ON THE PHYSIQUE AND ABILITY OF OFFSPRING 17 



population of Glasgow, including the districts of better 

 social class, 66 % come from one- and two-roomed tene- 

 ments. In the poorest districts, Group A, 87-5 % of 

 children come from such tenements, that is to say, more 

 than one-third of all the children examined in Glasgow 

 have from this standpoint much worse home conditions 

 than the Edinburgh children ; two-thirds have worse 

 conditions, i.e. 79 % ; and 84 % of the entire child popula- 

 tion of Glasgow (Groups A, B and C) have precisely equal 

 conditions, i.e. 74 % of them come from one- and two- 

 roomed tenements. If a state of affairs which corresponds 

 to that of 84 % of the Glasgow children is cited by 

 Mr. Keynes as evidence of the exceptionally low-grade 

 character of the Edinburgh families dealt with, are we 

 not justified in suggesting that the Cambridge economists 

 are merely firing in the air, and that they have no adequate 

 knowledge of the social condition of the large towns of 

 vScotland ? It is obvious that if a random sample were 

 taken of the working-class population of Glasgow, more 

 than 74 % of the children would be found to come from 

 one- and two-roomed homes — a mark, according to 

 Mr. Keynes, of a population " living under the worst 

 slum conditions ", and not consonant with a " widely 

 representative character". I fear that our Cambridge 

 economists live in a world of their own, quite out of touch 

 with the true social conditions of large sections of the 

 British population. The conditions depicted may be 

 deplorable, we were not discussing that subject, but the 

 ignorance of their representative character would, we 

 should imagine, even hamper the usefulness of an English 

 economist.^ 



^ That they should be used as an argument in a journal which claims 

 to represent British statistical knowledge makes me gravely doubt 



C 



