746 EEPORT — 1891. 



(c.) The provisions of the following' Acts : — 



The Poor Law Act, 1889. 



The Prevention of Cruelty to, and Protection of, Children Act, 1889. 



The Industrial Schools Acts Amendment Act, 1881. 



The writer next touched upon District Schools, and especially Cottage Homes. 



I. Advantages. II. Disadvantages. 



The following remedies were suggested : — 



1. Classification according to character, previous history, and associations. 

 II. Small homes for incorrigibles and those removed from immoral sur- 

 roundings. 



III. Boarding-out in every practicable case. 



(«.) Finds homes, &c., ready to its hand. 



(b.) Brings the child hack into family hfe ; interests foster-parents and 



influential friends in present and future welfare ; enables the child 



to make suitable friendships, 

 (c.) It is inexpensive. 



(d.) It tends to merge the child into the general mass of the population. 

 (e.) It provides for a supply of domestic servants and workers in 



every branch of industry. 

 (/.) It enables Boards of Guardians to avail themselves of help from 



Voluntary Committees composed of persons in a good social 



position. 

 {g.) It has been adequately tested for many years in the three kingdoms 



with satisfactory results. 



IV. Emigration. 



TUESDAY, AUGUST 25. 



The following Papers were read : — 



1. On the Data Available for Determining tlie best Limit (pJajsically') 

 for Hours of Labour. By J. T. Aelidge, M.D. 



The author began by remarking that the great variability in capacity of the 

 human machine forbade the collection of facts, capable of measurement and of 

 statement in a statistical shape, for exact data. Consequently, those sought must 

 be derived from physiological facts and from consideration of the demands upon 

 human vigour made by the several occupations followed. 



He treated his subject, therefore, under two heads, according as data are derived 

 from the consideration (A) of the individual worker, and (B) of the work to be per- 

 formed. The title of the paper confined his remarks to bodily or physical labour, 

 leaving undiscussed the equally distinct labour of the intellect, which happens to 

 be largely ignored in the popular idea of work and working-people. 



Individual qualification for work varies in direct relation to (a) innate physical 

 endowments; (/3), to the extent of freedom from disease, hereditarj' or acquired, 

 and from bodily deformity ; (y) to original and acquired aptitude for labour ; and 

 (S), in some measure, to mental gifts. Idiosyncrasy and racial characteristics are 

 other mmor factors determining ability for certain kinds of employment. These 

 diversities in individual capacity for work show the futility of general rules to 

 govern all men's labour. 



In the second division of the subject the leading conditions of labour as affecting 

 the construction of data were examined. First of these is the amount of actual 

 bodily effort called for. Though this in great excess is detrimental to health and 



