The Marion daily mirror. (Marion, Ohio) 1892-1912, 1909-07-09

Chicago, July 7.--More babies,
more heat, higher milk and higher
costs for mere existence of parents
this year have made the problem of
the baby in Chicago, and presumably
other cities, more pressing than ever
before. over acres of hot tenements
and square miles of huddled homes
the midsummer specter of the Infant
Mortality has loomed up again, big
ger than ever, demanding its solution
or more baby sacrifices than ever.
Free distribution of ice was begun
several years ago but 1t has been
found that II only knicked the Sword
Death swings almost mercifully. But
when the ice box Is merely rickety
old pail or box, or the washtub or
dishpan, a ten pound lump of ice
doesn't last very long. The Infant
Welfare Committee of the United
Charities was dismayed. The health
departments last bulletin said: with
the advent of hot weather comes the
serious problem to many poor fami-
lies of how to properly preserve the
baby's milk. Clean milk requires not
only cold TO preserve It. but very few
poor families possess a refrigerator.
The cost of an ordinary ice box and
the expense OF icing is really too great
for many families.
The department described how an
ice box could be made for small cost
but the settlement workers have tried
that and with encouragement from
club women they have seized upon
the so-called "thermos" bottle which
by means of a vacuum keeps liquids
at q fixed temperature, pointing out
that the free ice would be hundred
times as useful ir 1t couldn't melt
so soon as 1t does in a tin pail on
the windowsill of q Bunker street
tenement in n homemade Ice box.
This plan contemplates a municipal
appropriation for the Infant Welfare
Committee for the purchase of ther-
mos bottles, to be loaned at a nom-
inal rental to the residents of the
congested districts, through the milk
dispensing stations. Also special ef-
forts to raise funds for private contri-
button for the purchae of these bot
ties. Thus the device used by the rich
for picnic lunches and automobile re-
freshments seems likely to be i'm
pressed into the service of the poor.
1t has been found that fresh milk,
cooled, can be kept in one of them at
stationery temperature for IL TO 36
hours. Instead of leaving the milk
exposed to the air of squalld homes
and germs IL can thus be kept her.
metically sealed.
pure milk when 1t leaves the dis
pensing station may be very impure
milk before 1t has been in a tenement
home for an hour" one of Chicago's
most indefatigabe charity workers,
Mrs. Herman Falkenstein said
Crowd a whole family into two or
three rooms, and a couple of board
ers or more and a sick and aillng
baby and then mix the whole up
with a heavy dose of Chicago sum-
mer weather, what happens? How
long does 20 pounds last in your up
to-date ice box or refrigerator, even
under the best of conditions? Not
very long, does It? Then how do you
expect Ice to keep baby's milk sweet
during the hot summer days or nights
in the sitting tenements? 1t is no
exaggeration to say that the Ghetto
burles a city full or babies every
suHiiner' Inc Hloiey tldt puTcHdeeS
500 or 900 cofflns every warm sea-
son would buy food for great many |
babies, wouldn't 1t now?
'If the city can afford TO put up |
turning poles and lay out play |
grounds for children from six to six |
teen years of age" said Mrs. Gather
Inc Waugh McCulloch. Justice of the |
Peace in Evanston, ct seems to me |
that they can AFFORD to provide life
peseryers for children of more tender
years. Certainly the babies deserve |
aid to the extent of receiv-
ing everything necessary to the pres
ervation of life, If the parents
through poverty or ignorance are un-
able to furnish II. 1t is civic duty to
pnrvey preventitives of infant mortal
ity."