Decks of canal boats make a picturesque but somewhat restricted playground. A baby tethered on a sunny day to the flat, smooth top of a closed hatch is probably as well off as any baby need be, certainly infinitely better off than most city babies shut within four walls. The children, however, who attempt to play ball or hide-and-seek on the narrow decks run great hazards. It was a common occurrence for a child to tumble off a bout. One mother of seven children laughed at the question and said, "Why yes, they are always falling In." Five families reported the loss of one or more children through drowning.
One mother had lost four children while on canal boats. The oldest child had died of "sunstroke"; the second, 5 years of age, had been drowned; another had been burned to death by an explosion of oil on the barge; another, a baby, had died of spinal meningitis after being dropped on the deck of the boat and injured. One of the surviving children had been injured by the oil explosion which killed the third child.
Another mother had lost a little girl by the explosion of a rifle in the cabin of the canal boat. It was two hours before the boat could reach port and then it was some time before a doctor could be secured. After this experience the mother was unwilling to accompany her husband and permitted only one of the children, an 18-year-old boy, to go with the father. She thought that women and children shoutd be prohibited by law from going on the boats.