No one who has looked into the matter has any doubt about the accuracy of the first objection. One glance at the faces of a group of men in the smoking room of any such hotel reveals many of the low, bestial, criminal type; many victims of dissipation and many who have acquired a dislike for work of any sort. This harboring of the vicious element is also true of the Army hotels of the lower class, but it is in company with this element that we find the men for whom more or less can be done.[50] The second objection must be considered more carefully. To repeat the definition of the standard of living which was discussed in connection with the Industrial Department, it is the scale or measure of comfort and satisfaction, which a person or community of persons, regards as indispensable to happiness. Now the question is whether these cheap lodging houses lower this standard; whether their existence results in a tendency to live with less effort and less ambition, and thus renders men and women less productive and less proficient. This question must be separated into a question regarding the community as a whole, and a question regarding the individual. As regards the standard of living of any single community, the answer would be that the standard is not appreciably lowered by this hotel system, since the occupants are mostly single men wandering around, and the standard of living of the community is more concerned with the maintenance of homes in its midst, than of transients. This, however, brings in the further question as to whether the cheap living made possible by the lodging houses leads to the breaking up of homes, since if it does so, it would bear decidedly on the standard of living. We would answer this second question in the negative, because life in the cheap hotel is not such a desirable thing as to lead to the breaking up of homes. A man has already left home and is already reduced in circumstances, before the fact of such cheap living as the hotels and cheap restaurants of the Bowery in New York, or of Whitechapel in London, ever comes to him as an advantage. But, on the other hand, when it comes to the individual concerned, we think that the standard is lowered and that in many cases the objection holds good. For instance, take a man with a regular trade, say bricklaying or carpentering. He is thrown out of work and gradually drifts down to the cheap hotel. For months, possibly, he strives in vain to get work at his trade. He exists, however, by means of odd jobs picked up at random; he becomes shiftless; the life which consists of so much "hanging around" and loafing, decreases his efficiency, and, in this way, his standard is lowered. At the same time his character is affected, and even if no worse development takes place, he loses ambition, and that lowers his standard. Hence, in conclusion, we would say that the objection that the hotel movement of the Army leads to a lowering of a standard of living