Statement by Marchioness of Waterford
A soldier came home from the Front to find that drink had ruined his home, and his children were being cared for by Glasgow Parish Council. “Hour after hour we sit on this council,” says the chairman, “listening to case after case, and the cause is drunkenness, drunkenness, drunkenness. There are 2300 children under the council, and two thousand of them have parents living.” “Our raw material is the finished product of the public-house,” says one of these workers.
Facts from Glasgow Councillors
A motor mechanic at the Front, hearing that his wife, hitherto a sober woman, had given way to drink, obtained leave to come home. He found his wife, very drunk, struggling home with the help of the railings in the street, and neighbours described her horrible life with other soldiers. The husband obtained a separation for the sake of his children, and went back to France.
Full facts in “Kent Messenger,” July 31, 1915
A young soldier came from the trenches to spend Christmas in his home in Sheffield—a teetotal home before the war. He found that his wife had given way to drink, had deserted one child and disappeared with the other, and that a baby was to be born which was not his.
Facts known to the Author
A miner fighting at the Front came home to find his wife at a publichouse, his home filthy, and his children cruelly neglected. He was heartbroken. His young wife frequently left the house from tea-time till midnight, and in order to keep the children from the fire she had burned them severely with a piece of iron. A respectable-looking woman, the mother pleaded for a chance, and was led from the dock sobbing bitterly.
Facts in “Sheffield Independent,” February 21, 1917
A young Yorkshire miner enlisted and left his wife, hitherto sober, with three children. She took to drink, neglected the home, and is now a dipsomaniac, with two children not her husband’s.