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Sociology

Poverty - by James Platt

population in poverty, degradation, and misery. Whence does this arise? From lowness of wages? This cannot be the cause, for others who are getting no better wages are living in comfort .... But as wages have risen, and hours of labour have been reduced, the temptations to intemperance have also been multiplied; workmen with their wages in their pockets have been beguiled into the public-house by the machinery established by law, and the very wealth which should have seemed their prosperity and comfort, has been the instrument of their degradation and ruin.

"Here lies the explanation of the poverty and misery which exist in the country, and also of most of the crime and demoralization which prevails. There are other causes of poverty; I do not deny these, but they are most insignificant when compared to this cause, for when a traffic leads to the wasting of over £100,000,000 yearly of the people's income, when it leads also to idleness and neglect of work to such an extent as, on the authority of a Parliamentary Committee, to reduce or retard the nation's wealth equal to one-sixth of the wealth produced; and when, besides this, there are the burdens of taxation and other evils, inducing costs and losses ; and when it is remembered, further, that all these various influences are constantly in operation, destroying the wealth available for distribution, there will need no further evidence as to what is the cause of the poverty and misery which exist " (William Hoyle). Mr. George R. Sims, whose papers on "Horrible London" are the outcome of a long experience of work among the poor, states that "more than one-fourth of the daily earnings of the denizens of the slums goes over the bars of the public-houses and gin - palaces;"