For the convenience of visiting it was necessary to select an area. The district described in the previous chapter was chosen because it is within reach of the weighing centre, where each infant could be brought once a fortnight to see the doctor and have its weight recorded. A member of the committee who is a doctor interviewed each woman before the visits began, in order to ascertain if her health and her family history were such that a normal baby might be expected. It was at first proposed to rule out disease, but pulmonary and respiratory disease were found to be so common that to rule them out would be to refuse about half the cases. It was therefore decided to regard such a condition of health as normal, and to refuse only such cases of active or malignant disease in the parents as might, in the doctor’s opinion, completely wreck the child’s chance of a healthy life. Drink, on the other hand, the committee had expected to find a normal condition, and had proposed the acceptance of moderate drinking. Experience, however, went to prove that married men in full work who keep their job on such a wage do not and cannot drink. The 1s. 6d. or 2s. which they keep for themselves has to pay for their own clothes, perhaps fares to and from work, smoking and drinking. It does not allow much margin for drunkenness. A man whose wife declared him to be “spiteful” on Saturday nights was certainly the worse for drink on Saturday nights; but never once during sixteen months of weekly visiting did he omit to bring his wife her full allowance. He had kept his job for many years, and the explanation is that he was given tips at the theatre for which he worked. The tips he, not unnaturally, considered to be peculiarly his own. One other man, who could make fair wages when in work, turned out thoroughly unsatisfactory. He was not a drunkard, but he would have been if he could have afforded it. Otherwise the record is fairly clear. Men who earned overtime money or who received tips might spend some of it on beer, but the regular wage was too close a fit to allow of much indulgence. Many of the men were teetotallers, and some did not even smoke. It was found to be necessary, in order to secure the success of the investigation, to inaugurate a system of accurate accounts. In no case were these accounts already in being, and it was therefore the task of the visitors to teach each woman in turn to keep a record of her expenditure for the week. As the greater part of this volume is to do with these weekly budgets, this is a good opportunity to explain why they are credible evidence of real conditions.