The troops of ragged, dirty, stunted little urchins, neglected
and crippled in mind and body, that you will see there, are
the offspring of these reckless marriages. Follow them home,
and you will see the ruined lives of their parents ; the mothers
are either worn-out drudges before they have reached middle-
age, or have developed into the careless slatterns who live
on the door-steps, gossiping with like-minded neighbours ; the
fathers, with all self-respect crushed out of them, are reduced
to picking up odd jobs at the street corner, and live more in
the public-house than in their wretched homes. If we think,
further, what the children brought up under such surroundings
must become, the question of improvident marriage shows
itself as one of the most serious of modern social life."

We are all very well aware that the power of population is
not to be found merely in its numbers, but in its stamina and
vitality. The birth-rate may be very high, but those who reach
manhood and womanhood may be very few ; so that it is the
quality, not the quantity, of the birth-rate which is the most
important point and factor in the matter. There cannot
be any profit in a large birth-rate if the children die in the
first year. This is the test from which we are in a position
to judge of the state of affairs in France. There we have
a falling birth-rate, and also a rapidly-falling decrease of men
at the best age, namely, between fifteen and sixty; therein
lies the future ruin of France. It will not be of such bad
import to us, if we have a falUng birth-rate, if those children
who are born are strong and individuated, capable of reaching
to adult vigour, and not mere human wreckage.
