One family in particular I remember, consisting of seven children, two of whom were in the school; four of them were supported entirely by the exertions of the mother, who declared to me, that she did not receive a shilling from their father for a month together; all the money he got he kept to spend at the public-house; and his family, for what he cared, might go naked, or starve.

He was not only a great drunkard, but a reprobate into the bargain; beating and abusing the poor woman, who thus endeavoured to support his children by her labour.
The evil does not always stop here.

Driven to the extreme of wretchedness by her husband's conduct, the woman sometimes takes to drinking likewise, and the poor babes are ten thousand times more pitiable than orphans.

I have witnessed the revolting sight of a child leading home both father and mother from the public-house, in a disgusting state of intoxication.

With tears and entreaties I have seen the poor infant vainly endeavouring to restrain them from increasing their drunkenness, by going into the houses on their way home; they have shaken off the clinging child, who, in the greatest anxiety, waited without to resume its painful task; knowing, all the time, perhaps, that whilst its parents were thus throwing away their money, there was not so much as a crust of bread to appease its hunger at home.