Part 31 (1/2)

9. REV. LEONARD DAWSON.--”How rapidly conjugal prudence might lift a nation out of pauperism was seen in France.--Let them therefore hold the maxim that the production of offspring with forethought and providence is rational nature. It was immoral to bring children into the world whom they could not reasonably hope to feed, clothe and educate.”

10. MRS. FAWCETT.--”Nothing will permanently offset pauperism while the present reckless increase of population continues.”

11. DR. GEORGE NAPHEYS.--”Having too many children unquestionably has its disastrous effects on both mother and {231} children as known to every intelligent physician. Two-thirds of all cases of womb disease, says Dr.

Tilt, are traceable to child-bearing in feeble women. There are also women to whom pregnancy is a nine months' torture, and others to whom it is nearly certain to prove fatal. Such a condition cannot be discovered before marriage--The detestable crime of abortion is appallingly rife in our day.

It is abroad in our land to an extent which would have shocked the dissolute women of pagan Rome--This wholesale, fas.h.i.+onable murder, how are we to stop it? Hundreds of vile men and women in our large cities subsist by this slaughter of the innocent.”

12. REV. H. R. HAWEIS.--”Until it is thought a disgrace in every rank of society, from top to bottom of social scale, to bring into the world more children than you are able to provide for, the poor man's home, at least, must often be a purgatory--his children dinnerless, his wife a beggar--himself too often drunk--here, then, are the real remedies: first, control the family growth according to the family means of support.”

13. MONTAGUE COOKSON.--”The limitation of the number of the family--is as much the duty of married persons as the observance of chast.i.ty is the duty of those that are unmarried.”

14. JOHN STUART MILL.--”Every one has aright to live. We will suppose this granted. But no one has a right to bring children into life to be supported by other people. Whoever means to stand upon the first of these rights must renounce all pretension to the last. Little improvement can be expected in morality until the production of a large family is regarded in the same light as drunkenness or any other physical excess.”

15. DR. T. D. NICHOLLS.--”In the present social state, men and women should refrain from having children unless they see a reasonable prospect of giving them suitable nurture and education.”

16. REV. M. J. SAVAGE.--”Some means ought to be provided for checking the birth of sickly children.”

17. DR. STOCKHAM.--”Thoughtful minds must acknowledge the great wrong done when children are begotten under adverse conditions. Women must learn the laws of life so as to protect themselves, and not be the means of bringing sin-cursed, diseased children into the world. The remedy is in the prevention of pregnancy, not in producing abortion.”

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Small Families and the Improvement of the Race.

1. MARRIED PEOPLE MUST DECIDE FOR THEMSELVES.--It is the fas.h.i.+on of those who marry nowadays to have few children, often none. Of course this is a matter which married people must decide for themselves. As is stated in an earlier chapter, sometimes this policy is the wisest that can be pursued.

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2. DISEASED PEOPLE.--Diseased people who are likely to beget only a sickly offspring, may follow this course, and so may thieves, rascals, vagabonds, insane and drunken persons, and all those who are likely to bring into the world beings that ought not to be here. But why so many well-to-do folks should pursue a policy adapted only to paupers and criminals, is not easy to explain. Why marry at all if not to found a family that shall live to bless and make glad the earth after father and mother are gone? It is not wise to rear too many children, nor is it wise to have too few. Properly brought up, they will make home a delight and parents happy.

3. POPULATION LIMITED.--Galton, in his great work on hereditary genius, observes that ”the time may hereafter arrive in far distant years, when the population of this earth shall be kept as strictly within bounds of number and suitability of race, as the sheep of a well-ordered moor, or the plants in an orchard-house; in the meantime, let us do what we can to encourage the multiplication of the races best {233} fitted to invent and conform to a high and generous civilization.”

4. SHALL SICKLY PEOPLE RAISE CHILDREN?--The question whether sickly people should marry and propagate their kind, is briefly alluded to in an early chapter of this work. Where father and mother are both consumptive the chances are that the children will inherit physical weakness, which will result in the same disease, unless great pains are taken to give them a good physical education, and even then the probabilities are that they will find life a burden hardly worth living.

5. NO REAL BLESSING.--Where one parent is consumptive and the other vigorous, the chances are just half as great. If there is a scrofulous or consumptive taint in the blood, beware! Sickly children are no comfort to their parents, no real blessing. If such people marry, they had better, in most cases, avoid parentage.

6. WELFARE OF MANKIND.--The advancement of the welfare of mankind is a most intricate problem: all ought to refrain from marriage who cannot avoid abject poverty for their children; for poverty is not only a great evil, but tends to its own increase by leading to recklessness in marriage. On the other hand, as Mr. Galton has remarked, if the prudent avoid marriage, while the reckless marry, the inferior members will tend to supplant the better members of society.

7. PREVENTIVES.--Remember that the thousands of preventives which are advertised in papers, private circulars, etc., are not only inefficient, unreliable and worthless, but positively dangerous, and the annual mortality of females in this country from this cause alone is truly horrifying. Study nature, and nature's laws alone will guide you safely in the path of health and happiness.

8. NATURE'S REMEDY.--Nature in her wise economy has prepared for overproduction, for during the period of pregnancy and nursing, and also most of the last half of each menstrual month, woman is naturally sterile; but this condition may become irregular and uncertain on account of stimulating drinks or immoral excesses.

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The Generative Organs.