In the case of many, there would be an increased consumption of drink, with the usual results,--an increase of drunken violence, and probably an increase of crime.
The late Mr.Clay, chaplain of the Preston House of Correction, after characterizing drunkenness as the GREAT SIN, proceeds: "It still rises in savage hostility, against everything allied to order and religion; it still barricades every avenue by which truth and peace seek to enter the poor man's home and heart....

Whatever may be the predominant cause of crime, it is very clear that ignorance, religious ignorance, is the chief ingredient in the character of the criminal.

This combines with the passion for liquor, and offences numberless are engendered by the union." The late Sir Arthur Helps, when speaking of high and low wages, and of the means of getting and spending money, thus expresses himself on the subject, in his "Friends in Council":"My own conviction is, that throughout England every year there is sufficient wages given, even at the present low rate, to make the condition of the labouring poor quite different from what it is.

But then these wages must be well spent.

I do not mean that the poor could of themselves alone effect this change; but were they seconded by the advice, the instruction, and the aid (not given in money, or only in money lent to produce the current interest of the day) of the classes above them, the rest the poor might accomplish for themselves.