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THE STATE AS PARENT.
669
half-holiday in
all shops in the said district, can hardly be unfair one. The facts urged in its favour by the deputation show this. They remind us that at present a term of fourteen and even sixteen hours a day is usual in shop service, and they quote the opinion strongly expressed by influential members of our profession that "these prolonged hours of labour are grievously prejudicial to health, especially in the case of women." As regards the prospects of moral and intellectual health, a similar agreement exists among the representative exponents of religious belief, and will without fail be endorsed by every unprejudiced thinker. Education, recreation, every means of self-improvement, mere physical existence, are each and all enfeebled in their action by this total absorption of the powers in the task of earning daily bread. The life is being given in exchange for the meat which alone cannot sustain it, and we daily see the consequence in withered health and flagging vigour. It would probably be not too much to say that in London at least every other female shop assistant, and a nearly equal number of male employ6s, are suffering from antemia, if nothing more serious. In the face of this undoubted fact, the scandal of overwork now prevalent acquires a very real importance. It is clear that, thus crippled, men cannot possess the natural power of manhood, and women must be weakened below the requirements of healthy maternity. What, then, of a national future? Every city practitioner has daily experience of the evil, yet he knows that to apply an effective remedy is beyond his power. In the assurance of most careful consideration afforded by the Home Secretary, we have at least an indication that so grave a matter will not be treated by the Government as a mere non-political trifle. Allied in character to the proposed Bill is another intended to limit the working hours of barmaids to seventy-two a week, to provide them with sanitary lodging, and otherwise to improve their present condition. The need of these reforms has long been obvious. As regards the duration of service, the mere fact that the working week will still be equal to six days of twelve hours is enough to prove the existence of over-pressure, for which a broken seventh "day of rest" affords no true relief.
called
an
___
CRUELTY IN CIRCUS TRAINING. THERE is, unfortunately, too good ground for the belief that the training of circus children is not only an arduous but often a really cruel process. The question as to how far it is at present legally preventable is not an altogether simple one. It was discussed a few days ago, at a private conference of members of Parliament, in one of the committee-rooms of the House of Commons. On this occasion no precise resolution was arrived at, but it was agreed that some form of State control was called for, and that it might be exercised with some effect, provided that regular apprenticeship and registration of the children thus employed were insisted on. These conditions would doubtless tend to improve the prospects of the children performers. It is to be hoped, however, that in any case of this kind large discretionary powers will also be allowed to judges in deciding what is implied in the term 11 cruelty " when it is disguised under the name of professional utility. THE STATE AS PARENT. AMONG the difficulties with which our parochial authorities are confronted in their efforts to provide for neglected children, none is more annoying or more discouraging than that presented by the occasional interference of dissolute or vicious parents. The recent Cruelty to Children Act, indeed, has done something towards establishing the claim of the State in such cases, but the remedy provided is by no means as drastic as those approved in some other places. Let
take, for example, Tasmania. Recent legislation in
that has been has decided that where a offender colony juvenile sentenced to detention in a certified training school the school managers shall become guardians of the said child until he or she is twenty years of age, and it excludes entirely the exercise of parental control so long as the school serves as a temporary home. A further provision authorises the summary punishment of any parent who wilfully neglects and so endangers the health of his child under fourteen years of age. This latter clause, it will be remembered, also forms a part of the Act already mentioned. That bearing upon the question of interference is by no means limited to Tasmania, but is embodied also in the legislative codes of South Australia, New Zealand, Massachusetts, France, and Germany. Of its practical efficiency there can be no question, though many persons in this country may dislike the apparent obliteration of a natural right of guardianship. Where such a right exists in any appreciable degree it certainly deserves to be respected. Where, on the other hand, it has already been virtually and entirely surrendered by a vicious or callous parent, where a child is consequently destitute, it must be allowed that the guardian care of the State should not be lightly interfered with. In such a case the cause of liberty is doubtless best served by sustaining the right of the child against the abused authority of a merely nomina2
us
parent.
------
THE ALLEGED "NEW DISEASE." ABOUT a week ago reports were received from Rome and Vienna of the appearance in the northern provinces of Italy, and subsequently in Hungary, of cases of lethargy or trance, termed by the country folk " La Nona," amongst individuals who had previously passed through a severe attack of influenza. The information at present received is far too scanty to admit of any surmise as to the nature of these cases, or to judge of the extent of its occurrence. It must suffice to observe that it has been long known that certain cases of influenza are accompanied more or less by severe symptoms of nervous disorder, and exhausting diseases, as typhoid fever, have been occasionally followed by the condition of trance. Among the negroes of the West Coast of Africa there have occurred cases of a curious but highly fatal "sleeping sickness," concerning which but little is accurately known. On the other hand, it must be borne in mind that amongst susceptible subjects the condition of spontaneous "trance," which is obviously allied to the hysterical state, may occur amongst groups of individuals and be spread in a so-called 11 epidemic" manner, like the nervous affections of which Hecker wrote so instructive an account.
" MORE THAN ARMIES
TO THE PUBLIC WEAL."
WITH the eloquent brevity of a soldier, Lieutenant Stairs, at the meeting of the Irish Graduates’ Association, condensed into a few words a very high eulogium on Surgeon Parke, of the Stanley Expedition, which we cannot forbear reproducing. He said "he considered that Parke had saved the life of every white man in the expedition, that he had saved his (Lieutenant Stairs’s) life, and that he had saved Stanley’s life twice." The medical profession comes in for much banter and sometimes for deliberate disparagement from ungracious or foolish people; but when one of its members alone can be so credited as Surgeon Parke is credited in these words of Lieutenant Stairs’, we can afford to let satire and ungraciousness do their worst. If what Lieutenant Stairs says be true-and no one who heard him could have any doubt about it,-it follows that a great and historical achievement would have been turned into a grave and tragical disaster but for the skill and care of its medical officer.
half-holiday in
all shops in the said district, can hardly be unfair one. The facts urged in its favour by the deputation show this. They remind us that at present a term of fourteen and even sixteen hours a day is usual in shop service, and they quote the opinion strongly expressed by influential members of our profession that "these prolonged hours of labour are grievously prejudicial to health, especially in the case of women." As regards the prospects of moral and intellectual health, a similar agreement exists among the representative exponents of religious belief, and will without fail be endorsed by every unprejudiced thinker. Education, recreation, every means of self-improvement, mere physical existence, are each and all enfeebled in their action by this total absorption of the powers in the task of earning daily bread. The life is being given in exchange for the meat which alone cannot sustain it, and we daily see the consequence in withered health and flagging vigour. It would probably be not too much to say that in London at least every other female shop assistant, and a nearly equal number of male employ6s, are suffering from antemia, if nothing more serious. In the face of this undoubted fact, the scandal of overwork now prevalent acquires a very real importance. It is clear that, thus crippled, men cannot possess the natural power of manhood, and women must be weakened below the requirements of healthy maternity. What, then, of a national future? Every city practitioner has daily experience of the evil, yet he knows that to apply an effective remedy is beyond his power. In the assurance of most careful consideration afforded by the Home Secretary, we have at least an indication that so grave a matter will not be treated by the Government as a mere non-political trifle. Allied in character to the proposed Bill is another intended to limit the working hours of barmaids to seventy-two a week, to provide them with sanitary lodging, and otherwise to improve their present condition. The need of these reforms has long been obvious. As regards the duration of service, the mere fact that the working week will still be equal to six days of twelve hours is enough to prove the existence of over-pressure, for which a broken seventh "day of rest" affords no true relief.
called
an
___
CRUELTY IN CIRCUS TRAINING. THERE is, unfortunately, too good ground for the belief that the training of circus children is not only an arduous but often a really cruel process. The question as to how far it is at present legally preventable is not an altogether simple one. It was discussed a few days ago, at a private conference of members of Parliament, in one of the committee-rooms of the House of Commons. On this occasion no precise resolution was arrived at, but it was agreed that some form of State control was called for, and that it might be exercised with some effect, provided that regular apprenticeship and registration of the children thus employed were insisted on. These conditions would doubtless tend to improve the prospects of the children performers. It is to be hoped, however, that in any case of this kind large discretionary powers will also be allowed to judges in deciding what is implied in the term 11 cruelty " when it is disguised under the name of professional utility. THE STATE AS PARENT. AMONG the difficulties with which our parochial authorities are confronted in their efforts to provide for neglected children, none is more annoying or more discouraging than that presented by the occasional interference of dissolute or vicious parents. The recent Cruelty to Children Act, indeed, has done something towards establishing the claim of the State in such cases, but the remedy provided is by no means as drastic as those approved in some other places. Let
take, for example, Tasmania. Recent legislation in
that has been has decided that where a offender colony juvenile sentenced to detention in a certified training school the school managers shall become guardians of the said child until he or she is twenty years of age, and it excludes entirely the exercise of parental control so long as the school serves as a temporary home. A further provision authorises the summary punishment of any parent who wilfully neglects and so endangers the health of his child under fourteen years of age. This latter clause, it will be remembered, also forms a part of the Act already mentioned. That bearing upon the question of interference is by no means limited to Tasmania, but is embodied also in the legislative codes of South Australia, New Zealand, Massachusetts, France, and Germany. Of its practical efficiency there can be no question, though many persons in this country may dislike the apparent obliteration of a natural right of guardianship. Where such a right exists in any appreciable degree it certainly deserves to be respected. Where, on the other hand, it has already been virtually and entirely surrendered by a vicious or callous parent, where a child is consequently destitute, it must be allowed that the guardian care of the State should not be lightly interfered with. In such a case the cause of liberty is doubtless best served by sustaining the right of the child against the abused authority of a merely nomina2
us
parent.
------
THE ALLEGED "NEW DISEASE." ABOUT a week ago reports were received from Rome and Vienna of the appearance in the northern provinces of Italy, and subsequently in Hungary, of cases of lethargy or trance, termed by the country folk " La Nona," amongst individuals who had previously passed through a severe attack of influenza. The information at present received is far too scanty to admit of any surmise as to the nature of these cases, or to judge of the extent of its occurrence. It must suffice to observe that it has been long known that certain cases of influenza are accompanied more or less by severe symptoms of nervous disorder, and exhausting diseases, as typhoid fever, have been occasionally followed by the condition of trance. Among the negroes of the West Coast of Africa there have occurred cases of a curious but highly fatal "sleeping sickness," concerning which but little is accurately known. On the other hand, it must be borne in mind that amongst susceptible subjects the condition of spontaneous "trance," which is obviously allied to the hysterical state, may occur amongst groups of individuals and be spread in a so-called 11 epidemic" manner, like the nervous affections of which Hecker wrote so instructive an account.
" MORE THAN ARMIES
TO THE PUBLIC WEAL."
WITH the eloquent brevity of a soldier, Lieutenant Stairs, at the meeting of the Irish Graduates’ Association, condensed into a few words a very high eulogium on Surgeon Parke, of the Stanley Expedition, which we cannot forbear reproducing. He said "he considered that Parke had saved the life of every white man in the expedition, that he had saved his (Lieutenant Stairs’s) life, and that he had saved Stanley’s life twice." The medical profession comes in for much banter and sometimes for deliberate disparagement from ungracious or foolish people; but when one of its members alone can be so credited as Surgeon Parke is credited in these words of Lieutenant Stairs’, we can afford to let satire and ungraciousness do their worst. If what Lieutenant Stairs says be true-and no one who heard him could have any doubt about it,-it follows that a great and historical achievement would have been turned into a grave and tragical disaster but for the skill and care of its medical officer.