MEMOIR ON PARENTAL ALCOHOLISM 17 



* It might even be argued that if drinking parents were 

 physically and mentally fitter than sober parents, the 

 equality in the physique and mentality of children of both 

 types of parents was due to the alcohol pulling down to 

 the average a child who should have been above the aver- 

 age. The point may seem at first sight an unnecessary one 

 to raise, but therein lies really a vital question to the student 

 of modern statistical methods : what are the correlations of 

 physique and intelligence with drinking habit? . . . The 

 only light that can be thrown on this matter from our 

 present data is an indirect one. The wages of the father 

 are to some extent a measure of the general status as to 

 physique and intelligence of the parent. A man who is 

 physically and mentally unfit will hardly receive high wages, 

 whether he be drunk or sober. Clearly the general tendency 

 to drink must^ when it reaches a certain intensity, tend to 

 lower a mans wages} We should therefore expect to find 

 the wages of the drinking man somewhat less than those of 

 the sober man. . . . We think it may be safely affirmed that 

 if the alcoholic parent were markedly inferior in physique 

 or intelligence, his average wages would be markedly less 

 than those of the sober parent.' 



Now I think any fair-minded reader of our Memoir will 

 see exactly what we were aiming at: i.e. to ascertain whether, 

 apart from his alcoholism, the alcoholic parent was initially 

 of as good stock both as to physique and ability as the 

 sober parent, whether he belonged in fact to the same class in 

 the community. Now our words accurately indicated what 

 we were seeking — and it is a point that our critics appear 

 to have failed entirely to realize — we wanted some proof that 

 the germ-plasm of the drinking section was from the stand- 

 point of mentality and physique neither superior nor inferior 

 to that of the sober. Professor Marshall argued that our 

 drinking section was superior to the sober section, they 

 belonged to better stock, who, owing to alcohol, had sunk 



1 Notwithstanding these words Sir Victor asserts that it needed Prof. 

 Marshall's polemic to convince me that the drinker would have lower wages 

 (^.^/.y., Feb. II, 191 1, p. 335). 



B 



