408 



MEDICAL SECTION 



small debts, which have often accumulated immedi- 

 ately before the confinement. While these cannot 

 justly be considered as instances of abuse of the 

 benefit, yet it cannot be said that the benefit has been 

 rightly used, as the maintenance and care of the 

 woman during her confinement is supposed to be the 

 essential use of the benefit. 



Abuse. Abuse of the benefit money is, unhappily, 

 very common. Cases are numerous in which the 

 husband receives the entire 305. and spends it in 

 liquor, while in many cases the receipt of benefit has 

 resulted in one or two weeks of unemployment for the 

 husband. Sometimes, in anticipation of the benefit, 

 the man stops work and has been known to refuse 

 work when offered it. 



Some men have devised an ingenious method of 

 evading the accusation of not giving the benefit money 

 to the mother they hand over the 305. when it is 

 received, but deduct that amount from the usual 

 money given for household expenses. Mothers have 

 sometimes said that they were better cared for at 

 previous confinements when there was no maternity 

 benefit, as the receiving of 305. by the husband is 

 often sufficient to disturb the peace of an entire 

 family. 



In some instances the husband has used the 305. 

 in payment of debts incurred in his betting trans- 

 actions. One man spent the maternity benefit in the 

 purchase of a gramophone ! Still worse are the cases 

 where the wife joins with the husband in squandering 

 the sum on drink, for the effect on the household is 

 then disastrous. A few such cases have been dis- 

 covered by us, where young children have been left 

 at home in a state of filth and misery, while the 

 parents, having the infant usually with them, pursue 

 their course of enjoyment outside. At least two of 

 the cases were so bad that they were reported to the 

 Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, 



