The question of dealing with neglectful parents is indeed beset with difficulties. Under the Children Act, 1908, a parent or guardian can be prosecuted for neglecting a child "in a manner likely to cause such child unnecessary suffering or injury to its health." This neglect is defined to mean those cases where the parent or guardian "fails to provide adequate food, clothing, medical aid or lodging," or, if unable to provide the same himself, fails to apply to the Guardians for relief.[327] It is rare for the Local Education Authorities themselves to institute proceedings under this Act. Usually they prefer to refer cases to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Often an improvement in the condition of the child is effected as a result of the visits of this society's inspectors to the home. But when these warnings prove useless, frequently nothing more is done; the society are loth to prosecute, except in extreme cases when they can be practically certain of securing a conviction. Footnote 327: 8 Edward VII., c. 67, sec. 12. (g)--Overlapping between the Poor Law and the Education Authorities. We have already alluded to the neglect of the Guardians to deal with more than an insignificant fraction of the children who are underfed. The attempt made in 1905 to force them to fulfil their responsibility in this respect was, as we have seen, a complete failure, and the duty was therefore cast upon the Local Education Authorities. But even in the few cases where the Guardians have assumed the responsibility by granting out-relief to the family, the amount of this relief is, in the vast majority of cases, totally inadequate. This was abundantly proved by the Report of the Poor Law Commission in 1909. "The children," they reported, "are undernourished, many of them poorly dressed and many bare-footed ... the decent mother's one desire is to keep herself and her children out of the work-house. She will, if allowed, try to do this on an impossibly inadequate sum, until both she and her children become mentally and physically deteriorated."[328] When the mother was careless or neglectful no supervision was exercised by the Guardians to see that even this inadequate amount was really spent on the children. This indictment still holds good to-day. The inadequacy of the relief granted by the Guardians, in all but a few exceptional Unions, has, in fact, become a byword. Footnote 328: Report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and Relief of Distress, 1909, 8vo edition, Vol. III. (Minority Report), p. 36.