Note 7 — Chapter I

We put the matter quite mildly here, though it is customarily and very properly spoken of much more severely. For example, Mr. Norris, one of the Government inspectors of schools, in speaking of the well-paid miners and iron workers of Staffordshire—who doubtless are little worse than the same classes throughout the country—says in one of his able reports: Improvidence is too tame a word for it—it is recklessness; here young and old, married and single, are uniformly and almost avowedly self-indulgent spendthrifts. One sees this reckless character marring and vitiating the nobler traits of their nature. Their gallantry in the face of danger is akin to foolhardiness; their power of intense labour is seldom exerted except to compensate for time lost in idleness and revelry; their readiness to make gatherings for their sick and married comrades seems only to obviate the necessity of previous savings, &c.