ON THE PHYSIQUE AND ABILITY OF OFFSPRING i) 



of the visits.^ The total reported to have been at some 

 time out of employment, or irregular in employment, is 

 1 08, but of these several are entered as ' regular ' wage 

 earners in the wage column. Of this total, 19% of drinkers 

 and 14 % of the sober have been recorded as sometime 

 ' out of work '. This is a result quite compatible with the 

 percentages, 56 % and 49 %, we found for the two classes 

 in receipt of some form of charity ; the percentages of the 

 drinkers being in both cases chiefly swelled by the bout 

 drinkers, who from the very nature of the case are likely 

 to be idle and their families seeking relief during their 

 bouts. There is no evidence whatever in these results of 

 the drinkers or the temperate being originally physically 

 or mentally differentiated classes. Yet Mr. Keynes talks 

 as if he had definite knowledge that we were comparing 

 superior stock who had taken to drink with bad subnormal 

 sober stock ! Professor Marshall went so far as to suggest 

 that the drunkards would have been receiving 40s. a week 

 but for their drinking, and that they were strong men whom 

 a foreman would select for low-grade jobs at the docks. 

 He has since said that this remark had no application to 

 Edinburgh. If it had not, the contents of his first letter 

 to the Times had obviously no application either, and 

 could only tend to obscure the question at issue, and so 

 confuse the public mind. As to his suggestion that the 

 drinking section might have been receiving 40s. a week 

 but for their drink, the only sort of argument that it is 

 worth while using against that is that the sober might 

 have been receiving 40s. a week also if they had drunk no 

 tea ! Neither statement has in itself any scientific value. 



^ ' Father was idle through drink, now working again at a good wage,' 

 the wage being recorded in the wages column is a good illustration of the 

 state of things found at the time of the visits. The wages were in most 

 cases confirmed through the employer. 



B 



