t sold bogus medicines and then
proceeded to blackmail the women who had purchased them, was, in Zola's
estimation, particularly significant, for here were hundreds and hundreds
of Englishwomen applying to those men for the means of accomplishing the
greatest crime against Nature there could be.

On that point M. Zola spoke in no uncertain language. He understood well
enough that the authorities could not justly single out a few of those
hundreds of women for prosecution and punishment: but he censured the
women quite as much as he censured the convicted men, who were, after
all, but common scoundrels.

And he was amazed to find that so few English newspapers ventured to
speak out on the matter. There were plenty of leaderettes on the cunning
shown by the men, but the alacrity of the women to purchase the bogus
medicines was, as a rule, lightly passed over; and great as is M. Zola's
admiration for the English Press in many respects, he could but regard
its attitude towards the Chrimes case as lamentably inadequate and
lacking in moral courage.

'A great responsibility,' said he, 'rests with those who, possessing
commanding influence, refrain from requisite action, and who, instead of
seeking to cure proved and acknowledged evils, connive at driving them
beneath the surface, where, in secret, they steadily grow and expand.'
And all this for the sake of the 'young person,' to whose mythical
innocence the welfare of a whole nation is often sacrificed. M. Zola's
views are summed up in the words: 'Let all be exposed and discussed, in
order that all may be cured!'

He regards Neo-Malthusianism and its practices as abominable, and when he
had learnt more of the actual situation in England he was emphatically of
opinion that his book 'Fecondite,' though applied to France alone, might
well, with little alteration, be applied to this country also.

The fluctuations in the English birth-rate from 1872 to 1897 were to him
full of meaning. At a certain period, for instance, they showed all the
harm wrought by the abominable Bradlaugh-Besant campaign. But what he
dwelt on still more was the absolute physical incapacity of so many
English mothers to suckle their own offspring. Circumstances are much the
same both in France and the United States, at least among the older
Colonial families. In three or four generations the women of a family in
which the practice of suckling has ceased, are altogether unable to give
the breast; and