endurance by the general conditions of his life, the uncertainty of his existence, his dependence upon all possible accidents and chances, and his inability to do anything towards gaining an assured position.  His enfeebled frame, weakened by bad air and bad food, violently demands some external stimulus; his social need can be gratified only in the public-house, he has absolutely no other place where he can meet his friends.  How can he be expected to resist the temptation?  It is morally and physically inevitable that, under such circumstances, a very large number of working-men should fall into intemperance.  And apart from the chiefly physical influences which drive the working-man into drunkenness, there is the example of the great mass, the neglected education, the impossibility of protecting the young from temptation, in many cases the direct influence of intemperate parents, who give their own children liquor, the certainty of forgetting for an hour or two the wretchedness and burden of life, and a hundred other circumstances so mighty that the workers can, in truth, hardly be blamed for yielding to such overwhelming pressure.  Drunkenness has here ceased to be a vice, for which the vicious can be held responsible; it becomes a phenomenon, the necessary, inevitable effect of certain conditions upon an object possessed of no volition in relation to those conditions.  They who have degraded the working-man to a mere object have the responsibility to bear.  But as inevitably as a great number of working-men fall a prey to drink, just so inevitably does it manifest its ruinous influence upon the body and mind of its victims.  All the tendencies to disease arising from the conditions of life of the workers are promoted by it, it stimulates in the highest degree the development of lung and digestive troubles, the rise and spread of typhus epidemics.

Another source of physical mischief to the working-class lies in the impossibility of employing skilled physicians in cases of illness.  It is true that a number of charitable institutions strive to supply this want, that the infirmary in Manchester, for instance, receives or gives advice and medicine to 2,200 patients annually.  But what is that in a city in which, according to Gaskell’s calculation, {104} three-fourths of the population need medical aid every year?  English doctors charge high fees, and working-men are not in a position to pay them.  They can therefore do nothing, or are compelled to call in cheap charlatans, and use quack remedies, which do more harm than good.  An immense number of such quacks thrive in every English town, securing their clientele among the poor by means of advertisements, posters, and other such devices.  Besides these, vast quantities of patent medicines are sold, for all conceivable ailments:  Morrison’s Pills, Parr’s Life Pills, Dr. Mainwaring’s Pills, and a thousand other pills, essences, and balsams, all of which have the property of curing all the ills that flesh is heir to.  These medicines rarely contain actually injurious substances, but, when taken freely and often, they affect the system prejudicially; and as the unwary purchasers are always recommended to take as much as possible, it is not to be wondered at that they swallow them wholesale whether wanted or not.