It Might Have Happened To You

he world in its legislation for child-conservation. If the parent failed, the State automatically became the parent. If an unprotected woman were about to become a mother, the State undertook

d; they were placed together in surroundings where their position would become normal. Since the war this system has broken down; but as far as is possible it is still maintained. One needs to disabuse his mind

, has kept aloof from his sleeping-place. There has never been a day since he was buried there that the call to prayer has not sounded from the minaret, proclaiming the greatness of Allah above the roofs of a city w

wded and under-staffed. The war, with its retreats and invasions, has filled the land with tuberculosis and rickets. Five hundred are cared for in the cots; thirteen thousand have to be lodged elsewhere. The nurses are in patched clothing and rags. The doc

nding value of the dollar were to become less than that of one cent. Moreover, very many medical requirements have become absolutely unobtainable. Commodities so common as soap, powder, vaseline, linen are not to be purchased. The children born in the hospital are wrapped in paper. Even pa

t was the Christmas season. The occupants of the cots were little children; the mothers

ssion they created was not even remotely human; they looked like sick monkeys from the tropics who had not became acclimatised. There were lines and lines of them, their bodies blue with cold and criss-crossed with scars. Most of them could not shift themselves; their heads were bumpy and their legs withered.

been killed in the war and their mothers had died. Some of them had been picked up

ed and darned till there remained scarcely anything of the original fabric. Again, as in the case of the children, the mattresses were bare of cove

rments. The fury of the Director, who escorted me, was extravagant. It knew no bounds. He shouted and thumped and gesticulated. It was as though the woman had dared to scru

f-respecting housewife in America would ha