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168 METHODS OF SOCIAL REFORM
Mlljesty's Coroner for Manchester, I have beon able to acquire
sufficient information.*
Xr. Herford himself believes that tho Act is a dead letter.
This opinion is entirely borno out by tlm strltement of Mr.
Malcolm Wood, tho Chief Constable of Nanchester, to the
effect that there are actudly no houses at all in that city
rogidterod under tho Act. Mr. Michael Bromne, the Coroner
of Nottingham, has never heard of any application for a
liccnso undor tho Act in Nottingham or its neighbourhood.
Tho Coroner of Birmingham believes that tho same is the caso
in that groat and model town, and he is of opinion that
infmtilc mortality is enormously increascci by bail nursing,
feeding, and want of car0 011 the part of tho mother. The
Chief Constable of one very Iargc town, being asked for infor-
~rmtion touching Charley's Act, rather na'ively replied that
IIC could not recollect hnving ever received any application for
information about it before. On tho othor hand, from the
Medical Oficer of Health of Liverpool, I learn that there
actually hnvo been ten applications for registration, but only
one of these was found to come undor tho clauses of the Act ;
nnd ut present there are no houses at all on th0 register. At
130lto11, also, tho Act is a dead letter, though tho Coroner,
Ah. Rowland Tt~ylor, says that he has never had a case before
him of rnnlpracticcs by nurses.
Somo statomcnts which Mr. Browne, of Nottingham, has
addd to his lcttcr, aro, hon-ever, so startling that I must quote
them iu c,c/otso.-/- He says :
" You know wc stand notoriously high as to infant mortality, and I
sttributo that in s great measure to the young women bcing employed
* It must be understood that no systematic or exberlsivc inquiry has
boen mode. I llaco no information for London or any other towns not
mentioned abovo ; but the answers obtained suEciently inform us as to
the state of the case.
t That Mr. Browne's opinions are far from being hastily formed is
apparent from the fact that like opinions are expresscd in his letter and
tabular statement of the results of inqnests on children found dead, as
printed in tho Fourth Report of the Privy Council, p. 192 : Parl. Paper,
p. lis, 1862, vol. xxii.