12 IXFLUENXE OF PARENTAL ALCOHOLISM 



among the lowest tj^pes of labour, hawkers, general 

 labourers, odd jobbers, 54 % also drink. Of the high 

 wages. Class C, which contains not only the trades of 

 intelligence, lithographers, printers, cabinetmakers, &c., 

 but those of strength, blacksmiths, masons, &c., 59 % 

 drink. Of the medium wages, Class B, 51 % drink. 

 Now Professor Marshall tells us that " the strong drunkard 

 probably came down to that low grade of work merely 

 because he was a drunkard, while the sober man probably 

 came there because he had not sufficient character and 

 physique to earn a comfortable living anywhere ". In the 

 above table there is nothing of this kind visible, the 

 temperate and the intemperate appear in all trades from 

 the highest to the lowest. In the better trades we find 

 the drinkers slightly in a majority; there is no evidence 

 wliatever of the drunkard being in low trades highly paid 

 on account of his physique ; nor is there any evidence at 

 all of the population we are dealing v/ith following low 

 grades of work. It has every appearance of an average 

 working-class population in a non-manufacturing town. 

 Professor Marshall tells us that we have accepted with 

 complacency the praise bestowed upon us for having 

 "shown that parental intemperance has no causal relation 

 to filial degeneration".^ He admits that this is the 

 problem we are discussing, and yet when the above tables, 

 the facts of which he himself should have considered 

 before making suggestions as to the constitution of the 

 Edinburgh population, are placed before him, he can only 

 remark : ' Those tables have no bearing on any question 

 in which I am interested.' If he is not interested in those 



^ It is desirable to state that this wording is not ours and does not 

 represent any conclusion reached by us. We drew from our data the 

 result that parental alcoholism does not markedly affect the physique or 

 mentality of the offspring as children. 



