14 INFLUENCE OF PARENTAL ALCOHOLISM 



insist actually exist ? Is not Professor Marshall ex- 

 aggerating the state of affairs because his opinion with 

 regard to alcohol, unlike ours, is already formed ? He 

 makes — as does Mr. Keynes — much of the fact that 53% 

 of those families with which we have dealt are in receipt 

 of some form of charity. One of the main conclusions 

 of the Edinburgh Report was the emphasis laid on 

 the indiscriminate nature of charity in Edinburgh. I 

 doubt whether it is more so there than elsewhere, but 

 it is absolutely necessary to draw attention to the fact 

 that famiUes whose total receipts amount to 46s. or 

 58s. receive charitable aid, so easy is it to obtain 

 such help ! There is also another side to this question. 

 Professor Marshall, citing Mr. Booth, tells us that a regular 

 weekly 21s. is the upper hmit of the poorest million of the 

 population of London. Probably every one of that million 

 who is the father of a family with four or hve children — as 

 the Edinburgh father — is in receipt of charitable relief of 

 the character noted in Edinburgh i. e. school dinners, 

 medical charities, cheap coal and meal societies, ' visits ' 

 from churches, &c. That 53% of a population, whose 

 average wages we make to be 24s. to 25s., and Professor 

 Marshall asserts to be lower, are in receipt of some form 

 of charitable relief in a town of indiscriminate charity is 

 only to be expected. Nor can men with four or five 

 persons dependent on them and wages of the above 

 magnitude be described in the language of Professor 

 Marshall as " devoid of self-respect " or "congregating in 

 an atmosphere that is foul physically and morally ", 

 because they accept meals for their children or cheap 

 coals when they come in their way. Mr. Keynes lays 

 stress^ on (i) the number of drinkers in the population 



* The only other point of criticism, l^eyond those tabled below, that 



