In another matter Parliament, in 1872, made a completely new departure.
It declared that “it was expedient to make better provision for the protection of infants entrusted to persons to be nursed or maintained for hire or reward in that behalf.” And it inaugurated a plan for the protection of the health of the most helpless of its numerous charges—a plan embodied in the Infant Life Protection Act.
“Houses of persons retaining or receiving for hire two or more infants for the purpose of nursing must be registered.”
The Local Authority (the Metropolitan Board of Works) was to cause a register to be kept and make bye-laws, and might refuse to register an unsuitable house.
And the registered owner must keep a register of the children, &c., &c.
If proved to the satisfaction of the local authority that such person has been guilty of serious neglect, or is incapable of providing the infants with proper food and attention, the house might be struck off the Register, and penalties be imposed—six months with hard labour, and up to £5 fine.
The start made was slow, only six houses having been registered in 1876; but the Act laid the foundations of a scheme which has had considerable developments.
Specially valuable is it to have the views of one of the foremost men of his time upon the phase of opinion existing at this period upon the general question of the public health. They help to mark progress along the road. The late Mr. W. E. Forster, speaking at the meeting of the British Association at Bradford in 1873, said:—
“I think our aims in this direction are higher than they used to be. We are aiming not only at preventing death, but at making life better worth living by making it healthy. And we no longer forget that in fighting our battle against disease it is not only those who are killed that are merely to be considered, but also the wounded. In those terrible inflictions of preventable disease throughout the country the loss of life is very sad; but even more sorrowful to my mind are the numbers of our fellow-creatures—fellow-countrymen and women—who are doomed to struggle and fight the battle of life under the most severe conditions because of wounds they have received from preventable diseases.”
While Parliament was thus legislating on several matters considerably influencing the sanitary well-being of the people of the metropolis, the powerful economic and social forces also affecting it were silently and uninterruptedly continuing their work with never-ceasing energy.