when Charles Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant,
having been prosecuted for disseminating Neo-Malthusian pamphlets, the
charge was dismissed, the Lord Chief Justice declaring that so ill-advised
and injudicious a charge had probably never before been made in a court of
justice. This trial, even by its mere publicity and apart from its issue,
gave an enormous impetus to the Neo-Malthusian movement. It is well known
that the steady decline in the English birthrate begun in 1877, the year
following the trial. There could be no more brilliant illustration of the
fact, that what used to be called "the instruments of Providence" are
indeed unconscious instruments in bringing about great ends which they
themselves were far from either intending or desiring.

In 1877, Dr. C.R. Drysdale founded the Malthusian League, and
edited a periodical, _The Malthusian_, aided throughout by his
wife, Dr. Alice Drysdale Vickery. He died in 1907. (The noble and
pioneering work of the Drysdales has not yet been adequately
recognized in their own country; an appreciative and
well-informed article by Dr. Hermann Rohleder, "Dr. C.R.
Drysdale, Der Hauptvortreter der Neumalthusianische Lehre,"
appeared in the _Zeitschrift fuer Sexualwissenschaft_, March,
1908). There are now societies and periodicals in all civilized
countries for the propagation of Neo-Malthusian principles, as
they are still commonly called, though it would be desirable to
avoid the use of Malthus's name in this connection. In the
medical profession, the advocacy of preventive methods of sexual
intercourse, not on social, but on medical and hygienic grounds,
began same thirty years ago, though in France, at an earlier
date, Raciborski advocated the method of avoiding the
neighborhood of menstruation. In Germany, Dr. Mensinga, the
gynaecologist, is the most prominent advocate, on medical and
hygienic grounds, of what he terms "facultative sterility," which
he first put forward about 1889. In Russia, about the same time,
artificial sterility was first openly advocated by the
distinguished gynaecologist, Professor Ott, at the St. Petersburg
Obstetric and Gynaecological Society. Such medical
recommendations, in particular cases, are now becoming common.

There are certain cases in which a person ought not to marry at
all; this is so, for instance, when there has been an attack of
ins