The Northern Pacific farmer. [volume] (Wadena, Minn.) 1878-1885, 1884-01-24
OVER POPULATION.
Star. ling Views on a Protrusivc Pro.
bleln.

Startling Views on Protrusivc Pro.
bleln.
Fromthe London News.
Whichever way we look at the subject,
it is fraught with difficulties, and if we
are challenged to find remedy, We have
to go into question which thousands
of excellent people refuse altogether to
discuss. The deserving, poor could be
better housed now without a single
BRICK being laid or single act Of parlia-
ment passed if they had fewer children.
Even in the slums the rents are lower
and the rooms for couples who have on
ly two children. In dozens of instances
where 1 have asked the denizens OF
these novels why they pay four and five
shillings for such vile accommodation the
answer is: "They won't take us in de-
cent place because of the children"
I know case now of man who took
house for himself and family, and
found he had two rooms to spare. The
house was clean and healthy, and he
had dozens of applications from would
be dodgers. But though he was poor
and the extra rent would have been a
godsend to him-they remained upIet
for four months because nll the appli-
cants had three or four children. His
case is the case of hundreds of people
who have decent rooms to let for the
laboring poor.
The large families these people in
variahly have, not only kept them in
grinding poverty all their lives, but the
over-population floods the market and
keeps the scale of wages down to etarva-
ton point. While supply so enormously
exceeds demand, how can any market
be in healthy condiction?
Men and women, and boys and girls,
all eager for something to do, are to be
had by thousands, and labor is at dis
count. If the supply diminished. and
the hands were more in proportion to
the work to be done, labor would be at
premium.
We have reached point when it is
absolutely mischievous to ignore this
side of the question. 1t is not only la.
Dor that i; affected by the rapid increase
in the population; half of the vice aud
half the crime we deplore in these dis
tricts is traceable to the same cause.
Did wish to initiate the French writer
and plunge tho reader to his eyes in
horror, l might tell how the lack of EN-.
ploymont brings more children in these
districts into the streets; how girls of
II and II are forced into sin by their
wretched parents as the last desperate
means of that self-preservation which
we are told is the first law CT nature.
And as the girls in evil times sin at first
for bread to eat, go the boys begin to
thieve; and we have in our midst vast
human warrens which are simply places
where thieves and wantons are bred.
and poverty and crime increase and
multiply together.
I have 10 desire TO argue a vexed
question or engage in controversy on
the subject which requires the most del.
icate handling, but,no one who has act
ual experience of outcast London can
keep this one great cause of the teem-
ing misery and vice entirely out of sight.
What the remedy for it may be Is no
part of my purpose to discuss, but here
again I believe that the great hope is in
the new race that is coming to replace
the old. The next generation will be
more cultured more intellectual and
more refined mental faculties will be
more exercised which have been dor.
,nant in the poor of to-day, and as we in-
crease in civilization so shall We de-
crease in numbers. Education will
makeeven the lowest of our citizens
something better tnan thew are at pres
eAt mere animal reproducers Of their:
species. So.