A MUNICIPAL SCHEME.

Gisborne Times, Volume XIX, Issue 1502, 10 July 1905, Page 2

A MUNICIPAL SCHEME.

PUBLIC NURSERY.

The Huddersfield Corporation have adopted a scheme of municipal child rearing. A premium is to be paid on every birth reported, instruction to mothers by paid lady visitors, and there is to be a day nursery where milk will be supplied specially for the feeding of infants. For enterprise, the Corporation of Huddersfield must be hard to beat, says the Daily Chronicle. As the pioneers of municipal tramways and coal haulage by electric trucks mnoh was expected of them, but nothing so startling as their latest soheme was ever dreamt of.' The Councillors of Worstedopolis have conceived it to be their duty to inaugurate municipal child rearing, and they intend to lose no time in putting their scheme into practice. This latest idea of civic duty ewes its conception to the Mayor of Huddersfield, Alderman Benjamin Broadbent, who is a brother of Sir William Broadbent, the King’s physician. Deeply impressed by the waste of child life in the manufacturing town, Alderman Broadbent offered one sovereign to every infant born in the distriat of Longwood on its attaining the age of twelve months, the offer to'run during his mayoralty. This opened the eyes of the health authority to the possibilities of successful ohild rearing. They recognised that the strength of tbe town was in its labor, and ih *t if the children were strong and healthy at the age of twelve months the great majority would grow to be strong and healthy men and women. The thing to do, therefore, was to offer inducements to the parents to take better care of the little ones, and also for the authorities to

take some part of the duty of rearing the children upon themselves. A Boherue was accordingly drawn up, and this was discussed and adopted by the Corporation at its meeting. In the first place it provides for the payment of Is to the first. person who shall notify the birth of a child to the medical offioor within forty-eight hours of the event. One can imagine the excitement this will create among the other children in * a family. On the first intimation of the arrival of the little straDger brothers and ~ sisters will start on a race for the medical officer’s shilling. And if there should be twins or even triplets, what joy in the family. In the latter case there would not only be the King’s three guineas for the mother, but the dootor’aSs for the brothers and sisters.

The next item in the scheme is sn instruction to the medical officer to draw up for circulation among parents detailed advice to mothers as to the feeding, washing, and olothing of the babies. The doctor is also to draw special attention to the subject of infantile mortality. Then lady health visitors are to be appointed. They will go into the houses iu which births are reported and instruct the mothers as to .the nursing and rearing of tbo .babies. They will make inquiries whore a death is recorded, investigate cases of illness among school children, and inspect workshops whore females are employed.

An important adjunct is tho establishment of a day nursery. This is to be experimental, and at tho end of twelve months, if it proves all that is hoped of it, a proposal to make it permanent will be submitted. At the nursery milk will be supplied specially for feeding infants under one year of age. The Mayor took an active part in framing the scheme, and the establishment of a nursery he regards as its most vital part, for, 03 ho pointed out, a very large number of the mothers are employed in the mills, and consequently are unable to feed their infants properly. As soon as the mothers arc convalescent they return to work, and inferior milk is substituted for the natural food. The result has been a great wastage of ohild life.