MEMOIR ON PARENTAL ALCOHOLISM 33 



not seen what is meant in the above paragraph by * parent ' 

 and what by ' father '. 



In the first investigation eac/i child of whom we had 

 records was taken — there might be two or three from the 

 same family — and the question asked, is the home a drinking 

 home or not ? It was then found that where both parents 

 drunk the wage was least, and that when neither parent 

 drunk the wage was a penny less than the case where either 

 parent, father or mother, drunk. The object here was to 

 ascertain whether these stocks in which either parent 

 drunk were from the measure of the father's wage a priori 

 of lower type. This was clearly not the case. In the 

 second investigation the individual workers were taken and 

 their wages led us to the conclusion that a sober man was 

 worth IS. a week more that the drinker. There is, as far 

 as I can see, no confusion or difficulty about these results at 

 all. The one applies to drinking in the home by mother or 

 father and allows for the differential fertility of the sober and 

 the drinking ; the second is a result applying only to male 

 workers, and is not affected by the number of their offspring 

 or the question of whether their wives drink or not. Which 

 of these two estimates ought to be used depends on the 

 subject under discussion ; when dealing with the influence 

 of parental alcoholism on the child, and ranking the 

 mentality and physique of the stock from which it springs, 

 the first seems to me the more important measure. 



One more illustration of Sir Victor's misstatements from 

 the letter of Feb. 11 {B. M, y., 1911, p. 335) may be taken. 

 Referring to my table of classification of trades, he writes : 



' Professor Pearson actually says in his letter on 

 February 4th that his table "has nothing to do with 

 sobriety or intemperance". If this were true we are to 

 suppose that the headings S. and D. have not got the 



c 



