The Tacoma times. [volume] (Tacoma, Wash.) 1903-1949, 1904-04-19

LONDON, April ia new sort of mar
rage license has been proposed a declare
ton by medical board that, having per-
sonally examined NJ. and n, and having
inquired into their family history. it is of
opinion that there is no cause or lust inn
pedlment of pathological nature why
these two persons should not be joined to-
gether in holy matrimony.
Without the production of such decIar-
alton it should be unlawful, it is urged. for
any clergyman or registrar to solemnize or
secularlze marriage.
1t is the degeneration that is now visibIy
stalking abroad among lis that has sug-
gested this stringent and somewhat start
ling proposal, which is being seriously en-
tertamed in the more go-ahead states of
the American union.
Whose hath eyes to see may. by visiting
the east end of London and surveying
the operatives, men and women, as they
issue from the factories there at the dinner
hour, have ocular demonstration of this
degeneration. 1t is stamped more or less
deeply on their forms and faces. A we'll
grown, comely, robust, vigorous human be-
ing is rarely to be seen among them.
Squads of stunted, decrepit creatures, with
look of sickness, shamble past, and to
contrast the crowd there seen with the
crowd in Hyde park on a Sunday parade
is to realize that there are two races in
England nearly as distinct as Hottentots
and Patagonians.
DEGENERATION TRIUMPHANT.
But it is not among the worxpeople of
London of the poorest class that the effects
of degeneration at their ugliest and worst
are to be witnessed. In order to study
these, prisons warehouses, hospitals must
be inspected, and to any one DESTROYS of
knowing what degeneration in its final
stages really means, | would recommend
an afternoon in the wards of a metropoI-
tan lmbecile asylum.
There, though disguised as far as possible
by cleanliness and kindly care, degenera-
ton triumphant is in painful evidence. It's
victims are thick on the ground, wretched
bulls of humanity, mindless. graceless,
hopeless, sunk in misery and degradation.
1t is impossible to contemplate them with
out a shudder, and one turns away from
them convinced that there is something
rotten in the state of England, and eager
that by new marriage licenses or in some
OIHCE way HOuiNIIllllS ShOultl ne uOne 10 ar
rest the decomposition that is going on
and is yielding such sickening accumuIa-
tions of debris.
Of course, degeneration is CLOSED over
and mnimized by comfortable optimists.
who have laid the fattering JUNCTION of evo-
-lution to their souls. 1t is merely the
complement of the survival of the fittest.
But it is not to be blinked or tolerated any
is ipavOpo bIa JoOr, Fro,,,
which there is no escape, but in large meas
ure the outcome of social ignorance and ne
gleet. and to that extent avoidable by the
amendment of our ways.
Insanity--a grievous burden in these
days; we have upwards of 10000 notified
lunatics on our hands in England and
Wales. to say nothing of multitudes OF
half-mad and weak-minded persons, who
are not notified-insanity in all its forms,
notified and unnotifed, is hereditary in
large portion of cases. Diseases of the ner-
vous system, epilepsy and paralysis, which
levy an annual toll of some 10000 lives,
are often a legacy from a previous genera.
ton.
Now it is undoubtedly true that the dam
ger of the transmission to offspring of any
hereditary predisposition to disease is
greatly ntensihed-probably more than
double-when both parents are endowed
with the same predispostiOn. 1t is certain
that marriages are taking place daily which
medical science and common prudence
must condemn.
CONDEMNED MARRIAGES.
Cannot something be done to put a stop
to them? Is it not possible to prevent
them in the interests of the community
and the parties themselves?
Without resorting to the drastic meas
ure which is now in force in the state OF
Minnesota, prohibiting under penalty of
three years Imprisonment the marriage OF
any woman under 45 years of age or man
of any age-except he marry a woman over
45-who is suffering from epilepsy, insanity
OF feeble-mndedness might we not by
means of a medical licensing board put
under ban the union of persons in dis
eased state or strongly infected with the
same or kindred morbid tendencies, and
thus check in some degree the spread of
degeneration?
As things stand, young couples of high
principle about to marry and haunted by
mispiyings as to the prospects Of their