SCOTTISH SLUMS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 81912, 28 December 1906, Page 4

SCOTTISH SLUMS.

MOURNFUL REVELATIONS. For the purpose of examining into the condition of the children in attendance at a public elementary school in one of the poorer parts of Edinburgh, a few interested citizens, as a result of the publication of the report of the Royal Commission on physical training (Scotland), formed themselves into a committee of investigation, savs the London Bailv News of the 30th October. They "selected a school that, had on its rolls not only children from the poorest parts of the city, but an admixture of children of the substantially comfortable and thoroughly respectable working class. Their report on the physical condi lion of fourteen hundred boys and girls has just been published. Every child in the school was weighed, measured, and thoroughly examined by medical experts, and at the same time volunteer visitors, carefully selected for their fitness for the work, visited the home of every child. Of the 781 families visited (with 1389 children attending the school) 202 mothers were wage-earners—lSO of these were from families where drink ing was a noticeable feature, and only 29 of all the working mothers were from sober and respectable homes where the father was also at work. of the famalies attending the school: 15J lived in one-roomed houses, 426 in two roomed houses, llii) in three-roomed houses, 37 in four roomed iiou-cs, and ti in five-roomed houses. The book is full of mournful inter est to the social reformer. So far as could be ascertained, 4-i'J of the eases inves'.igatcd were in receipt of charitable aid. Of the wwilies thus, help ed: Both parents were drunken in 114 cases. Fatter only drank in 114 cases. Mother only drank in 2'J ca^co. Widows drank in 25 ca-eo. Widows were sober in 30 cj-cs. Drink was suspected in 25 ca^cs. Both parents tober, father ill, in \'i cases. Both parents sober and well in 02 People doubtful in other ways in 7 I cases. In the record- <>f the investigation such entries as -'decent ami -obei'' arc ' comparatively infrci{ucut, and in too many eas-s in the report "bulk parents drunken.' <„ "fatlnr drunken." appear-. We sc!-ct hum the bull, of the rcpoits. that b.ar upon lium lb.inipre-, of impartiality, niereiy one sample: A filthy, foul siiK'lling room, tic oniy one they have, and a pair of drunken parent-, who light each other from time to time. She ir Jiminui Catholic, as are all the girls: he and the boys are I'rotcst.ant. The children arc -aid to be wa-lic I twice a week, and the gap, in their cloli.esbow clean skin.