into the cleanliness and habits of the children, as they appear at school fresh from their homes, has revealed an astonishing mass of ignorance, and a marked neglect of the most elementary precautions against disease upon the part of the parents.
The fifth proof is not less cogent than these. If we look at the class of the casual labourers of this country, calculated at somewhat under two millions in number, these often fail to get a full week's work, and their average earnings for the year are so low that, even with careful management, they are frequently unable to procure for themselves and their families the necessaries of healthy life. It is these men who, with their families, fill the hospitals and infirmaries, and burden the community in so many ways, while the hundreds of thousands of their children share the demoralisation of their parents. It is largely the offspring of these casual labourers who grow up so under-nourished, and poorly clothed, and degenerate in physique, and who lack not merely food and clothes but even a minimum of home care. Thus the children recruit the ranks of casual labour, follow the parental example, decline to work regularly or learn a trade, and breed families prone to an early degeneracy.
It is difficult then, after weighing all these reasons soberly, to deny that this widespread weakness of the family, the oldest, and most powerful, and best of human institutions, is the gravest evil, the most urgent domestic problem, which we have still to face and overcome.
