I have not got one healthy child among my five, not because I did
not get well looked after, but they are suffering through the past
generation. My first child is now a man of twenty-seven, married, but
has had a paralysed arm from two years old (a milder form of which was
a family trouble). The second one died. My third, a daughter, is almost
an invalid, through nerves, and has developed a state of “catalepsy”
whenever she is overdone. She was trained to be a shorthand typist,
but is unable to follow out same, as it excites her nerves. She is
now a waitress, half time, and teaches music, to enable her to keep
herself. The fourth suffers from congenital heart, and is always ailing
more or less. She is a dressmaker. The fifth is now nine years old, and
suffers from malnutrition, and is always ailing, but a clever child
for her years. We have always been able to provide everything required
to keep them in good health. But in the light of the knowledge I have
got since I was able to grasp what things are, I have often said I was
one of the women who should never have had children, as from a girl I
was always ill, right through my married life till now. I have done
child-bearing, and am now in better health than I can remember. I was
married when I was twenty.
_Wages 35s. to 45s.; five children._