154. Cases of Labourers’ Wives.
(a) Husband, labourer, but when at work spends most of his earnings in drink. Now four children under six years. The last one born died, aged five months, of consumption. Mother consumptive. I should say all the children are consumptive. Mother is, and I should say always has been, in a starved condition. A woman that would give the food to the children and starve herself, having always practically two babies in arms, and unable to go out to work, if she could obtain it, to bring a little money in the home. It would also be wrong to give her work, even her home duties being too much for her strength. No help wanted for the man in this case. He’s too artful to starve, but wicked enough to live to continue a cause for anxiety. Nothing but food or death of husband or wife will alter this case. A sad case; a hard problem to solve.
(b) Husband, builder’s labourer. Wife employed at laundry. Five children under eleven years of age. Husband out of work ten weeks previous to wife’s confinement. During the time the home depending solely upon the wife’s earnings. Wife, owing to lack of nourishment, in a very low, weak condition, and suffering much from varicose veins. Fourteen days prior to birth of child, being practically unable to stand, gave up her duties at laundry. The following day a vein burst; a very serious case. None of the previous children are very strong; but what about the last one, with the mother practically starved prior to its birth?
(c) A very similar case. Husband a labourer; work uncertain. All money he earned goes into the home. Eight children under eleven years. Woman always much underfed, owing to insufficient money coming into the home. She is never well.
155. Forty-seven Nieces and Nephews.
I may say that I have been fortunate in being able to have good care and a good doctor. Had I not been able to have it, I should have certainly lost my life when my still-born child was born. I was very ill for six weeks after, and I know what an expensive time it was. When I tell you that I am aunt to forty-seven nieces and nephews, all of the poor working class, you will understand that I have seen something of the struggle with poverty at such times, some having to get out and attend to the home before the child was eight days old. Knowing all this, I am out to help do all I can to hasten the day when every man, woman, and child shall have all the good things of life which is theirs by right.
Wages average £1; three children, one still-born.
156. “A Law to Stay in Bed Ten Days.”
I think there is a good deal of room for improving a mother’s condition during pregnancy and after childbirth. I myself have had nothing to complain of, only ignorance in things which made me suffer more than I had any need to while I was carrying my children, being young and away from all my friends; and my mother, being one of the “old school,” thought it wrong to talk to her girls of such things, and it always made us feel shy of asking her anything. But my youngest is now in his twelfth year. But I must say I have got a good husband, and we made that condition years ago, that as the boy grew up he would enlighten him, and I was to do the same by our girl, who is now fourteen years old. And one thing I think should be imposed on mothers is to have a doctor at confinements, and not to trust to midwives. I have seen a lot of neglect here with different people I have been with at those times. Certainly the midwife washes the mother after the birth of the child, but not again is the mother washed until she can do it herself. I think, myself, if there could be a law to make every mother have a doctor, and to stay in bed for at least ten days, and to be treated as an invalid for another fourteen days, it would save a lot of suffering. The women would get stronger, and not so liable to have children so quickly. A case in point only two doors away from me; the mother was confined on the 21st; on the 26th she was getting about her work as usual. Would a doctor have allowed that? The person is only about twenty-three years of age, and her last baby is only thirteen months old. Another case I was called in to some years ago. I did not know the person, only by sight. Her husband came and called me in the middle of the night. When I got there the child was born. No preparation had been made for either mother or child. From what I gathered, both parents had gone to bed drunk overnight. Isn’t it awful, a woman getting in that state, knowing at any time she might give birth to an innocent little baby? It was not poverty that had brought them to that state, as the man’s earnings were £2 a week, but all the man and woman had thought of was drink.
Wages 36s. to £1; two children.