Page:Women Wanted.djvu/361

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
THE RISING VALUE OF A BABY
325

600 mothers come weekly; a maternity department with the ante-natal clinic; a maternity hospital, announced as "the first of its kind" in the world; a staff of municipal midwives for service in the homes; a cooking depot, from which meals in heat-proof vessels distributed by motor vans are dispensed to 500 expectant mothers daily; and a staff of 20 women health visitors to connect the homes of Bradford with all of this municipal maternity service.

Still England's comprehensive scheme of assistance to mothers grows. Down the street, Mrs. Smith noticed one day another new institution that has been started. It is a municipal crèche, for which the Government pays 75 per cent. of the cost of operation. The sign in the window says that it is a nursery for the care and maintenance of the children of munition workers. Three meals are provided, and the charge is 6d. a day. Just around the corner, the Labour Exchange has out a sign, "8,000 women wanted at once for shell-filling factories. Age 16 to 40. No previous experience necessary. Fill the factories and help to win the war."

And Mrs. Smith is thinking. The school for mothers has taught her to. Do you know that the number of children who survive the first year in good health is 71 per cent. in homes where the wage income is over 20s. a week and it drops to 51 per cent. in homes where the wage income is less than 20s. a week? The sociologists have also some very interesting figures that were compiled at Bradford. In 1911 the infant mortality rate there in houses that