The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1904-08-03
GRAVE PROBLEM FACES
THE ENGLISH NATION
The Great Failing Off of the Birth Rate Is Alarming
Our English Cousins, as Well as the French
Marriage Is Growing Unpopular.

! course, necessary to leave the mar
agement of the house and of the nurs-
ery-when there is nursery-to the
servants. Children waste so much
time and are distinctly questionable
Therefore, let them be avoided by al
means.
Less fashionable wives are actuated
by similar motives. the freside is nc
longer the British ideal. Clubs for
both sexes grow and flourish. A couple
no longer trot through life hand in
hand "till death do US part" In every
big town restaurant life has com
menced; in London it is in full swing.
There must be amusements, whether
you sit in stalls or the upper circle.
And with the change in the home-as
our grandparents knew and revered it
comes desire to lessen it's liabili-
ties, to give fewer hostages to fortune,
to avoid the trouble, time and expense
of children.
City life does not aid the increase of
the race. The towns are growing
larger, the country populations come
drifting in, lured by hopes that are
often never realized. Years ago it
was said that family living entirely
in a town died out in three genera
lions. This may be no longer true, for
sanitation has made amazing strides
since the gloomy prophecy was utter
ed, but at least city bred children
have not the physical advantages of
those who have learned the joys of
birdnesting, who know a primrose
from a buttercup and rabbit from a
hare.
Still worse, the city-bred child in
the poorer quarters of the towns is re-
garded, 'covertly at least, as null
sance. He plays in the streets to the
distur bance of the traffic and the irri-
tation of the police. He breaks win
dows and trips up pedestrians who are
in hurry-and who is not nowadays?
Landlords object to him strongly. "NO
children" is the frequent termination
of lod gings-to-let advertisement.
The crush of population has produced
the fat, whether for the rich in the
southwest districts of the wOrkingmen
in the east. The majority of flats are
carefully constructed for the unmar-
ried or the couple without family.
The builders evidently had such folk
in mind when they went to work.
Without strip of garden for play
ground, without even a chance of a
walk without descending half dozen
flights of stairs, how can q child hope
to strive or be anything but a nuisance
to his parents and theiL neigh bOrs:
Flat jewellers number their thousands
and hundreds of thousands. They are
not likely to breed many sons and
daughters under the fiat regime.
Selfshness grows manifest in the
bachelor. Whatever his position, he
knows that he travels the fastest who
travels alone, as Kipling has remarked
with poetic cYnicism. II he be en-
ployed in shop or Office he finds that
the management favor his unfettered
position among the richer classes. The
destruction of ideals in a workaday
world has destroyed the mastery OF
Cupid.
For the bachelor there are chances
to be taken, risks to be run, WHICH
may result in fortune. Marriage is a
handicap, doubtful luxury. So ar
CUES the young man of the twentieth
century.
Is there remedy? Not from legis-
lation or tricks of the taxes. That is
certain. Was there ever remedy for
luxury or selfshness or ram bition?
No examples occur to the writer.