Science in Public Affairs 



ask for ? Again we depend on the driving-power 

 of an enlightened public opinion. 



INFANT MORTALITY 



The question of food is specially brought home 

 to those who have studied the returns of infant 

 mortality. This is, as the Committee say, the 

 " dark page " of our vital statistics. The Registrar- 

 General has furnished a number of tables, from 

 which it appears : " first, that infantile mortality in 

 this country has not decreased materially during 

 the last twenty -five years, notwithstanding that 

 the general death-rate has fallen considerably; 

 secondly, that the mortality among illegitimate 

 children is enormously greater than among children 

 born in wedlock ; thirdly, that about one-half the 

 mortality occurs in the first three months of life." l 

 Preston heads the death-roll with an average infant 

 death-rate of 236 per 1000 births, and Burnley, 

 Blackburn, Sheffield, and parts of London are 

 nearly as bad. The death-rate is highest where 

 the women go to work in factories, but we read, as 

 one example out of many, that "in Burnley one 

 woman is said to have had twenty children and 

 buried sixteen, all having died between one and 

 eleven months of age ; in this case the father was 

 a collier in good wages, and the mother stayed at 

 home." There is no doubt as to the connection 

 between infant mortality and (i) bad or insuffi- 

 cient feeding, and (2) the overcrowding of one or 



1 Report, p. 45- 

 30 



