23 A REPLY TO CRITICISMS OF THE 



inferior stock either mentally or physically; he is a man 

 who independent of alcohol either does or could earn wages 

 equal to those of the sober man. This was the inference we 

 drew from the data in our original memoir, and not the 

 * economic equality' of the two classes of labour. It is 

 always possible to tangle the 'skein of silk' by picking 

 out isolated sentences or words and wilfully overlooking 

 the context.^ Sir Victor and Dr. Sturge assert that the 

 chief statistical generalization of the paper was the state- 

 ment ' that the wage-earning capacity and efficiency of the 

 drunkard is at least equal to, possibly a little above, that 

 of the sober workman ' {B. M. y., p. 70). When it is 

 pointed out that so far from being our ' chief generaliza- 

 tion ', we have made no such statement at all, they reply 

 by quoting our words : ' On the whole it seems reasonable 

 to assume that the drinking parents are in physique and 

 mentality the equal on an average of the sober, or little 

 above their standard ' (p. 5 of Memoir, cited by Sir Victor 

 Horsley and Dr. Sturge in their letter to the Times, 

 Jan. 19, 1 911). but they do not say that the reason for 

 this statement lies in the fact which we have stated in the 

 lines above it, that the wage-earning power and efficiency 



^ Thus in B.M.J., p. 77, Sir Victor Horsley and Dr. Sturge deliberately 

 quote what they say are contradictory results as to wages, although the exact 

 meaning is given on page 4 of our paper — 25^. as the wage of a drinking tnariy 

 26s. as the wage of a sober man, 25J. 6d. as the wage where one parent drinks, 

 2 5 J. 5^. where neither parent drinks. The former refers to the wage looked 

 at from the standpoint of the man, the latter as the wage from the standpoint 

 of the child, i. e. the conditions as to wage from the standpoint of each child 

 according as both, one, or neither of its parents drank was recorded. The 

 exact meaning of the wages cited in the text of the Supplement is stated in 

 a footnote and agrees absolutely with the Memoir. Verbally the wording 

 in the text was careless, but what shall be said of critics who disingenuously 

 put on one side an explanatory footnote, which states exactly what the 25J. dd. 

 and 255. id. were, i. e. the mean wages when one parent drank, and the mean 

 wage when neither drank. They were the wages reached by a classificiation 

 of the parents of each child. 



