At Southend-on-Sea enquiry is made by the Civic Guild into many of the cases. (Report of the School Medical Officer for Southend-on-Sea for 1911, p. 54.) At Bradford the Canteen Committee communicates to the Guild of Help the names of all the new cases which are put on the feeding list. The members of the Guild thereupon visit any cases in which other help besides the meals is needed. Footnote 218: As at Birkenhead, Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, Salford, Sheffield, Stoke, etc. At Birkenhead an attendance officer has been specially appointed for this purpose. At Bradford a special constable has been told off to make enquiries in difficult cases. The thoroughness of the investigation varies considerably in different towns. The parent's statements as to the amount of wages earned are in some cases checked by enquiries from the employers. At Birmingham the wages are always thus verified where the worker is employed by one firm regularly. At Bradford the wages are verified except when the applicants are working on their own account, for instance hawking, when it is clearly impossible. Generally enquiry is made from the employer as to the wages of the head of the house only, but at Leeds and at Leicester the wages of all earning members of the family are verified. At Leicester in doubtful cases enquiries may be made from the employer as often as once a week. In other towns, as at Stoke and York, where the current rates of wages are well known, wages are only verified when there is any doubt as to the parent's statement. At Bootle little attempt is made to verify the information given by the parents. Here the enquiries are made--so far as they can be said to be made at all--by the teachers. The help of the Attendance Officer can be asked in difficult cases, but this appears to be seldom done. The teachers naturally have no time to visit the homes, and the enquiry generally resolves itself into a form being given to the child for its parent to fill up. The parents are asked to state the rent, the number in the family and the total weekly income, taking the average for four weeks. When one considers the difficulty normally experienced in filling up forms correctly, one can readily imagine that the information thus obtained is practically valueless. Where the answers are unintelligible--an occurrence by no means rare to judge from the few specimens of case papers which we have seen--the information may be supplemented by questioning the children.