imited after the first one or two are born. The small families, say of
two, are born when the parents are both young, and carefully compiled
statistics prove that these are not the best offspring a couple can
produce. Those born first in wedlock, are shorter and not so well
developed as those born later in married life, when parents are more
matured.

If it is substantially true, that the decline in the birth-rate is due
to voluntary prevention, and that prevention implies prudence and
self-control, it is safe to conclude that those in whom these qualities
are absent or least conspicuous, will be the most prolific.

But those in whom these qualities are absent or least conspicuous are
our worst citizens, and, therefore, our worst citizens are the most
prolific. Observation and statistics lead to the same conclusion.

Amongst the very poor in crowded localities, the passion for marriage
early asserts itself.

Its natural enemies are prudence and a consciousness of responsibility,
and these suggest restraint. But prudence and restraint are not the
common attributes of the very poor. Poverty makes people reckless, they
live from hour to hour as the lower animals do. They satisfy their
desires as they arise, whether it be the desire for food or the desire
of sex.

The very poor includes amongst its numbers, the drunkard, the criminal,
the professional pauper, and the physically and mentally defective.

The drunkard is not distinguished by his prudence, nor by his
self-restraint. In fact the alcohol which he imbibes paralyses what
self-control he has, and excites through an increased circulation in his
lower brain-centres an unnatural sexual desire. What hope is there of
the drunkard curtailing his family by self-restraint?

Dr. Billings says, (Forum, June 1893) "So far as we have data with
regard to the use of intoxicating liquors, fertility seems greatest in
those countries and amongst those classes where they are most freely
used."

Neither is the criminal blessed with the important attributes of
prudence and self-control. They are conspicuous by their absence in him.

In all defectives, in epileptics, idiots, the physical deformed, the
insane, and the criminal, the prudence and self-restraint necessary to
the limitation of families is either partially or entirely absent.

To the poor in crowded localities, with limited room-space and
insanitary surroundings, effective self-restraint is more difficult than
in