here is a
considerable mortality even in the so-called normal family during early
life. Even when there is no abnormal fertility in the defective family
we may still have to recognize that, as Davenport and Weeks argue, their
defectiveness is intensified by heredity. Moreover, we have to consider
the social disorder and the heavy expense which accompany the large
infantile mortality. Illegitimacy is frequently the result of
feeble-mindedness, since feeble-minded women are peculiarly unable to
resist temptation. A great number of such women are continually coming
into the workhouses and giving birth to illegitimate children whom they
are unable to support, and who often never become capable of supporting
themselves, but in their turn tend to produce a new feeble-minded
generation, more especially since the men who are attracted to these
feeble-minded women are themselves--according to the generally
recognized tendency of the abnormal to be attracted to the
abnormal--feeble-minded or otherwise mentally defective. There is thus
generated not only a heavy financial burden, but also a perpetual danger
to society, and, it may well be, a serious depreciation in the quality
of the community.[33]

It is not only in themselves that the feeble-minded are a burden on the
present generation and a menace to future generations. In large measure
they form the reservoir from which the predatory classes are recruited.
This is, for instance, the case as regards prostitutes. Feeble-minded
girls, of fairly high grade, may often be said to be predestined to
prostitution if left to themselves, not because they are vicious, but
because they are weak and have little power of resistance. They cannot
properly weigh their actions against the results of their actions, and
even if they are intelligent enough to do that, they are still too weak
to regulate their actions accordingly. Moreover, even when, as often
happens among the high-grade feeble-minded, they are quite able and
willing to work, after they have lost their "respectability" by having a
child, the opportunities for work become more restricted, and they drift
into prostitution. It has been found that of nearly 15,000 women who
passed through Magdalen Homes in England, over 2500, or more than
sixteen per cent--and this is probably an under-estimate--were
definitely feeble-minded. The women belonging to this feeble-minded
group were known to have added 1000 illegitimate children to the
po