int._--_Birth-rates vary
inversely with prudence and self-control._--_The limited family usually
born in early married life when progeny is less likely to be well
developed._--_Our worst citizens most prolific._--_Effect of poverty on
fecundity._--_Effect of alcoholic intemperance._--_Effect of mental and
physical defects._--_Defectives propagate their kind._--_The
intermittent inhabitants of Asylums and Gaols constitute the greatest
danger to society._--_Character the resultant of two forces--motor
impulse and inhibition._--_Chief criminal characteristic is defective
inhibition._--_This defect is strongly hereditary._--_It expresses
itself in unrestrained fertility._

It has been sufficiently demonstrated in preceding chapters, that the
birth-rate has been, and is still rapidly declining. It has been sought
to prove that this decline is chiefly due to voluntary means taken by
married people to limit their families, and that the desire for this
limitation is the result of our social system.

The important question now arises. Is the desire uniform through all
classes of Society, and is the practice of prevention uniform through
all classes?

In other words, is the decline in the birth-rate due to prevention in
one class more than in another, and if so which?

Experience and statistics force us to the startling conclusion, that the
birth-rate is declining amongst the best classes of citizens, and
remains undisturbed amongst the worst.

Now the first-class responsible for the decline includes those who do
not marry, and those who marry late. The Michigan vital statistics for
1894 (p. 125) show that the mean number of children to each marriage at
the age of 15-19 years is 6.75, at the age of 20-25 years it is 5.32, a
difference of 1.44 in favour of delayed marriage for a period of five
years.

In New Zealand the marriage rate has gone up from 5.97 per thousand
persons living in 1888 to 7.67 in 1900.

This class includes clerks with an income of L100 and under,--a large
number with L150, and all misogynists with higher incomes.

It includes labourers with L75 a year and under, and many who receive
L100.

Their motives for avoiding marriage are mostly prudential.

Those who abstain from marriage for prudential reasons are as a rule
good citizens. They are workers who realise their responsibilities in
life, and shrink from undertaking duties which they feel they cannot
adequately perform. By far the largest cla