AUTHORITIES' RESPONSIBILITIES : DISCUSSION 147 



Councillor P. BUCK (Tottenham) said he had listened 

 with very great interest to the paper by Mrs. Kitson Clark 

 and had been very much struck with the views she had put 

 before them regarding the voluntary movement. He could 

 not help thinking while she was speaking of the maxim in 

 the Old Book, which said " Bear ye one another's burdens/' 

 and another, " For every man shall bear his own burden." 

 The two went together very largely, and it had struck him 

 that, after all, while it was their duty to look after weakly 

 members of the body politic, it was also the duty of indi- 

 viduals to some extent to look after themselves. Allusion 

 had been made to voluntary work among mothers by various 

 voluntary agencies, and he would like to tell them what they 

 did in Tottenham. He had already mentioned the poverty 

 in their district, and he was sorry to say that they had very 

 little voluntary help. At times they had issued appeals for 

 voluntary assistance and the result had been absolutely 

 nothing, but, notwithstanding that, they had gone on with 

 their work. They had two very good lady sanitary in- 

 spectors and three skilled nurses. They dealt with affections 

 of the eyes; their lady health officer, who devoted her entire 

 time to the schools, was an excellent woman, and diseases 

 of the eye were dealt with. The teeth were about to be 

 seen to in a dental clinic which was about to be established; 

 adenoids had for a long time been dealt with, and they were 

 also doing some feeding of the children; in fact, the Feeding 

 Act was in operation during almost the whole of the year. 

 In addition to that their lady medical officer had recently 

 established a school for mothers, and he believed that 

 already it was beginning to do very good work. It struck 

 him, when Mrs. Kitson Clark was speaking about voluntary 

 help, what a pity it was that they did not have visits in 

 their poorer districts from some of the lady volunteers who 

 were more ready to assist just the few poor in their own 

 parishes and districts. In Tottenham they had a large 

 hospital and they had the very best medical service, and 

 those who knew what the medical profession did in the case 

 of hospitals would realize what it was a visiting medical 

 staff was able to do in a poor district like theirs. He could 

 not help feeling what a good thing it would be if some of 

 the well-to-do ladies outside his district would come down 

 amongst them and see from time to time what was going 

 on and give them a little of their financial assistance and 

 possibly of their advice. There was just one point he would 

 like to mention with regard to the ignorance of mothers. 

 They all knew how appalling the ignorance of mothers was 

 on some questions. Perhaps some of them had heard the 



