in many cases, accompanied by the most serious results. The
operation is dangerous; death not infrequently occurs; often the result
is a permanent impairment of health. "The troubles of troublesome
pregnancy and child-birth are infinitely less than the sufferings
consequent upon artificial abortion."[82] Barrenness is one of its most
common consequences. All that, notwithstanding, abortion is practiced
also in Germany, ever more frequently, and for the reasons given.
Between 1882-1888, the number of cases in Berlin, of which the criminal
courts took cognizance, rose 155 per cent. The _chronique scandaleuse_
of the last years dealt frequently with cases of abortion, that caused
great sensation, due to the circumstance that reputable physicians and
women, prominent in society, played a _role_ in them. Furthermore, to
judge from the rising number of announcements in our newspapers, the
institutions and places increase in which married and unmarried women of
the property class are offered an opportunity to await the results of a
"slip" in perfect secrecy.

The dread of a large increase of children--due to the smallness of
means, and the cost of bringing up--has, among all classes and even
peoples, developed the use of preventatives into a system, that here and
yonder has grown into a public calamity. It is a generally known fact
that, in all strata of French society, the "two-child system" is in
force. In few countries of civilization are marriages relatively as
numerous as in France, and in no country is the average number of
children so small, and the increase of population so slow. The French
capitalist, like the small-holder and allotment peasant, pursues the
system; the French workingman follows suit. In many sections of Germany
the special situation of the peasants seems to have led to similar
conditions. We know a charming region in Southwest Germany, where, in
the garden of every peasant, there stands the so-called "Sevenbaum,"
whose properties are applied to abortive purposes. In another district
of the same country the regular two-child system prevails among the
peasants: they do not wish to divide the places. Moreover, striking is
the measure in which literature, that treats with and recommends the
means of "facultative sterility," increases in Germany both in volume
and demand,--of course, always under the colors of science, and in
allusion to the alleged threatening danger of over-population.

Along with abor