| 27.4 | 11.4

GIRLS.

Section 1 (poorest) | 2.1 | 14.6 | 31. | 52.3
Section 2 (middle) | 7.5 | 21.2 | 50.4 | 20.9
Section 3 (highest) | 27.2 | 38. | 23.1 | 11.7
------------------------------------------------------------------------

"It will be seen that the proportion of children classed as
'very good' in Section 3 is about ten times as large as in the
poorest section, and that _more than half of the children in
the poorest section are classed as 'bad.'_

"These 'bad' children presented a pathetic spectacle, all bore
some mark of the hard conditions against which they were
struggling. Puny and feeble bodies, dirty and often sadly
insufficient clothing, sore eyes, in many cases acutely
inflamed through continued want of attention, filthy heads,
cases of hip disease, swollen glands--all these and other
signs told the same tale of privation and neglect. It will be
noticed that the condition of the children in Section 2
(middle-class labour) comes about half-way between Sections 1
and 3. In considering the above table it must of course be
remembered that there was no absolute standard by which each
child could be judged, but the broad comparison between the
different classes is unimpeachable. The table affords further
evidence of serious physical deterioration amongst the poorest
section of the community."

And if York and London will not satisfy, let the reader take
Edinburgh, whose Charity Organization Society has produced an
admirable but infinitely distressing report of the physical conditions
of the school children there. It gives a summary account of the homes
of fourteen hundred children in one of the Edinburgh Elementary
Schools, selected because it represented a fair mixture of prosperous
and unprosperous people. I take the first ten entries of this list
just as they come, representing thirty-eight children, and they are a
fair sample of the whole list. No amount of writing could make these
little thumbnail sketches of the reality of domestic life among our
population to-day more impressive than they are, thus barrenly given.

"1. A bad home. Woman twice married; second husband deserted
her six or seven years ago and she now keeps a bad house in
which much drinking and rioting goes on. Daughter on stage
sends 10/- a w