32 A REPLY TO CRITICISMS OF THE 



overlooked by Sir Victor. To this Sir Victor and Dr. Sturge 



reply : 



' We are not afraid of your readers thinking that we do 

 not understand the meaning of the word parent, but we 

 would point out that even a divagation of this sort is of no 

 use to Professor Pearson, because the original estimate of 

 Miss Elderton and himself which is now relegated by him 

 to the dark ages, referred to " fathers only " ' {B, M. jf., 

 Feb. II, 1 91 1, p. ^^^). 



Now here, again, is one of those extraordinary misstate- 

 ments on the part of our critics, which might lead us to 

 credit them with an intellectual confusion amounting to un- 

 scientific obsession ! Here are the exact words of our 

 ' original estimate ' (p. 4) : 



' Parents were divided into three classes : (i) both parents 

 drink, (2) one parent drinks, and (3) neither parent drinks.* 



That is to say, not each family but each child was 

 entered on the table into one or other of these three classes, 

 and against the child was put its father's wages ; but to 

 continue : 



* The mean wage of the father when both parents drink 

 was 14s, Sd. ; when one parent drinks 25^. 6d. and when 

 neither parent drinks 25^. ^d. Or, grouping in another way, 

 when either or both drink 25^'., and when neither drink 

 25J. 5^. If we consider the father alone, for it is not 

 possible to apply the wages test to determine the drinking 

 mother's status in comparison with other mothers, we find 

 that the wages of a drinking man are on the average 25^., 

 and a non-drinking man 26s.* 



Now, in the first place, I observe, that the estimate in 

 our original memoir does not concern * fathers only ' as 

 Sir Victor asserts, and that the contrast is actually drawn 

 in the original memoir between ' parent ' and ' father '. 

 Here in the first memoir we have the basis of the ' divaga- 

 tion ' which Sir Victor still fails to grasp, because he has 



