Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1906-07-24
Low BIRTH RATE.
The Conditions Now Ex-
listing in Great Britain.
Discussion Of the Causes and
Ultimate conseq
Low Rate Goes With Culture and Prosperity
Forming a Pleasing Outlook.

London, July 23.-Research Is the
note of the University of London, and
that learned body has just issued a re-
port, more startling than is generally
associated with academic duties. The
Department of Applied Mathematics,
University College, University of Lon
don, has been enabled by the munifi-
cence of the Drapers' Company to
make 'Studies i'll National Deteriora-
ton. and. as first instalment, there
has been issued q Memoir" ION the
relation of fertility in man to social
status, and on the changes in this rela-
ton that have taken place during the
last fifty years." by Mr.. David Heron,
M. A. st. Andrews University and Uni
versity College, London. The data are
drawn from two sources. national or
municipal statistical publications and
a series of schedules relating to size OF
families in successive generations is
sued by Professor Pearson. In this
first instalment attention is confined to
the former material and to the
metropolis, but it is hoped without I'M
due delay to supplement these results
not only by those for other districts,
but by n comparison of such districts
among themselves.
The author is very fond of technical
terms, but here is conclusion showing
at glance the effect of luxurious sur
roundings upon population: "In those
districts where the professional classes
are most numerous and where many
domestic servants are kept. there the
married women have feweSt children.
The relation is an exceedingly close one
and is obviously most significant"
Generally prosperity and culture are
connected with low birth-rate, but
they are hardly less important in their
social significance. Where the labor
is of the lowest type, where poverty
leads to the pawnbroker and forces
employment, where the married women
the child at the earliest possible age into
have most offspring. The worse the
sanitary conditions under which the
people live, and the worse their physi-
cal and mental health, the higher is
the birth-rate. The results collected
in this report "seem to indicate that
the conditions of prosperity and cul-
ture, which lead to a low birth-rate,
also conduoe to high cancer death
rate In other words, cancer cannot,
IKE IIlllllSlS, Dt tdhtI DIS ii HltdSuTt VI
that unhealthy environment with
which high birth-rate seems to be as
sociated."
To those who have been at all in con-
tact with the poorer life of our great
cities no single factor will appear more
characteristic of the worst type of the
community than excessive infantile
mortality. Where there is greatest
poverty, greatest drunkenness, least
thrift, there the carelessness of child
life is greatest, and there the infantile
mortality reaches it's largest proper
tons. II doubt" says the author. ''if
there is any better measure of the UNI
desirabilIty of 4 class and it's insult
ability for reproducing its kind, than
the extent of the infantile mortality
within it, In districts where there is
the maximum of carelesSneSS with re-
gard to child-life there the birth rate
Is highest. Whore the mothers and
fathers have the maximum of undc-
STABILITY there is produced maximum
of children. And this is the melancholy
summing up: 1.-The wives in the dis
tricts of least prosperity and culture
have the largest families. and the
morally and socially lowest classes i'm
the community are those which are re-
producing themselves with the great
est rapidity."
The earlier marriages Of the less edu-
Gated. the less thrifty, the less prosper
Gus. and physically feebler portion of
the community have something to do
with their higher birth rate. but they
do not account for it to the extent of at
least so per cent. To such extent n
lesser absolute fertility, q lessened ex-
ercisc of fertility, or deliberate re-
Strlint of fertility, must exist in the
classes of higher social status to &C
count for the observed facts. POST
poncment of marriage is not the sole
reason why the better element in thes
community has at present the lower