“The improvidence of this class of persons arises in many instances from the indulgence of vicious propensities. Drunkenness, with all its attendant miseries, prevails to a great extent, though it is by no means to be regarded as a characteristic feature of the mechanic of this town in particular. It most generally prevails among that class of workmen who obtain the highest wages, but who are often found in the most deplorable and abject condition. The improvidence of which we are speaking is to be traced in very many instances to extreme ignorance on the part of the wives of these people. The females are from necessity bred up from their youth in the workshops, as the earnings of the younger members contribute to the support of the family. The minds and morals of the girls become debased, and they marry totally ignorant of all those habits of domestic economy which tend to render a husband’s home comfortable and happy; and this is very often the cause of the man being driven to the alehouse to seek that comfort after his day of toil which he looks for in vain by his own fireside. The habit of a manufacturing life being once established in a woman, she continues it, and leaves her home and children to the care of a neighbour or of a hired child, sometimes only a few years older than her own children, whose services cost her probably as much as she obtains for her labour. To this neglect on the part of their parents is to be traced the death of many children; they are left in the house with a fire before they are old enough to know the danger to which they are exposed, and are often dreadfully burnt.” _Mr. Mott’s_ report on the sanitary condition of the population of his district presents parallel instances of the different economy prevalent amongst these classes:— _Contrast in the Economy of Families._ 1. 1. Cellar in Wellington-court, In a dwelling-house in Chorlton Chorlton-upon-Medlock; a man, his Union, containing one sitting-room wife and seven children; income per and two bed-rooms; a man, his wife week, 1_l._ 11_s._; rent 1_s._ and three children; rent 2_s._ 6_d._ per week; three beds for 6_d._ per week; income per week seven, in a dark, unventilated back 12_s._ 6_d._, being an average of room, bed-covering of the meanest 2_s._ 6_d._ per week for each and scantiest kind—the man and wife person. Here, with a sickly man, occupying the front room as a the house presented an appearance sleeping-room for themselves, in of comfort in every part, as also which the whole family take their the bedding was in good order. food and spend their leisure time; here the family, in a filthy destitute state, with an income averaging 3_s._ 5¼_d._ each per week, four being children under 11 years of age. 2. 2.