of the Act was that no lawyer need be called in to advise work- men who wished to take proceedings under it, and that thus heavy expense was often saved ; but the workers still often consult lawyers, and are put to very unnecessary expense because they do not know what steps to take. Small accidents which incapacitate for less than one week, are ignored by the Act, and the only other disqualification is " the serious and wilful misconduct " of the injured worker. Even "serious and wilful mis- * The following persons are excluded from the benefit of the Act : (i) A person employed otherwise than by way of manual labour where remuneration exceeds ;£'25o a year. (2) A person whose employment is of a casual nature, and who is employed otherwise than for the purposes of the employer's trade and business, (3) A member of the police force. (4) An outworker. (5) A member of the employer's family dwelling in his house. i6o THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK conduct " does not bar the claim if the injury results in death or serious and permanent dis- ablement. If the incapacity lasts less than two weeks, no compensation is payable in respect of the first week. Notice and Claim. — The steps for the worker to take are simple : a notice of the acci- dent must be sent in to the employer, and a claim for compensation must be made on him. The notice, of which a copy should be kept, should be sent by hand, or in a registered en- velope, to ensure its safe delivery, and it must be sent as soon as practicable. The claim for compensation must be made within six months of the accident, or if death has followed on the accident, within six months of the death. If the employer does not, on getting the notice and the claim, settle with the worker and grant compen- sation, then the worker must have recourse to arbitration. If a committee representing em- ployer and workmen is in existence for the purpose of arbitrating the claim must come before it, unless either party objects in writing. If no such Committee exists, or if either party objects, the employer and the injured person may agree on a single arbitrator ; failing this the THE WORKER AT WORK i6i worker must take the claim into the County- Court, where the County Court judge either acts as arbitrator or appoints an arbitrator to settle claims. It may be asked how large a sum can be granted, and how far it can fairly be called com- pensation ? Not less than ^150, or more than jCsoo, may be paid to the dependent survivors (if any) for an accident ending in death. How- ever serious a non-fatal accident may be, com- pensation must not amount to more than half the previous weekly earnings (except in the case of persons under twenty-one years of age, when the full amount of the wages up to 10s. a week is payable), nor may exceed a pound a week, and, if the employer desires, these pay- ments may be commuted, after six months, for a lump sum to be fixed by the arbitrator ; this lump sum must be sufficient to buy an annuity equal to 75 per cent, of the annual value of the weekly payment. (This does not prevent agree- ments being come to for smaller sums and settlements.) Larger sums can be obtained by the other methods of procedure ; but the Workmen's Compensation Act is cheaper for the worker than proceedings taken under any L 1 62 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK other Act are likely to be. In the case of some diseases, such as " phossy-jaw " and lead poisoning, compensation can also be obtained under the Act. COAL MINES Coal Mines. — The Coal Mines' Regulation Acts are the subject of volumes, are highly technical in their nature and vary from pit to pit. The laws named here affect only women and children. Some years back the latter could enter on their work at a very early age, and there are many men now who bear their trade-mark on their stunted figures and un- naturally developed chest and arms. Draw any of these men into conversation as to their past careers and you will hear graphic stories of their doings and sufferings. Children seven years old could be found sitting for eleven or twelve hours a day in the dark and damp of the long mine passages by the doors which it was their duty to open and shut when the trucks came through. When a THE WORKER AT WORK 163 little older and stronger the work was changed, and they pushed the tubs full of coal and iron- stone over the uneven floors. Where the coal-seams were narrow the backs of the workers rubbed aoainst the ceilino- of the seam, and raws were developed on shoulders and back. We have heard on credible authority of their suffering, their childish terrors at the long, damp, dark passage where they sat alone, and then later, of the intolerable strain on their strength and health from dragging day after day the trucks to which they were harnessed by an iron chain passing round the waist and between the legs, with hands, back, and knees bleeding from contact with the rough walls. "In the most recklessly conducted industrial establishment," says Engel, in his book on the conditon of the working classes, " there is no such universal and exaggerated overwork," and he goes on to describe the exhaustion of the children. Sometimes, having climbed the long ladder to the top of the mine and started on the way home, the children would drop down with weariness, to be found late at night by their parents asleep on the roadside ; or, reaching home and throwing themselves on the nearest i64 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK vacant spot, they would lie there till, still asleep, they were lifted to their beds. Sunday — the one rest day — was spent in sleep. Deformity, sickness, and early death attended on the life of a miner. Things are far better now, and many of the matters which we have chronicled belong to the annals of the past, for in 1887 was passed the Coal Mines' Regulation Act, which was improved by the Act of 1900, introduced by Sir Charles Dilke. But long hours and the employment of children are by no means altogether over, and it is necessary to see exactly what the law allows. No girl or woman can now be employed underground, and no boy can be so employed if he is under thirteen years of age, so that, whatever we may think of a standard of thirteen years of age as the minimum for underground work, little children are no longer exposed to the terrors and sufferings of old. The boys over thirteen who are allowed to work under- ground must never work for more than ten hours a day, or fifty-four hours in one week alto- gether, and twelve hours must elapse between each period of employment, except on Friday, THE WORKER AT WORK 165 when the interval need only be eight hours before Saturday work begins again. Above ground, in the pure open air, the law is less stringent ; girls as well as boys over twelve years of age may be employed. From twelve to thirteen years of age the work is carefully limited. If either boys or girls of twelve years are employed for more than three days in the week they must work only six hours a day, while, if they work for three days or fewer, they may work for ten hours a day. From thirteen to fourteen years of age work is limited to ten hours a day and fifty-four a week. There is one feature of the laws which affects that part of the work above ground in which women are employed which is in marked contrast to that affecting most of the trades with which I have dealt, and that is the slight- ness of the regulations which affect the labour of women. Night work is illegal for them — z>., the law is broken if boy, girl, or zvoman is employed between nine at night and five in the morning ; and it is also illegal for work to be carried on by them on Sunday or after two o'clock on Saturday, but here the hours' limita- i66 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK tions end. The only two other regulations which affect women as well as boys and girls are that they must not be employed at moving railway waggons, and that half an hour's meal- time must be given after five hours' work, and, if employment continues for eight hours, there must be an hour and a half allowed for meals. It is difficult to put these regulations which affect labour in and above mines very simply. But as work below ground in coal mines is, perhaps, the most arduous of any undertaken by the workers, it is necessary that they and those who care for them should realise that careful limitations are placed on this labour by the State. THE WORKER IN SICKNESS AND WANT THE WORKER IN SICKNESS AND WANT Some consideration of the resources open to the worker temporarily disabled by sickness, or reduced, perhaps through continued ill-health, perhaps in consequence of a slack season or one of those mysterious fluctuations in the volume of trade which periodically throw men and women out of work, to poverty and distress, seems needful to complete our rapid survey of the laws and institutions which orovern and shape his life. It would not, of course, be possible to include in any work of moderate size a list of the network of voluntary agencies for the encouragement of thrift and the relief of affliction, mental and bodily, which covers the land ; the bare enumeration of such agencies existing in London alonewould swell this modest volume to portly dimensions. We must con- 169 lyo THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK tent ourselves with indicating a few of the most important, giving preference to those societies or institutions which either serve as models for their class or are organised on an extended basis, having branches in various parts of the country. I. SICKNESS AND INCAPACITY Confinement. — The first case coming under this head has peculiar importance, both because of its frequency and its bearing on the life and well-being of the family. Neglect to make proper arrangements for the birth of a child, by securing (where means do not allow the summoning of a doctor) the services of a mid- wife— who, after January i, 1910, must be certificated — engaging a woman to attend upon the mother, and taking care that there shall be a sufficiency of linen as well as of clothing in readiness for the baby, is peculiarly difScult to justify — seeing how long beforehand the coming need is known, and that where poverty stops or stunts preparation, maternity societies IN SICKNESS AND WANT 171 are usually ready to step in. The work of district nurses, both in town and country — par- ticularly in the smaller provincial towns and in our villaores — is doing" much to relieve the domestic difficulties of the house-mother tem- porarily laid aside, as well as to add to her personal comfort and safety. Payment is gen- erally made by means of a small weekly or monthly subscription to the district association, for the services of the trained nurse ; but nurses are also supplied free, in many cases, to patients unable to pay. Such nurses do not confine their attention to obstetric cases, but are available for all kinds of illness. Lying-in cases are also attended from many of the dispensaries, both free and provident. There are few places, prob- ably, in England, where the loan of maternity bags may not be had for the asking from some branch of the many organisations connected with the parish church ; and, if the parochial supply should fail, there are maternity charities to supply the want. In the same way, if money to pay a skilled midwife be lacking, a hospital letter can (in towns) usually be obtained, which will ensure her attendance. Where, however, the poverty is so great that it is clear the mother 172 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK cannot be satisfactorily tended, even by a trained person, in her own home, or where the conditions under which she ordinarily lives are so bad as to be likely to affect her recovery or the health of her infant prejudicially, she will be well advised to have recourse to a lying-in hospital, or, where no lying-in hospital exists, to a work- house infirmary. Workhouse infirmaries have changed considerably for the better during the last twenty, and even more during the last ten years, and many of them are now admirably staffed and manag'ed. Restaurants for Mothers. — For poor nursing mothers a new form of help, intended to aid them in the duty of nursing their babies, has lately been devised. This is the mothers' restaurant, where, on five or six days a week, nursing mothers whose husbands are out of employment, or who are for some other reason too poor to provide themselves with proper nourishment, can have a good dinner at a very low charge or, in certain cases, gratis. A doctor attends once a week to inspect, weigh, and, if necessary, prescribe for the infants, who must all be breast-fed. Both as an educational scheme and an attempt to stay the waste of IN SICKNESS AND WANT 173 life represented by our infant death-rate, this experiment of restaurants is finding favour among medical authorities, and we may- expect to see it develop considerably in the future. Sickness. — For cases of ordinary sickness, there are the hospitals, both general and special, the former admitting every kind of case, with a few specified exceptions, the latter confining themselves to the treatment of one or more special diseases. In country districts there is generally nowadays a cottage hospital within reasonable distance of every village. The work- house infirmaries receive those sick persons who are chargeable to the Poor Law. Most of the existing hospitals have " in " and "out" patients' departments. Treatment in both is absolutely free ; in the latter a small charg-e is sometimes made for medicine. Reofu- lations for admission vary ; in some of the great hospitals a "letter of recommendation" from a subscriber is required, in others it is entirely dispensed with. Many hospitals which under ordinary circumstances admit only upon a sub- scriber's letter, waive this rule " for urgency " on the opinion of the medical officers. Hospital 174 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK letters, except for certain special hospitals, can be obtained without any great difficulty ; sub- scribers recommending need not personally know the patient, and such persons as the parochial clergy or managers of charitable organisations will usually know where to lay their hands on a letter when it is needed. It should be borne in mind that hospitals, with the exception of fever and smallpox hos- pitals, which are supported out of the rates, are not State institutions, to the upkeep of which the whole community contributes, but private institutions maintained by the subscriptions and gifts of charitable individuals. Upon considera- tion of this fact there follows the conclusion that only those who are actually unable to pay for medical attendance in illness should avail themselves of that which is given in the out- patient department of a hospital. Treatment in the wards stands upon a different footing, since, where dangerous or complicated disease is present, it is only in a hospital ward that even a prosperous worker can obtain the expert advice he needs. But in this case some con- tribution should, if possible, be made to the hospital funds ; and, where ordinary ailment^ IN SICKNESS AND WANT 175 only are in question, self-respect will be better preserved by paying into a medical provident association the tiny weekly sum which ensures medical attendance and medicine in time of need, than by attendance at the out-patient department of a hospital. Accidents. — Accident hospitals, such as the Poplar Hospital at Blackwall, admit cases at all hours, free, on simple application. The general hospitals, except those which treat accident cases as ineligible, follow the same rule. Samaritan Funds. — Many hospitals have what is known as a Samaritan Fund in connec- tion with, but separate from, their general fund. Upon this the Managing Committee can draw for the expense of sending one patient to a convalescent home (often a step absolutely necessary to ensure complete recovery), for the purchase of surgical appliances required by another, and for assisting any who may leave the hospital in a destitute condition. The value of such a lund is very great, and its absence is bitterly felt in those hospitals which have not yet succeeded in setting one on foot. 176 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK Convalescent Homes. — The name of these institutions is legion. Found in greatest number in seaside towns, they are by no means confined to the coast ; the list of inland conva- lescent homes runs into many pages of print. The homes are of all kinds, good, bad, and indifferent ; those run by private owners, unless personally known to an intending patient or the patient's friends, are to be treated with caution, and careful inquiries should be made and replies verified before sending a conva- lescent— especially if the convalescent be a child — to any but a hospital home, or one of established reputation. Cases are quite common in which unfortunate patients, sent to a conva- lescent home to recruit their health, have returned much weaker than they went, owing to insuf^cient food. Special Hospitals. — These are too nu- merous to mention individually. They include hospitals for the treatment of special diseases, such as cancer, consumption, and fistula ; eye, ear, and throat hospitals ; orthopaedic hospitals ; hospitals for paralysis, epilepsy and other diseases of the nervous system ; hospitals for children and infants ; and several hospitals for women and children or women only. One of IN SICKNESS AND WANT 177 the latter class, the new hospital for women in Euston Road, is entirely staffed by women physicians. Homes for the Dying. — There are patients who, for the very reason that their case is hopeless, the hospitals cannot retain. To some of these this decision is welcome, as permitting them to follow the natural instinct which prompts a man to spend his last hours, if possible, among his own people. To others, however, it is full of terror. Not all dying persons have a home in which to seek refuge ; nor is that home, even where it exists, invari- ably a place where they may hope to find peace, kindness, and the measure of comfort which their condition demands. There is, therefore, a real gap to be filled by those homes for the dying which the last twenty years have seen established among us. It must be remem- bered that these homes are only intended for persons suffering from progressive disease, whose days are clearly numbered, and not for those who are merely chronic invalids. Homes and Pensions for Incurables. — The incurable class is not, however, left unpro- vided for. Both in the metropolitan district, in M 178 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK the North, Midlands, and other parts of England, homes and hospitals for incurable cases have been established. There are also several institutions which grant pensions, usually to be attained by election, to incurable invalids residing in their own homes. Dispensaries. — In their constitution, these vary even more than the hospitals. Some of them are entirely "free"; some are "provi- dent"; others are "charitable" — i.e., the benefits of the dispensary may be obtained on presentation of a subscriber's " letter." They vary also considerably in methods and organi- sation, some of the best among them being little inferior to the out-patient department of a well-managed hospital. The Poor Law dis- pensaries, one of which is commonly (but not always) found in each Poor Law district, are of course free. In favour of dispensaries as against hospitals for very poor patients is the fact that these can ordinarily find a dispensary to attend at a short distance from their own homes, while the great hospital may be a long way off, perhaps so far off as to compel the payment of tram or omnibus fares ; in addition, the prolonged IN SICKNESS AND WANT 179 waiting involved in attendance at the out- patient department of such hospitals as London or Middlesex — waiting which, with a journey to and fro, frequently consumes the whole day — is a most serious difficulty to a worker who cannot afford to take even half a day " off." Metropolitan Provident Medical Asso- ciation.— As model dispensaries may be cited those under the management of the Metro- politan Provident Medical Association, which has now twenty-one branches within the area of Greater London. Every person within the wage limit and in fair health, residing in a dispensary district, can become a member, subject to the approval of the managing com- mittee and of the doctor selected. Note should be taken of the word "selected." One of the admirable features of this Association's method is that it permits members to choose their own medical man. The payments are extremely moderate, and are spread over the whole year ; special terms are of course given to families, and also to parochial associations, such as mothers' meetings. Upon this model many of the most successful county and district organi- sations have framed their constitutions. i8o THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK Surgical Aid Societies. — Besides the well- known Surgical Aid Society in Salisbury- Square, there are several other societies in London coming under this heading, which supply artificial limbs, artificial eyes, trusses, elastic stockings, crutches, &c., to poor patients. The addresses of these associations, which do an excellent and much-needed work, can be readily obtained by reference to the Annual Charities Register. Instruments, &c., are sup- plied on a subscriber's recommendation, or by special grants, and in certain circumstances altogether gratis. The Hospital Saturday Fund gives surgical appliances upon payment of half cost by instalments ; while the Hospital Sunday Fund grants letters of recommendation in respect of surgical appliances to ministers of any contributing congregation for use of its members. Invalid Children's Aid Association. — There is a special pathos in the suffering of little children ; and when the invalid or crippled child belongs to a poverty-stricken household, where comforts are few, and the mother, how- ever devoted and tender, has little time to give to the cherishing of a single weakly member of IN SICKNESS AND WANT i8i the family, the appeal to our compassion is doubled. The Invalid Children's Aid Associa- tion has, by well directed and systematic efforts, succeeded in bringing relief to the sufferings of thousands of afflicted children, and of introducing at least some measure of well- being and brightness into young lives which, without its help, would have been passed in the shadow of continual suffering. The great merit of this Society is that its efforts for the good of the children it befriends are continuous. Not content with obtaining skilled medical, surgical and nursing aid, or, when necessary, admission into hospital for its patients, it sends children away for longer or shorter periods to the sea or into the country, lends invalid chairs or carriages, and by means of the army of orga- nised volunteers who work under the direction of its expert committee, exercises continuous supervision over the children at home, thus ensuring that the remedial treatment prescribed shall be thoroughly carried out. At the same time, attempts are made by the visitors to give meaning and hope to the children's lives by teaching them such occupations as may be ap- propriate to their condition, and to render them 1 82 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK independent by apprenticing them to a trade, where this is possible. The work of this Society has hitherto been confined to London and its immediate suburbs ; but there are societies working on similar lines in several large towns both in England and Scotland. Any one interested in the case of an invalid child may refer it to the Association. Applications are received direct from parents, as well as from clergy and social workers, school board officers, or medical men. Spectacles. — Failing or defective sight, serious evils in the case of any human being, should never be neglected by men and women who have their living to earn. As a preserva- tive of sight in the case of elderly persons, and a corrective of defects of vision in the young, the timely use of spectacles is of extreme impor- tance ; and all those who value their own and their children's eyes must be prepared to carry out loyally any medical instructions given them on this point. There is in London a Spectacle Mission Society, having a central house in Sutherland Avenue, and branches in North, South, and East London, which makes the gra- tuitous supply of spectacles to people too poor IN SICKNESS AND WANT 183 to purchase them its sole business. There is also an association which concerns itself with the needs of elementary school children in this respect. With the advent of regular medical inspection, a much greater demand for glasses is certain to arise in our schools, where imper- fect or impaired sight is sadly common. Careful teachers frequently find, after patient study of a seemingly dull or inattentive child, that its mistakes are due, not to native stupidity or determined trifling, but to the simple fact that the poor little creature cannot see properly ; while experienced medical practitioners tell us that the headaches from which school children often suffer are in many cases the result of an unconscious attempt to rectify a faulty focus in the wrong way. That which the child is, instinctively, striving to do for himself, scien- tifically adjusted glasses will do for him, without the present discomfort and the pro- spective injury to the eye which unassisted struggle against weak or abnormally short sight involves. Insanity. — There is no single institution which exhibits, so strikingly as the lunatic asylum, the change in the attitude of the public mind 1 84 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK during the past century towards helpless suffering. It is a far cry, indeed, from the "bedlams" of our great grandfathers, where unhappy lunatics were chained up like dogs and treated in all respects as dangerous wild animals, where the whip was the sole means of persua- sion, and those having authority knew no better way of dealmg with attacks of mania than to shut the sufferer into a dark cell and flog him unmercifully, to the well-managed modern asylum in which the whole system of daily existence is planned with the view, not merely of controlling, but of curing patients. It is well that this should be so, and doubly well for those of small means, who cannot, with safety, attempt to retain mentally afflicted rela- tives at home. If the burden of the presence of a person of thoroughly unsound mind is usually found too heavy to be supported even in large houses, where special attendance is available and where the lunatic can be to a certain extent isolated, in the crowded home of the worker it becomes intolerable. Removal to an asylum becomes imperative, for the sake of the children of the family, for the safety of the sufferer himself. IN SICKNESS AND WANT 185 Lunatic Asylums. — Besides the large County and Borough Asylums, there exist various kinds of private establishments which receive insane patients, registered hospitals, licensed houses, &c., in which payment has to be made by the inmates or their friends. Here we are concerned chiefly with the first-named institutions, which are maintained by the rates and are consequently free. Procedure in Cases of Insanity. — When it appears necessary to place any one in an asylum, a petition — which should, if possible, be presented by the husband or wife or some near relative of the supposed insane person — is drawn up and presented to the proper magis- trate, together with two medical certificates declaring the patient insane. The magistrate then makes what is called a Reception Order. The petitioner has to undertake that either he, or some one representing him, will visit the patient every six months or oftener. In cases of " urgency," i.e., where the patient is violent and dangerous, a person may be placed under restraint by means of an urgency order signed by his friend and accompanied by one medical certificate, without waiting for the magistrate's 1 86 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK intervention. But this kind of order, which is of course intended to avoid the risk of delay in cases of acute mania, only holds good for a week. At the end of that time, the ordinary procedure described above must be gone through. An insane person found wandering at large may be committed to an asylum on the order of a justice, accompanied by a certificate signed by a doctor who has examined the patient ; in this case the justice must satisfy himself per- sonally that the insanity exists before signing the order. A summary reception order may be made on receipt of information from the reliev- ing officer, overseer, parish constable or other person, showing that a person supposed to be insane is not being properly cared for or is cruelly treated by his relatives or other persons having charge of him ; in this case the justice may visit the lunatic, and must call in the opinion of two medical practitioners. If neces- sary, he may direct insane persons to be placed temporarily in the workhouse, where harmless lunatics are frequently kept altogether, in place of being sent to an asylum. Such "harmless" cases are also allowed to remain at IN SICKNESS AND WANT 187 home in the charge of responsible relatives. A person not otherwise chargeable to the rates may be maintained free in a County or Borough Asylum, on the Justice being satisfied that he is " in such circumstances as to require relief for his proper care." All institutions for the insane, including the special wards in workhouses, are under the supervision of the Lunacy Com- missioners, two of whom visit all such institu- tions at least once a year. (Licensed houses for private patients, as being less under public observation than rate-maintained institutions, are visited six times a year.) Idiots and Imbeciles. — In respect of idiocy and imbecility, existing laws and insti- tutions are alike inadequate. We have all known, at some time in our experience, a family weighed down by the charge of an idiot or imbecile child, whose presence in the home was distinctly injurious to its brothers and sisters, and who, for lack of the special care and train- ing that its case demanded, could be seen with every year sinking lower in the scale of humanity. There are degrees, both of idiocy and imbecility (which is a milder kind of idiocy) ; many imbeciles are educable up to a certain 1 88 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK point, and special training may do much to render even the maimed existence of the idiot tolerable and happy. Unfortunately, there is no Government inspection of the training or education of the mentally deficient ; and prac- tically no Government provision for such train- ing. The Metropolitan Asylums Board has five asylums for idiots and imbeciles, maintained by the rates under its jurisdiction, that at Darenth being for children only. These are intended chiefly for the reception of imbeciles sent from workhouses by the Boards of Guar- dians, which have very large powers in this matter. To the other establishments of this kind admission is usually by election or pay- ment, though a few of the County lunatic asylums have a department for idiot or imbecile patients. We have it on the authority of experienced workers among this afllicted class that the existing accommodation, both in public and private institutions, is wholly insufficient to meet the demand for care and treatment. The Feeble-minded.— Here, again, there is total lack of special provision by the State, and private efforts have, so far, failed to occupy, except in part, the immense field left open by the IN SICKNESS AND WANT 189 State's inaction. The only present refuge for the feeble-minded who are not maintained at home is the workhouse, unless they are fortu- nate enough to obtain admission into one of the existing private homes. The danger of allow- ing a feeble-minded person, especially when that person is a woman, to pass free and un- controlled through life, cannot be exagforerated : misery and degradation to the individual and injury to the race (for a feeble-minded woman is pretty certain to become the mother of degenerate children) are the inevitable result of such folly. Unless, therefore, the relatives of a feeble-minded girl are in a position to control her actions, it is their duty to use every effort to get her cared for in one of the existing homes which the zeal of the National Association for Promoting the Welfare of the Feeble-minded and individual effort have established. For mentally defective children more has been done. The special schools maintained for their instruction by the London County Council have been dealt with in chapter i. Epileptics. — For these, being children, no special provision has, so far, been made by establishment of special schools. For I90 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK adults there are several private homes and colonies, the latter training only epileptics who are able-bodied and capable of employment. But in this case, too, a great increase of exist- ing facilities for care and training is required. The present colonies are doing admirable work ; the change which their methods effect in the physical and mental condition of their patients is frequently remarkable, and one of the greatest benefits which they confer is in the provision of employment. Many epileptics are by nature energetic and industrious ; but, as a rule, while they " remain in the world " their condition debars them from active work and condemns them to a life of idleness. In the Colony such people find their opportunities of occupation and usefulness. While the National Society for the Employment of Epileptics maintains its buildings free, it requires payments from patients or patients' friends for mainten- ance. Since, however, Boards of Guardians have power to make these payments on behalf of those unable to pay for themselves, the mere fact of poverty or lack of a subscribing friend need not debar from admission to the Colony ; and where admission is desired, appli- IN SICKNESS AND WANT 191 cation should in such cases be made to the Local Guardians. Blind, and Deaf and Dumb. — The number of institutions in which the blind are cared for, taught and trained is very considerable, although it is impossible to say that it is sufficient for the needs of a blind population believed to extend to two hundred thousand persons. These institutions are all voluntary,* and they are dis- persed fairly widely over the kingdom at large The quickness of mental faculty which so often accompanies quickness of hearing and extra- ordinary sensitiveness of touch in the blind, makes them apt pupils in any industry in which it is possible for touch to supply the place of sight. It is important, in the case of a blind girl or boy about to undergo training, to select a trade in which the blind worker may hope to compete on an equal footing with workers normally endowed ; and it is to be noted with satisfaction that the governing bodies of many blind schools for adults and young people are showing a disposition to give freer play to the * Large use of such voluntary institutions is made by Boards of Guardians for the destitute blind, the ISoards, in such cases, paying out of the rates for the maintenance of inmates sent by them. 192 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK individual abilities of their inmates than was formerly the case, when knitting and basket- making were too often the only channels of activity in which those abilities were permitted to display themselves. It cannot be too strongly impressed upon the parents of a blind or deaf and dumb child that, if education and training are of great value in the case of normal boys and girls, their value is doubled where those have to be considered who start life handi- capped by lack of a sense. Upon the training, first of the child and then of the young man or woman, depends the question whether the after- life shall be one of self-respect, independence, and comparative, perhaps even positive happi- ness, or a thing precariously maintained for a time by the compassion of others, to end, too probably, in misery and degradation. Where deaf and dumb persons are concerned, the teaching of the lip language which, in most institutions established for their welfare now accompanies manual instruction, enables those who master the system to overcome, to a large extent, the drawbacks of their affliction. Cripples. — We have already alluded to the work done by the Invalid Children's Aid IN SICKNESS AND WANT 193 Association. A very large number of the little sufferers helped by this Association are children who, either by reason of accident, of disease, or of some malformation of the limbs, are perma- nently crippled. Many of these can be treated at home, nor is it desirable, save in special cases, to remove them from home influences and home affection to institutions. But special cases do occur, cases in which the home influences are evil and the home affection absent, and where to leave the child under its parents' roof means to expose it to neglect and unkindness, if not to actual cruelty. There is, also, the case of the crippled orphan to be con- sidered. These two classes of case are suffi- ciently numerous to make the existence of cripples' homes not only desirable but necessary. The existing homes are on a voluntary basis, and in the two largest of them, the National Industrial Home for Boys at Kensington and the Cripples' Home and Industrial School for Girls in Marylebone Road, children are admitted by rotation as vacancies occur, on simple appli- cation to the honorary secretary. Inebriate Homes and Retreats. — It is remarkable to find so cautious and little senti- 194 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK mental a body as the Charity Organisation Society giving pubHc endorsement to the view that " inebriety must be dealt with as a dis- order." In an admirable article by Dr. Kely- nack, published by the Charity Organisation Society as part of the introduction to its Annual Charities Register, the author shows himself to be in complete sympathy with those who urge that, in the case of the drunkard, punishment in the ordinary sense has, because it can have, no effect. Dr. Kelynack quotes with approval Dr. Braithwaite's statement that many of the worst cases of inebriety are due to congenital defects or tendency to insanity, and himself points out that over 62 per cent, of those admitted to inebriate reformatories are insane persons, imbeciles, degenerates and epileptics, or in some degree mentally defective. That some men and women are so constitutionally " intolerant" of alcohol that the taking of the smallest quantity into their system throws them physically, mentally, and morally out of gear is an accepted fact, and people have begun to recognise that *' drinking habits " are in many cases the result of our social conditions, of the gathering into great cities of a large poor IN SICKNESS AND WANT 195 population with its inevitable consequences — overhousing and overcrowding, want of air and light, innutritious food and long hours of labour in a vitiated and overheated atmosphere. These conditions all conduce to create or foster the drink craving. The Report of the Depart- mental Committee on Physical Deterioration did much to establish and drive home these facts and to dispose public opinion to a really scien- tific treatment of the problems of drunkenness. An important stage in the march of opinion was reached by the permission granted to both husband and wife under the Licensing Act of 1902 to obtain a separation order in the case where one or the other is an habitual drunkard. There are now both State and certified inebriate reformatories to which habitual offenders charged with inebriety can be sent instead of being committed to prison. There are also a number of licensed Retreats, which are intended for people who voluntarily apply for admission. The object of these Retreats is to cure the patients, while the object of the Reformatory is rather to safeguard the public welfare. At present no obligation rests on any one to go into a Retreat unless he or she wishes to do so. 196 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK II. AIDS TO THRIFT There are two distinct definitions, because there are two distinct views of thrift. There is the narrow view which restricts its meaning to the saving of money, at any cost in comfort of Hving, opportunities of self-improvement and leisure to the worker ; there is the broad view, which bestows it on any course of action which tends to the ultimate benefit, physical, mental, and moral, of the individual. The first is the view of the French peasant, living in penury and brutalising his family by excessive labour, in order to add to the store in the stocking ; the second is that of the enlightened artisan, who perceives that the best provision he can make for his children is to give them such an education as will render them capable men and women, fit to make their own way in the world ; who would rather keep them a year longer at school than add a few pounds to his deposit in the savings bank, and who considers money laid out on the maintenance of his home in IN SICKNESS AND WANT 197 decency and simple comfort thoroughly well spent. To say this is not to disparage the saving of money against sickness, old age, or accident; the greater in this case, as in so many others, includes the less. It is usually the man who refuses to increase his weekly income by making breadwinners of his boys before their time, who is the steadiest member of his trade union, the most regularly paying member of his friendly society, the keen and zealous co-opera- tor ; it is the woman who has a strong opinion against "going out to work" who will generally be found to be the most economical manager and the most competent housewife. Over and over again in our experience have we met with the wives of wasfe-earners who were formerly wage-earners themselves, and who have renounced the practice, quite as much because they found it economically ruinous as because they recoiled from its moral effects in the shape of a neglected home, disobedient and untidy children, and, possibly, an estranged and demoralised husband. There would be a great deal less of the casual char- ing and laundry work which draws so many women out of their homes, if those women 198 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK would realise that by the time they have paid their sixpence a day to the neighbour who looks after the baby, and met the expense of waste involved in the purchase of tinned and cooked foods, in the wear and tear of children's un- mended clothes, and in the more frequent pur- chase of new, shoddy, ready-made substitutes for those ill-used garments, their net earnings are practically nil ; indeed, that the balance is often on the wrong side. Trade Unions. — Among the principal aids to thrift, considered for the moment in the nar- rower sense of money-saving, trade unionism naturally first presents itself. It is one of the many advantages of the association of workers in trade organisations that, while their member- ship gives security to their present position, together with hope of improvement, it at the same time provides for the contingencies of unemployment, sickness, and death. Some of the greater unions, such as the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, give, in addition to their sick, unemployed, accident, and funeral benefits, a superannuation benefit to any member fifty- five years of age who has belonged for twenty- five successive years to the Society, and is IN SICKNESS AND WANT 199 unable through old age to obtain the ordinary rate of wages. The range of benefits varies in the smaller unions : sick, funeral, and unem- ployed benefits are most commonly included. Some societies grant travelling expenses to members in search of work. Women's Trade Unions. — Women were for a long time backward in grasping the advan- tages to be obtained by members of a trade union. But there is every sign that this insensi- bility to their own interests is on the wane, and that the present generation of working girls are wiser in this respect than were their mothers before them. With the yearly increasing spread of education, and the development of intelligence which a thousand institutions and influences are helping to foster, the splendid object-lesson of Lancashire — where the complete organisation of women in the Textile Operatives Unions side by side with men has resulted in the payment of equal wages for equal work to both sexes, together with a rate of pay obtained by women in no other industry — is not likely to be thrown away. There are, however, too many girls who, in the lighthearted confidence born of youth and inexperience, take it that 00 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK their need of a trade union will cease with mar- riage, and who have not yet learned that to look no further than the morrow in the matter of benefits is to court that disaster which waits on the improvident. Membership of a women's trade union is, for girls especially, highly educative ; and one of the first lessons which are learnt in its school is that of making reason- able provision for the future. Co-operative Societies. — The lesson of thrift is also being widely taught — and learned — among the members of the great body of workers who make up our five millions of co- operators. In its teaching the Women's Co- operative Guild is honourably distinguished ; and if membership of a trade union may be earnestly recommended to girls employed in industry, association with the Women's Guild may well be as urgently pressed upon married women occupied only in home duties. The advantages of co-operation have long been appreciated by the vigorous and enterprising dwellers in the North and North Midlands; it is to be hoped that the Southern and Western counties will soon follow their example, and pro- mote, more vigorously than they do at present, IN SICKNESS AND WANT 201 a system of production and distribution so beneficial both to the intelligence and the pocket of the worker. Friendly Societies. — The great friendly- societies, such as the Foresters, Oddfellows, Hearts of Oak, Manchester Unity, Sons of Temperance, and Rechabites, are known by name to most people. But probably few are aware that the number of existing friendly societies runs into thousands. The benefits offered vary, as do the terms of membership and subscription, but the objects are common to nearly all societies — weekly allowance during sickness, medical attendance, annuity in old age, burial benefit, and what is known as en- dowment insurance, by which a sum of money is paid to the person in whose name money is invested, on his attaining a certain age. This last form of insurance is particularly useful where a sum of money is wanted to start a child in life, or the investor desires to make provision for the time when he shall be past earning. Some societies also make grants on the confinement of a member's wife, and give orders for hospitals and convalescent homes. Payment of insurance premiums is made weekly 202 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK or quarterly. Women's courts and lodges have been formed in connection with some of the old societies, and women are beginning to form benefit societies of their own ; the tendency in this case hitherto has been to rely on friends when incapacitated from earning, and on the husband after marriage ; that friends may not be in a position to give help at the right moment or the husband may die and leave his wife a widow, scarcely influences this calculation. Chil- dren can now be made members of friendly societies, and some have their names entered when they are but a year old. Choice of a Friendly Society. — In choosing a society, preference should always be given to one registered under the Friendly Societies Act, which ensures that the accounts of the society are kept in a proper manner and due publicity given to them. The Registrar of Friendly Societies (Abingdon Street, West- minster) will supply \ a list of registered societies. Where any but a thoroughly well established society is chosen (and even here it is well to ascertain beforehand how the stability and scale of payments of one society compare with another) close inquiry should be made as IN SICKNESS AND WANT 203 to its soundness. The Secretary of the Charity- Organisation Society (Denison House, Vaux- hall-bridge Road, S.E.) will obtain particulars of any special society for inquirers. Great care should be exercised in respect of Works' Socie- ties, and Shop Clubs ; unless workers can ob- tain a guarantee that change of employment will not deprive them of the money invested in such societies, they may, though not dismissed for any misconduct, find themelves, by some un- foreseen event, such as the death of their em- ployer or the mere fluctuation of trade, deprived of their savings at an age when they cannot pro- fitably enter any other friendly society. Dividing Societies. — Under this heading are included Tontines, Slate Clubs, and, gene- rally, all those Societies which offer no provision for old age but only sick pay year by year, and share out among their members at some fixed date, most frequently at Christmas, all funds which have not been spent in sick pay during the pre- vious twelve months. These clubs are ex- tremely popular, especially among the poorer class of workers, and their freedom from that risk of possible insolvency years hence which is more or less present in the case of the regular 204 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK Friendly Societies is not without advantage. They are not, however, wholly to be recom- mended, since it requires more strength of character than the average human being pos- sesses to re-invest, steadily, capital which returns to one's own control every year, and it is to be feared that " sharing out " is frequently responsible for a good deal of waste and extravagance and ill-considered purchase, as well as of harmful excess. Provident Medical Associations. — These, having been already considered in relation to sickness, may be passed over with a bare mention in this place. They must, however, be reckoned among the more important "aids to thrift." Burial and Assurance Societies. — In these we have the very oldest form of Friendly Society. Among the members are included all grades of workers, from the most prosperous to the poorest; and the societies themselves are of all types, ranging from the small funeral insur- ance society to a great office like that of the Prudential Assurance Company, with its thirteen million policies and its thirty million and a half of capital. This office — with many others — offers not only ordinary death insurance, but IN SICKNESS AND WANT 205 endowment and death insurance, endowment and temporary assistance, and joint life assur- ance policies, and has a system whereby insur- ance and annuities may be combined in a single policy. It has been acutely remarked that the collectingr societies, of which the Prudential As- surance is one, have, in the existence of their collectors, an immense advantage at starting over the Post Office, as well as over those private societies which wait for clients at their offices. Now, the practice of collection has its con- venience ; where husband and wife both work for wages, or where the woman carries on a home trade, the collector's visit is the solution of a real difficulty — but it has its dangers too. Women, to whose care falls the payment of the weekly premiums, are frequently persuaded by the in- sinuating collector anxious to promote the in- terests of his society — as he has good reason to do, seeing that he receives a percentage on each new policy — to leave a sound society for one that is unstable. Then, collection means large expenses of management, and, conse- quently, a diminished profit to investors. People are seldom aware how great is the difference — amounting to no less than thirty per cent. — 2o6 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK between their payments for an insurance to a collecting society and the sum that the same insurance would cost them in the Post Office Savings Bank. In addition, opportunities for fraud, which would not otherwise occur, are afforded to dishonest collectors. Workers, who by reason of misfortune are unable to keep up their insurance payments, should bear in mind that a policy after some years acquires what is called a surrender value, and must not be allowed to lapse without a claim to this value being first put in. Post Office Insurance and Annuities. — The absolute security which attends insurance in the Post Office should be attractive to the prudent investor. He or she should also re- member that costs of management are much lower in the case of the Post Office than they can be in connection with a private office, and that there are several special privileges accorded to Post Office investors, such as obtaining all the necessary certificates free — to say nothing of the convenience of having a branch of one's bank in every village in the kingdom. The Post Office grants also an annuity peculiar to itself — the Immediate Annuity which, when IN SICKNESS AND WANT 207 purchased, whether with savings which have reached a certain sum, or with some small legacy that has fallen unexpectedly to the worker on the death of a relative, becomes pay- able without delay. Building Societies. — These are favourite forms of investment with skilled workers who have been able to effect considerable savings on good wages, and desire to purchase or build their own houses. There are a large number of flourishing building societies in the country, and, despite some historic failures of such bodies — due either to incapable management or to downright dishonesty on the part of the responsible directors — their general soundness is not impugned. Too much care cannot, however, be exercised before joining a building society, either as a borrower intending to build, or an investor prepared to put money into the concern. Savings Banks and Parochial Clubs. — While our human nature remains what it is, the value and need of Savings Banks will alike continue. Most of us retain, even to middle life and sometimes beyond it, the tendency to spend what we have which makes the money- 208 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK box necessary to the child ; in this matter, as indeed in numberless others, men and women are only grown-up children. Most closely approximated to the money-box system is that of the Collecting Savings Banks, the principal object of which is to teach people to save by making saving a habit, and to help them to save by providing an opportunity for putting by money without difficulty. In connection with these Banks, pennies or larger sums are called for every week by collectors who are most commonly connected with the parochial organi- sations or with some association for social work ; and, as a general rule, no interest is given, since it is hoped that, once the habit of saving has been acquired, it will not be long before the people themselves will have recourse to a Savings Bank where interest is given. Mean- while, their money remains absolutely in their own power, and they can always ask for it back should they wish to do so. Parochial " Clubs," which do not return the money paid into them in cash, but in the form of coal, blankets, cloth- ing or boots and shoes, are also of the nature of Savings Banks ; they almost invariably give interest or a bonus on the money saved. IN SICKNESS AND WANT 209 Though hardly to be commended from the point of view of self-dependence, these institu- tions undoubtedly do an exceedingly useful work, and contribute largely to solve a problem that must otherwise remain, for many harassed mothers of families, almost insoluble — the clothing of the children of the very poor. Many of the Co-operative Societies issue coal and clothes cards which make saving comparatively easy if not altogether delightful ; and the tradesmen's " Christmas Clubs," to be found in so many of the smaller towns and villages, and in the workers' quarters of the larger cities, are intended to serve the same purpose. Some watchfulness as to the quality of the goods supplied in the latter case is, however, necessary. The so-called " goose " clubs pro- moted by keepers of public houses are to be shunned ; the end of them is certainly not thrift. The Post Office Savings Bank, with the complete security it affords to depositors, has diminished the number of the old Trustee Savings Banks ; but many of them still flourish and do a considerable business. They are less rigid in their methods than the Post Office, 2IO THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK allow money to be more quickly withdrawn (not an unmixed advantage, perhaps !), and permit deposits smaller than the shilling which is the Post Office minimum. They also give a very slightly higher rate of interest. Some of the Co-operative Societies have Savings Banks attached to them ; and there is a system of Penny Banks which works in connection with the public elementary schools. Doubtless it is by putting into these banks that many children form a habit of saving. The pride, born of a " whole shilling " in the Bank which has gradually accumulated there as pennies were heroically saved at the cost of self-denial in the matter of halfpenny ice- creams, is a wholesome thing in more respects than one. IN SICKNESS AND WANT 211 III. HELP IN DISTRESS Wehave discussed, in cursory fashion, the pro- vision that may, and in ordinary circumstances should, be made by every prudent worker whose circumstances will permit it, against the day of possible sickness and want for himself and his family. But how if, owing to thought- lessness, or recklessness, or selfish indulgence, no such provision has been made ? How if some special misfortune, such as the prolonged illness of the breadwinner, or a severe depres- sion in trade, creates a situation too serious to be met by these provisions ? What resource, then, remains to those whose ordinary means of livelihood have failed them ? Setting aside all question of recourse to indi- vidual charity — for we are dealing as far as possible in this chapter only with resources open to all the sick and needy, and for many of these individual charity will not be forthcoming, even should they desire to claim it — and re- 212 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK stricting ourselves to institutions, we can name two directions in which aid should be sought. There is the Charity Organisation Society, which, through its local committee, may extend help ; there is the local Board of Guardians which, if distress amounts to destitution, must do so. The Charity Organisation Society. — The methods of the Charity Organisation Society are strict and searching, and its stan- dard, as regards the character of candidates for its assistance, very high. There is, how- ever, a principle underlying what may some- times look like harshness or want of sympathy. The Society does not exist, primarily, for the relief of distress, but rather to give aid and advice to those desirous of helping distress in the best and wisest way. Its fixed rule is not to assist a case unless it can do so adequately — unless the case is one in which it may be concluded that, the particular trouble tided over, the individual or the family will be self- supporting in future. Hence it never gives doles, though it may and often does, give tem- porary or " interim " help while it is finding out whether the case is one which should hav<5 IN SICKNESS AND WANT 213 all possible aid given it. Where the Society- assists, it assists generously. Where, for instance, it gives pensions, it does not starve its pensioners, but makes them an allowance sufficient for real maintenance. In coming to the rescue of families in distress, it does not stop short at the grant of a weekly sum which will tide them through the period of sickness or unemployment, but provides that, when better times dawn, they shall make their fresh start unhampered by debt ; it concerns itself with the future of the children and finds openings for them in directions which, without its action, would have remained unknown to the parents. It lays particular stress on family ties and duties, and, before granting help, re- quires proof that the near relatives of the appli- cant are either doine their best to assist or are really unable to afford any assistance. The Poor Law. — The self-respecting worker is, as all who are acquainted with him know, profoundly averse from application to the Poor Law Authorities for relief. This is an attitude that cannot but win our regard and admiration, and we should all like a man the better for setting his teeth to endure 214 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK hardness rather than lose his independence and become chargeable to the community. It is, as a rule, the idle and the shiftless among able- bodied men who drift contentedly, or at least resignedly, into the workhouse. The attitude we have spoken of may, however, be maintained at too great a cost. When it involves the breakdown of the wife's health, the suffering of little children — perhaps their injury for life by privation — then it will be better for the man to yield to cruel necessity than to stand out. In some cases, if he enters the workhouse the Guardians will temporarily maintain his family outside it, thus averting the complete break-up of the home. The Guardians of the Poor. — The powers of the Boards of Guardians are very considerable. They have under their manage- ment not only workhouses (including casual wards and infirmaries) and workhouse schools, but outdoor relief, both medical and general ; and, as we have seen earlier in this chapter, they can pay for the maintenance of persons requiring relief in institutions outside the Union. This they do also in the case of " boarded-out " State children, or of those children of necessitous IN SICKNESS AND WANT 215 parents sent by them for education to special schools for the blind, deaf and dumb, or mentally defective. It should be noted that in these last-named cases of special payment, the fact that payment is made on behalf of his children does not disqualify the parent as an elector. Neither does receipt of medical or surgical relief, including both attendance and medicine, from "the parish," disfranchise the recipient. Receipt of ordinary relief, whether outdoor or indoor, has this effect. Election of Guardians. — Members of Boards of Guardians are elected by the parochial electors, In rural parishes they are chosen by the Parish Council or Parish Meeting as District Councillors and Guardians ; but on the District Council they act separately in the two capacities. In all town parishes they are elected directly to a Board of Guardians. Boards of Guardians are now the only authori- ties elected for one special and distinct purpose, and it is probable that they will not long con- tinue to exist in their present form. Discretionary Powers of Guardians. — We have seen how wide is the Guardians' field of operations ; no less wide is the discretion 2i6 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK vested in them. Consequently, the administra- tion of the Poor Law varies greatly from district to district. One Board gives outdoor relief freely ; another restricts it within the narrowest limits. The powers of the Guardians in this respect are much larger in some places than others. In the greater number of Unions — not, however, including London, Manchester, Liverpool, and several other great cities — there is in force the Prohibitory Order of the Local Government Board which forbids the giving of out-relief to any able-bodied grown person, man or woman, or members of their family living with them. In London the milder Regu- lation Order prevails. This, while not forbidding the giving of out-relief to able-bodied people altogether, requires half the relief given to be in kind — food or fuel, orders the relief to be administered once a week, and forbids the Guardians to set up applicants for relief in trade or business, to pay rent, to redeem pawn- tickets, or to buy for those receiving relief anything except clothing and bedding, and these only where they are urgently needed. In the case of able-bodied men, a labour test is generally imposed on those resident in the workhouse. IN SICKNESS AND WANT 217 Classes Relieved. — Leaving out of con- sideration vagrants and " casuals," who are outside our purpose, there are four distinct classes dealt with by the Poor Law — children, the sick, the aged, and the able-bodied tem- porarily or permanently unable (in some cases, perhaps it should be added, unwilling) to support themselves. Reckoning the persons relieved during the year in England and Wales at a million, we may roughly calculate children as constituting a quarter and the aged over a third of the whole, while the sick number about 200,000. The able-bodied in receipt of relief, are, as compared with the rest, a small class. About half the sick and more than two-thirds of the children are getting relief at home. The reason for this is easily apparent : the existing workhouses would not hold them, so that, even where the settled policy of the Guardians is against out-relief, circumstances compel them to grant it. Method of Application for Relief. — Relief must be claimed from the authorities of the Union within which the applicant is residing. Sometimes difficulties will occur in respect of the law of " settlement and removal " ; 21 8 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK but this law Is too complicated to be discussed here. Suffice it to say that the claim, if not good in the place of residence, will be trans- ferred to the place of "settlement," the two not always being identical. This is why we hear, every now and then, of people being *' sent back to their Union"; this means that they are transferred to some place where they lived for- merly, and where they still have a claim on the Poor Law authorities. Application is made through the relieving officer, whose advice will often be of great assistance to the applicant. This official is empowered, in urgent cases, to give either an order for the workhouse (where people would otherwise be turned into the street), or to grant temporary out-relief at his discretion ; but such relief must always be in kind, not in money. The case then comes before the Guardians at their next meeting ; the applicant, or, if the applicant is ill and unable to appear, the husband, wife, or near relative, comes before the Board to state the case, the relieving officer gives his report, and the Guardians proceed to make their order. In case of illness or injury, the relieving officer informs the medical officer, IN SICKNESS AND WANT 219 who visits the patient, and if the case is serious and requires treatment and nursing, sends it at once to the infirmary. Amount of Relief. — This varies so much that it is impossible to lay down any rule on the subject. Some Boards of Guardians give fairly liberal allowances in a certain class of case, such as that of a widow with young children, while they limit it severely in the case of able-bodied men ; others make the grants very small in all cases. The standard of out- relief observed by a careful and businesslike London Board of Guardians in the Western District, dealing with a poor class of workers, is as follows : For a man or woman (widower Or widow), 75. a week, with 6d. extra for coal in the winter season ; for a married couple, 105. to 115. ; for each child in a family, from i^. extra upwards, the maximum being 25. This is, of course, far above the average rate in most parts of the country. It should be carefully noted that the Pro- hibitory Order, where it prevails, only affects the giving of out-relief to able-bodied persons ; it says nothing about the old, the sick, or children who are not able to maintain themselves. 220 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK Even for those who do come under the Order, exceptions to the rule are allowed. " Sudden or urgent necessity," the fact that the person requiring relief is ill or has met with an acci- dent, or is a widow of less than six months' standing, or, being a widow, has children dependent upon her whom she is incapable of supporting at once creates a bar to the prohi- tion. Under ordinary circumstances, the wife of an able-bodied man, where this Order is in force, shares her husband's ineligibility for out- relief, but if he is in gaol, or on service as a soldier or sailor, she ceases to be ineligible, and becomes entitled to relief as though she were a widow. Legal Responsibilities of Relations ; Legal Powers of Guardians. — In cases where near relatives — parents, grandparents, children — are able to maintain the applicants for relief and refuse to fulfil their natural duty the Guardians can recover what they expend upon the case, or a part of it, from those rela- tives. So a married man who lets his wife apply for relief when he is able to maintain her may be summoned and made to pay towards the cost of her maintenance. If he deserts her IN SICKNESS AND WANT 221 and his children, leaving them chargeable to the parish, he may be punished by imprisonment with hard labour for any term not exceeding three months. Deserted children, as well as children of parents judged unfit to have control of them, may, by the Guardians, be taken into the custody of the Guardians, who thencefor- ward become responsible for them. All parental rights may then, if the Guardians please so to resolve, vest in them until the child is eighteen years old, or ceases to be maintained by them, or the Board thinks it for the child's advantage to rescind its own resolution. THE WORKER AS CITIZEN THE WORKER AS CITIZEN If ignorance often stands in the way ot the knowledge of and the exercise of the workers' powers in relation to the life of the home or the workplace, its presence is — in large parts of London and of Great Britain — no less marked as regards their citizenship. That the people should take their share in municipal and in political life is a matter of the deepest public interest. As has been already stated, there exists in almost every district some small groups of men and women, such as those formed in connection with Trade Union, Co-operative, or Political organisations, who try by means of lectures and meetings to rouse their fellow workers and induce them to assert their position and exert their influence. Parliamentary Elections. — These groups form too often but a small proportion of the 225 P 226 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK whole. The bulk of the people may be apathetic, roused only to spasmodic excitement by some popular election cry, which to the more educated and thoughtful citizen seems often equally ingenious and fallacious in its promise to the worker. So we have seen thoroughly corrupt and michievous public bodies retained in office for years by the indifference of the townspeople, just as in Parliamentary elections, the poll in many places, however large the issues at stake, is small, unless swelled by hot canvass or by costly advertisement. It is essential that the workers' friends should induce them to see that their names are on the Register. They should be urged to use any franchise they possess, not capriciously, but seriously and completely. Women are, it is said, even more neglectful than men in this respect, and we believe this grave charge to be true. " I tell them to vote, it doesn't matter how," says a popular parish priest. What does matter is that the vote shall not be dictated ; that it shall be the result of individual thought and given with a sense of its importance ; that it shall be the individual contribution towards better government, and as such given to the THE WORKER AS CITIZEN 227 man whose policy represents to the workers this end, and who from one election to another is responsible to them for carrying it out. Education of every sort on this question, whether to be gained by newspapers, books, by lectures, by club meetings or discussion, is invaluable, and it is infinitely important that women, as well as men, should avail themselves of these opportunities. Meetings of Women's Trade Unions, and of the branches of the Women's Co-operative Guild often now afford occasion for debate or discussion on questions of citizenship, but these meetings should not prevent that attendance at general meetings which makes both sexes feel their equal public duty. In some homes, where it was impossible for both husband and wife to be absent, we have known such meetings attended by them alternately, the husband being anxious to make it possible for his wife to keep pace with him on questions of common interest. We remember the healthy life obtained by these means at Mansfield University Settlement, when Mr. Percy Alden gathered every Sunday evening a large mixed assemblage of men and women to discuss industrial and social 228 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK questions ; the intelligence and keenness of the women's contributions formed, perhaps, the most interesting feature of the debate. Municipal Elections. — Of the Municipal, as of the Parliamentary, franchise, it is true that constant vigilance is needed, not spasmodic enthusiasm. It is necessary for the people to realise that, just as theirs can be the determining influence in the conduct of the State, so the members of the local authority, placed in office by the local community, are responsible to them for the care and upkeep of the neighbourhood, and must be removed by them from office should they fail in their trust. The workers should know for what purposes they are paying their rates and should watch their expenditure. It is in their hands to decide whether their local civic life shall be a large and full one, the streets well-lighted and paved, with parks and public spaces for the children — nay, with ample bath and washhouse accommodation to relieve the pressure on the space of tiny houses ; whether the means of traffic are ample and good, and free libraries afford means of study and educa- tion. This is one alternative, and those of us who have lived in a town or district where the THE WORKER AS CITIZEN 229 bulk of the people were apathetic or ignorant of civic responsibility, where public spirit seemed non-existent, and where the control was in the hands of a majority of the town council com- posed of local sweaters, will have no difficulty in placing the other alternative before the workers. Guardians' Elections. — It is curious that apathy in respect of the franchise is most pro- found at the election of Boards of Guardians. The reason may possibly be found in the deep- seated distrust and dislike of our present Poor Law system which exists among the workers. Relief is asked for by the self-respecting only undercircumstancesof the most urgent necessity. Starvation is to them almost preferable to the workhouse. Our whole Poor Law system is, it is to be hoped, in the melting-pot, but Royal Commissions work slowly, and in any case our business is with the present condition of things and the worker's power to deal with them. The point which has to be pressed home is that, whatever the defects of the system, it is still, as Canon Jephson, Walworth's ex -Mayor, always urges on the inhabitants of his parish, our national system of insurance against old age and its capacities in this direction, as well as 230 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK its power of insurance against sickness, should be used to the full. Even under present cir- cumstances much may be done if the great body of voters make up their minds to a definite and broad policy. They should know how the relief to which they contribute is administered, and see that, if given at all, it is given adequately, not as a rate in aid of wages, serving to drag down earnings. Such questions as that of the best method of dealing with those unfortunate ones who are the children of the State are properly of interest to every parent in the district. We have said that our Poor Law system is an insurance against sickness, and it behoves the workers and their friends to see that the Poor Law Infirmary does not fall behind the voluntary hospitals in equipment and in stafT. Above all, they should so use their power that the lives of their old people may be rendered as easy and dignified as possible, and those who in any other class would have earned an honoured rest, should not spend their last years in a penal colony. The Laws. — We cannot overlook, among the duties of citizenship, the attitude of the citizen THE WORKER AS CITIZEN 231 to the enforcement and development of the laws. On these questions the worker has a threefold responsibility : in the home, in the workplace, and in the State. The duty of every member of the community to assist in the enforcement of the regulations which they have helped to make is obvious. The crying need for such enforce- ment has already been dealt with. The sickly, anaemic worker, the product of overheated, overcrowded, ill-ventilated workrooms ; those maimed by accidents from dangerous machinery, or worn out by interminable hours, form a record of preventable suffering — a constant and un- necessary blot on our national efficiency ; a testimony to unenforced laws. But it is not only enforcement that is necessary. We have seen that the laws which guard the children form now a considerable code — that here, too, there is a crying need for better enforcement. Yet here, as with adult labour, the duties of citizenship include not only the enforcement of existing laws, but also the translation into State action of much that is now left to voluntary effort. The self-sacrifice entailed by foregoing the advantage of the children's earnings, in order that they may be better equipped by 232 THE WORKER'S HANDBOOK complete school training, and, if possible, by subsequent apprenticeship to a skilled trade, is the fulfilment of a claim made on the individual by the community. Those precocious little wage-earners who eke out the family gains by running errands, street-hawking, or home work, perpetuate, by their feebleness and ignorance, every evil of our industrial system ; they are being reared to a fight for work, weaker in each succeeding generation, by which a continually increasing number of recruits must be added to the army of the unemployable and disappear into the abyss. Every child sacrificed means a crime against the State. Questions of such vital import cannot be left to voluntary self-sacrifice ; the strong public opinion which is forming on them must be crystallised into legislation — the expression of the will of the community — as binding on the selfish as on the self-sacrificing. Those who, as citizens, are exercising the restraint needed to equip their little ones for the industrial struggle, and sacrificing a possible pecuniary advantage in order that the mother may remain at home ; those who are devoting time and thought to their trade organisation as well as to THE WORKER AS CITIZEN 233 municipal life, to the claims of the sick, the old, the unemployable, and the unemployed, must not be satisfied with voluntary effort. Their struggle to free the labour market from the competition of mother and child, of infirm and old, of the sick and the unfit, is one, having entered into which as citizens, they must continue until they obtain the endorsement of the State. It is for them to consider every proposal which has for its object the restoration of the child to school and play and of the mother to her home — which, while penalising all those who refuse to labour, shall free from anxiety the old age or sickness of those who work. It is on the sense of responsibility for its govern- ment created in the great mass of the people that the future of our country must depend. INDEX "Abstract," explanation of, 115-22 ; exhibition of the, 136, 143 Accidents — Compensation for, 156-62 Hospitals for, 175 Reporting of, law concerning, 120-21 Acts — Coal Mines Regulation, 1887, igoo, 164 Early Notification of Births, 24 Education, 38, 44 Employer's Liability, 158-59 Employment of Children, 1903, 55-57 ; by-laws under the Act, 57-59 Factory, 111-145, 152-3 Friendly Societies, 202 Industrial Schools, 37, 38 Infectious Diseases Notification and Prevention, 86-88 Licensing, of 1902, 99, 195 Prevention of Cruelty to Children, 63, 65 Probation of Offenders, 60, 61 Provision of Meals, 41-44 Public Health, 82-86 Shop Hours, 153-55 Shop Seats, 155 Summary Jurisdiction (Married Women's), 1895, 98 Truck, 145-152 Workmen's Compensation Act 1906, see that title Adler, Miss, on children's courts, 59 Aerated water factories, 114; danger of work, 119, 142, 144 Affiliation order, 93, 105-8 23s 236 INDEX Afflicted State Children, 73 Agricultural districts, modification of laws concerning children in, 30 Alden, Mr. Percy, 227 Alloys, dangers attending work in, 144 Amalgamated Society of Engineers, 198-99 Anderson, Miss, H.M. Principal Lady of Factories, 118, note Animals, keeping of, 84 Annual Charities Register, 180 Annuities, 201 Post Office, 206-7 Apprenticeship — Revival in favour of, 33-34 State Children and, 73-74 Arbitration under Workmen's Compensation Act, 160 Arsenic, extraction of, dangers of, 144 Artificial feeding of infants, see under Infants Ash-pits, 85 Assurance Societies, 204-6 Bakehouses — Conditions of work in, 138 Hours, 139 Sanitation in, 140 Banstead, Kensington and Chelsea District Schools at, 70 Bastardy order, see Affiliation order Begging, evils of, 62 Belfast, example of fines in, 150, 151 Bichromate works, dangers in, 144 Bill, the Children, 59, 60 Blanket Clubs, 208 Blind, deaf and dumb children, care of, 50-51 Blind, institutions for the, 191-92 Board of Education, 42, 44, 47 Boarding-out system, method of providing for State children, 71-73 Borough Asylums, 185, 187 Boys — Employment of, limitation of hours, 125-26 Law as to employment in mining districts, 164-66 INDEX 237 Boys, National Industrial Home, Kensington, 193 Street- trading, see that title Braithwaite, Dr., opinion regarding inebriates, 194 Brass work, dangers of, 144 Brighton, rate of infant mortality in, 16 Building Societies, 207 Burial Societies, 201, 204-6 Burnley, rate of infant mortality in, 15 Bury, returns of infant mortality in, 17 Canal-boat children, laws concerning, 32-33 "Casuals," 217 Charity Organisation Society — Methods of granting aid, 212-13 On treatment of inebriates, 194 Secretary's address, 203 Chemical works, dangers in, 144 Chicken-pox, notification of, 88 Child-labour — Employment of Children Act, 1903, see that title Evils wrought by, 8-10, 53-55. 231-33 Examples of, 52-53 Street-trading by, 58-59 Wage-earning school children, 52-55 Children — Accidents among half-timers, 156-57 Apprenticeship, 33-34 Benefit Societies for, 202 Blind, deaf and dumb, 50-51 Canal-boat children, 32-33 Clubs for, 69 Courts for, 59-61 Cruelty to, 64-66 Dangerous performances, in, 63 Employment of, limitation of hours, 125-126 ; in coal mines, old conditions, 162-64 Epileptic, 50 Feeding of school children, 41-44 InvaUd Children's Aid Association, 180-82, 192-93 Medical inspection of school, 44-48 Mentally defective, 48-50, i8g 238 INDEX Children — Morally neglected, schools for, 34-41 Period of school life, 29-30 Public-houses and, 63-64 Refractory, schools for, 34-41 Rest and recreation for, 66-69 State, see State Children Theatres, in, 60, 62, 63 Van dwellers, 32-33 Wage-earning school children, see Child-labour " Children Bill," the, 59, 60 Children's Country Holiday Fund, 68-69 Children's Courts, 59 Children's Happy Evenings, 67 Children's Magistrate, the, 60 Children's Probation Officers, see Probation Officers China manufacture, dangers attending, 141, 143, 144 Cholera, 87 Christian Social Union, 7, 118, 130 Christmas Clubs, 209 Church of England's Waifs and Strays Society, 37 Citizen, the — Guardians' elections, 229-30 Laws, the enforcement of, 230-32 Municipal elections, 228-29 Parliamentary elections, duty in, 225-28 Clothing Clubs, 208-9 Clubs — Children's, 69 Christmas, 209 Goose, 209 " Parochial,'' 208-9 ' Coal Clubs, 208-9 Coal Mines — Children employed in, old conditions, 162-64 Regulation Act (1887), (1900), 164 Collecting Savings Banks, 208 Collecting Societies, advantages and disadvantages of, 205 -6 Colonies for epileptics, 190 Compensation for accidents, 156-62 Compounding in cases of accident, 7 Confinement, provision for, 170-72 INDEX 239 Consumption, treatment of, 87-88 Continuation schools, benefits of, 33 Continued fever, 87 Convalescent Homes, 176 Conveniences, sanitary, the law concerning, 117 Co-operative Societies, 200-201 Savings Banks, 210 Cornwall, "payment in kind " in, 146-47 Cottage homes, system of, for State children, 70 Cottage hospitals, 173 Country Holiday Fund, Children's, 68-69 County Asylums, 185, 187, 188 Courts for children, 59-61 Creches, 25-27 Cripples' Home and Industrial School for Girls, Marylebone Road, 193 Cripples, homes for, 192-93 Croup, membranous, 87 Cruelty to children, law regarding the parents, 64-66 Damaged work or goods — deductions for, 148-49 law as to, 150-53 Dangerous machinery, 119 fencing of, 120 Dangerous performances, children in, 63 Dangerous trades, 141-45 Darenth, asylum at, 188 Day Nurseries, 25-27 Deaf and Dumb, institutions for the, 192 Death, compensation in case of, 161 Debts, &c., of a wife, husband's liability, 96-9 Deductions from wages, see under Wages Defective children, 48-50 Diarrhcea, infantile, fatality of, 1 8 Dilke, Sir Charles, Coal Mines Regulation Act of, 164 Diphtheria, 87 Disinfection by sanitary authority, 88 Dispensaries, 178-79 Distraint for rent, 91 Dividing Societies, 203-4 240 INDEX Domestic workshops — definition of term, 112 note hours of work in, 1 26-27 Doors, construction and fastening of, 122 Drainage of factory floors, 117 Drunkenness, causes of, medical opinion, 193-95 Dumb, institutions for the, 192 Dundee Social Union, " Report of Medical Inspection of School Children in Dundee," cited, 43, 45 Dust, removal of, 85 Dying, homes for the, 177 Earthenware manufacture, dangers attending, 141, 143 144 Education Act, 38, 44 Elections — Guardians of, 229-30 Municipal, 228-29 Parliamentary, 225-28 Electric accumulator works, dangers of, 144 Employer's Liability Act, 158-59 Employment — hours of, laws regulating, 123-31 certificate of fitness for, 124-25 Employment of Children Act, 1903, 55-57 by-laws under the Act, 57-59, 64 Endowment allowance, 201 Enforcement of school attendance, 30-32 Engel, quoted, 163 England and Wales, rate of infant mortality in, 15 Enteric fever, 87 Epileptic children, 50 Epileptics, colonies for, 189-gi Erysipelas, 87 Euston Road hospital for women, 177 Explosives, manufacture of, dangers of, 144 Eyesight, care of the, 1 82-83 Factories — Abstract, the, 115-22 Definition of term, 112-113 Doors, construction and fastening of, 122 INDEX 241 Factories — Drainage of floors, 117 Holidays in, 131-33 Hours in, 125-27, 131-32 Lime-washing of, 1 16-17 Machinery, see that title Meal-times, 127-28 Over-crowding, law concerning, 116 Sanitary conveniences, 117 Sanitation in, 1 13-15 Temperature of, 116 Ventilation in, 1 15-16 Factory and Workshop Laws, iii, et seq. Factory Inspectors — Appointment of, 111-12 Work of, 122, 151 Feeble-minded, the, lack of State provision for, 188 Feeding-bottles, hints regarding, 21 Feeding of school children, 41-44 Fines — Deductions from wages for, 149-50 Law as to, 150-53 Shop-assistants and, 153-54 Fire, danger from, 121-22 ; responsibility in case of, 122 Flax-spinning and weaving works, dangers of, 144 Foresters, Order of, 201 Friendly Societies — Act, 202 Advantages of, 201-2 Burial and Assurance Societies, 204-6 Choice of a Society, 202-3 Registrar of, 202 Germany, Vaccination Law in, 29 Girls — Cripples' Home and Industrial School for, 193 Girls' Friendly Society, 74-75 Mining districts, law as to employment in, 164-66 Street-trading, see that title Trade Unions for, 199-200 " Goose " Clubs, 200 242 INDEX Guardians of the Poor — Classes relieved, 217 Discretionary powers of, 215-16 Election of, 215 ; citizens' duty, 229-30 Legal powers of, 42, 44, 220-21 Method of granting relief, 218-19; amount given, 219- 20 Provision for epileptics, 190-91 Scope of their work, 214-15 Half-time system, certificate of fitness for employment, 124-25 Health Visitors, their work, 22-23, 25 Hearts of Oak Benefit Society, 201 Hides and skins, imported, dangers of, 144 Hogg, Mrs., work of, 52 HoUdays, 131-133 Home Secretary, Powers of the, 116, 117, 152; representa- tions to the Home Office, 118 and note Homes for incurables, 177-78 Homes for the dying, 177 Hornchurch, Shoreditch cottage homes at, 70-71 Hornsey borough, by-laws of, 58-59 Hospitals — Accident, 175 Fever, 174 General, 173-75 Samaritan, funds of, 175 Special, 176-77 Hospital Saturday Fund, 180 Hospital Sunday Fund, 180 Hours, limitation of — Illegal overtime, 128-29 in bakehouses, 139 in mining districts, 164-66 in shops, 154-55 Laws regulating, 123-31 Housing of the worker, evils of over-crowding, 81-82 Husband and wife — Judicial separation, 93-94, g8-ioi Legal responsibilities, 220-21 Liability for wife's debts, &c., 96-98 INDEX 243 Husband and wife — Marriage, 95-96 Widow's rights, on death of her husband intestate, 101-5 Wills, 92-93 Idiots, provision for, 187-88 Imbeciles, provision for, 187-88 Incurables, homes and pensions for, 177-78 Industrial Law Committee, 7, 118, 136 note Industrial Schools, 36-40 Industrial Schools Act, 2)7i 38 Inebriates, homes and retreats for, 193-95 Infant, the — Artificial feeding, dangers of, 17-19; best means of, 19-20 ; methods of, 21 Boarding-out system, 27-28 Creches and day-nurseries, 25-27 Notification of Births Act, 24-25 Mortality, rate of, in relation to the occupation of the mother, 15-17 Registration of, law regarding, 24-25 Sleep and clotlaing, 21-22 Vaccination, 28-29 Infant Life Protection Act, 27-28 Infected persons, exposure of, 89 Infected rooms, letting of, 89 Infected rubbish, 89 Infectious Diseases — Disinfection by Sanitary Authority, 88 General rules to be observed, 89 Isolation and hospital treatment, 88 Notifiable diseases, 86-88 Infectious Diseases Notification and Prevention Acts, 86, 88 Influenza, sometimes notifiable, 88 Insanity — Feeble-minded, care of the, 188 Idiots and imbeciles, provision for, 187-88 Procedure in cases of, 185-87 Treatment of, 183-84 Insurance, Post Office, 206-7 Invalid Children's Aid Association, 180-82, 192-93 Ironware, enamelling and tinning^of dangers attending, 144 244 INDEX Isolation hospitals, 88, 174 Isolation treatment for infectious diseases, 88 Jephson, Canon, 329 Kelynack, Dr., opinion regarding inebriates, 194 Kensington and Chelsea District' Schools, Banstead, 70 Lancashire, rate of infant mortality in, 17 Landlord and Tenant — Distraint for rent, 91 Landlord and Tenant — Landlord's right of ejectment, 90-91 Lodgers, 92 Laundries — Conditions of work in, 114, 133-35 Hours, limitation of, 124, 135-36 Sanitary requirements, special, 136-38 Lead-poisoning — Compensation for, 162 Dangers of, 141, 143, 144 Lead-works, dangers in, 144 Letters of administration, procedure to obtain, 102, 105 Letting infected rooms, 89 Licensing Act, 1902, 99, 195 Lime-washing of factories, 116-17 Lip language for the deaf and dumb, 192 Liverpool, overcrowding in, 81 Local Authority — Enforcement of the Public Health Acts, 85-86 Fire, responsibility in cases of, 122 Power of the, 111-12 Local Government Board — Prohibitory Order of the, 216, 219-20 Regulation Order of the, 216 Relief of School Children Order, 41-43 Lodgers, 92 London County Council — By-laws under the Employment of Children Act, 57-58 Education Committee, 47 Special schools of the, 51-52, 189 London Hospital, 179 INDEX 245 Lunacy Commissioners, 187 Lunatic asylums, see Insanity Lying-in hospitals, 1 72 Machinery — Danger from, iig Fencing of, 120 in motion, cleaning of, 1 20 Magistrate, the children's, 60 Manchester Unity society, 201 Mansfield University Settlement, meetings at, 227-28 Marriage, requisites to a valid, 95-96 Matches, manufacture of, dangers of, 141-42, 144 Materials, deductions for, 145 Maternity Societies, 170-71 Meal-times, 127 Measles, notification of, go ' Medical inspection of school children, 44-48 Medical Officers for schools, 47 Medical Officer of Health, duties, 24-25, 86 Medical Provident Association, 174-75 Mentally defective children, i8g Metal hollow-ware, tinning and enamelling of, dangers of, 144 Metropolitan Association for Befriending Young Servants, 74- 75 Metropolitan Asylums Board, 188 Metropolitan Provident Medical Association, 179 Middlesex Hospital, 179 Midwives, certificated, 170 Milk for mfants, hints concerning, 19-20 Miners, conditions of work before 1887, 162-64 Morally neglected children, schools for, 34-41 Mother, the — Rest before confinement, value of, 19 Restaurants for Mothers, 172-73 Schools for Mothers, 23-24 Municipal elections, the citizens' duty, 228-29 National Association for Promoting the Welfare of the Feeble- minded, 189 National Industrial Home for Boys, Kensington, 193 246 INDEX National Society for the Employment of Epileptics, 190 Navy, apprenticeships in the, 74 Necrosis, 141-42, 144 compensation for, 163 Notice to quit — to weekly tenants, 90-91 to lodgers, 92 "Notifiable" diseases, 87-88, go Notification of Births Act, application, 34-25 Nuisance, definition of term, 82-83 Nurses — District, 171 Visiting, for schools, 47, 52 Old Trustee Savings Banks, 209-10 Ophthalmia, contagious character, 51-53 Overcrowding, PubUc Health Acts regarding, 85 in factories, 116 Overtime work — Evils of, 5-7, 129-30 Illegal, 128-29 Law concerning, 130-31 Paint and colour manufacture, dangers of, 144 Parliamentary elections, duty of the citizen, 225-28 Parochial Clubs, 207-9 Particulars Section, trades to which extended, 152 and note Payment in kind, 146-48 Penny Banks, 210 Pensions to incurable invalids, 178 " Phossy jaw," see Necrosis Phthisis, contagious character, 87 Physical Deterioration, Report of Departmental Committee on, 195 Play centres, 67 Poor Law ReHef, see Relief under the Poor Law aitd Guardians of the Poor Poplar Hospital, Blackwall, 176 Post Office- Insurance and Annuities, 206-7 Savings Banks, 209-10 Preston, rate of infant mortality in, 15 INDEX 247 Prevention of Cruelty to Children Act, 63, 65 Probation of Offenders Act, 60-61 Probation Officers, appointment and duties of, 60-62 Prohibitory Order of the Local Government Board, 216, 219- 20 Provident Medical Association, 204 Provision of Meals Act, 41, 42, 43 Prudential Assurance Company, 204-5 Prussia, system of medical inspection in, 46-47 Public Health Acts, 7, 82-86 Public-houses — Children and, 63-64 Puerperal fever, 87 Queen Victoria Street fire, 121 Reception orders in cases of insanity, 185-86 Rechabites, 201 Reeve, Mr,, quoted, 145 Reformatories for inebriates, 195 Reformatory schools, 40-41 Refractory children, schools for, 34-41 Registrar of Friendly Societies, address, 202 Registration of infants, law regarding, 24-25 Regulation Order of the Local Government Board, 216 Relapsing fever, 87 Relief under the Poor Law — Amount of relief, 219 Classes relieved, 217 Legal responsibilities of relations, 220-21 Method of application for, 217-19 Regulations controlling, 216 Relieving Officers, 218 Restaurants for Mothers, 172-73 Retreats, licensed, for inebriates, 195 Rules, Special, 142-145 Ringworm, 51-52 St. Pancras School for Mothers, 1 1 Salisbury Square, Surgical Aid Society, 180 Samaritan Funds, 175 248 INDEX Sanitary Authority, disinfection by, 88 Sanitary conveniences, 117 Sanitary Inspectors — Woman, 23 Work of, 84, III, 117, 154 Sanitation — Bad, evils arising from, 80-81 Bakehouses, in, 140 Factories, in, 11 3-1 5 Laundries, in, 136-38 Savings Banks, 207-10 Scarlet fever, 87 Scattered Homes system, for state children, 71 School Attendance Officer, work of, 30-32 School-life, period of, 29-30 Schools — Blind, for the, 50-51, 191-92 Continuation, 33 Deaf and dumb children, for, 50-51 Defective children, for, 48-50 Industrial, 36-40 Mothers, for, 23-24 Reformatory, 40-41 Special, of the London County Council, 51-52, 189-90 Technical, 33-34 Truant, 36 Vacation, 67-68 Seats, provision of, for women and girls, 155 Separation, Judicial, 93-94, 98-101 Shop assistants, fines for, 153-54 Seats for, 155 Shop Clubs, 203 Shop inspectors, 154 Shops, employment in, law as to, 154-55 Shops and workshops, protection in, need for, 153-55 See also Shop Assistants Shoreditch Cottage Homes, Hornchurch, 70-71 Sickness, means of relieving, 173-77 Slate Clubs, 203 Small-pox, 87 ; scarcity in Germany, 29 Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, work of, 28 Sons of Temperance, 201 INDEX 249 Special hospitals, 176-77 Special Schools, London County Council, 51-52, 189-90 Spectacle Mission Society, 182-83 Spectacles for children, 182-83 State children — Afflicted, Ti Apprenticeship of, 73-74 Methods of providing for, 70-73 Sterilised milk, depots for, 20 Street-trading — By-laws regulating, 58-59 Rugulated by Employment of Children Act, 1903, 55-57 Relation to the question of children's courts, 59 Summary Jurisdiction (Married Women) Act, 1895, 98 " Sunbeam Mission," the, 69 Sunday, the law regarding, 127 ; the miners', 164-65 Surgical Aid Societies, 180 Technical training, schools for, 33-34 Temperature of Factories, 116 Textile Operatives Unions of Lancashire, 199 Theatrical performances, child licences for, 60-62 Thrift- Building Societies, 207 Burial and Assurance Societies, 204-6 Co-operative Societies, 200-201 Definition of, 196-98 Dividing Societies, 203-4 Friendly Societies, 201-3 Parochial Clubs, 207-9 Post Office Insurance and Annuities, 206-7 Provident Medical Associations, 204 Savings Banks, 207-10 Trade Unions, 198-99 Women's Trade Unions, 199-200 Tontines, 203 Trade Unions — Benefits from, 198-99 Women's, 199-200, 227 Trades, dangerous, 141-45 Training-ships, establishment of, 74 2SO INDEX Truant Schools, 36 Truck, 146-48 Typhoid fever, 87 Typhus, 87 Underground bakehouses, 139 Vacation schools, 67-68 Vaccination of infants, 28-29 Van-dwellers, laws concerning, 32-33 Ventilation of factories, 11 5-1 16 Vulcanising india-rubber, dangers of, 145 Wage-earning school children, see Child-labour Wages — Deductions for damaged goods and materials, 148-49 ; for fines, 149-50; law as to deductions, 150-53 ; from shop assistants' wages, 153-54 Low rate of, 145-46 Particulars in writing of work and wages should be kept, 152-53 Payment in kind, 146-48 Ward, Mrs. Humphry, work of, 67 White-lead, risks from use, 141, 143, 144 Widow, rights of, on death of her husband intestate, 101-5 Wills, making of, 92-93 Wool and hair sorting, dangers of, 145 Wool-combing, dangers of, 145 Women — Benefit Societies for, 202 Hospital for, Eustou Road, 177 In shops, limitation of hours, 155; seats for, 155 Inspectors, Reports of, 114 Non-employment of, underground, 164 Overtime, evils of, 124 Regulations affecting their labour in mining districts, 165-66 See also Mother Women's Co-operative Guild, 200, 227 Women's Trade Union League, 5, 7, 118, and note; 136, noi(e Women's Trade Unions, 199-200 INDEX 251 Worker, the — Citizen, 225-33 Character and environment, 79-80 Holidays, 131-33 Housing and sanitation, 80-82 Representation, channels of, 117-18 Workhouse — Evils of system concerning children, 70-71 Infirmaries, 172, 173 Insane wards, 186, 189 Workmen's Compensation Act, igo6 — Aims of the Act, 158-59 Amount of compensation obtainable, 161-62 Arbitration, 160-61 Workmen's Compensation Act, igo6 — Notice and claim, 160 Persons excluded from benefit, 159 note Works Societies, 203 Workshops, definition of term, 112 a.ndnoU, 113 Domestic, 126-27 Hours of work in, 125-26 Lime-washing of, 1 16-17 See also Factories "Young persons," limitation of hours for, 125-27 Printed by Ballantyne &' Co. Limited Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, London UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. ^ MAY 3 i^oL 4^. SEP 2 6 1983 Form L9— Series 444 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY AA 000 989 114 4 o;)90 T799W