Science and Physical Development 



the conditions of the Factory Acts to bear on them. 

 Small workshops and home work generally escape 

 the Inspector, and are liable to be under the thumb 

 of the " sweater," who is thus able to produce, often 

 under most insanitary conditions, hand work to 

 compete in price with goods turned out from large 

 factories. If we must have cheap clothes, by all 

 means let us prefer the shoddy products of Leeds 

 mills to those turned out from East London 

 sweaters' dens. 



ALCOHOLISM 



"The question of drink," say the Committee, 

 " occupies a prominent place among the causes 

 of degeneration," and they endorse the opinion of 

 a witness that " if the drink question were removed, 

 three-fourths of the poverty and degradation would 

 go along with it." The craving for drink is partly 

 cause and partly effect of the various other factors 

 already referred to. It is true that squalor and 

 overcrowding drive people to the drink shop, but 

 it is also true that a period of prosperity and good 

 wages brings with it a large increase in the con- 

 sumption of beer and spirits. There is no evidence 

 that drunkenness is on the increase the facts 

 seem to point decidedly the other way; but "the 

 tendency of the evidence was to show that drink- 

 ing habits among the women of the working classes 

 are certainly growing, with consequences extremely 

 prejudicial to the care of the offspring." 



Two expert medical witnesses were examined 

 as to the effects of alcohol. Their evidence was 



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