Warren sheaf. [volume] (Warren, Marshall County, Minn.) 1880-current, 1920-02-25

Now come the figures Of the mar
rage age. published a few days ago.
Between 191l-14 80 per cent Of all
bachelors married; In 1917 only $40
per cent. In 1Ss8-8O 30 per cent mar
ried, The proportion Of bachelors who
marry at over thirty-five has been
steadily rising, with q swift upward
climb in 1916 and 1917. Only S54.8.
per cent. Of spinsters marrying during
1917 We're under twenty-five years Of
age.
Among the middle classes the age is
rising at an alarming pace. II looks
as though within comparatively
short time here in England the mid
die class will, with the increased age
Of marriage, give to the race only
those stunted specimens Of child life
which are so often, though not always,
the fruit of late unions.
1t is significant that no single per-
son has come forward to contest the
above. It cannot be contested. We
are looking on the passing Of a class.
Members Of parliament are begin
ming to sit up and take note.
Babies Fewer in Germany, Even.
Even Germany, the nursery Of Eu-
rope, which produced its million babies
at the bidding Of the war lord as
food for his cannons, is fast depopu-
lating. The war has done this. The
Germans Of the cities refuse to have
children. 1--WE cannot feed them, l."
they say. 1--WE cannot even feed our
selves"
During the war the German profess
sors solemnly debated -polygamy as
remedy. Some of them approved it.
But Germany is no Utah and Berlin
no Salt Lake City. Today's Father
land is strictly homogeneous. Econ
omy is the father Of morality. The
modern German finds it hard enough
to keep one wife, He does not want
half a dozen.
For ten years before the war Eng
land, like the rest Of Europe, had be-
gun to yield herself to the pleasure
craze. With the war and that frantic
desire to forget which became cult,
that craze passed into frenzy. Today,
over IL months after the war, the
music halls and picture palaces are
crowded to the doors. have made
the experiment Of listening to the con-
versationt of II couples Of business
girls in the early trans and busses. OF
this number no fewer than IL used the
expression: where are you going to-
night ?" but what has all this to do
with the birth rate?
Everything. Pleasure to the English
, man, as to the European, has become
a narcotic as essential as tobacco or
!. alcohol. Pleasure costs money. Pleas
ure excessful means self1shness Pleas
ure means effort and effort absorbs
vitality. Pleasure means the breakup
of the home. The modern European
has to choose between pleasure and
children He chooses pleasure.
The Unborn Suffers
Then comes the cost Of living, the
Europeans nightmare The war has
practically halved incomes. Wage
and salary increase has done little to
balance the lift in the cost Of living.
/ The middle class man who before the
! war just made both ends, meet son
| S1,5O0a year is fighting fate uponStle
$3.50 that income is now worth. Eu-
! rope is suffering from a shortage OF
bricks and mortar. The war has pull
verified billions of bricks and mir
lions of tons of mortar. The Ger
man housebreakers alone have Knocked
the buildings Of the best part of q
country into smithereens. People are
smuggling together In single rooms.
They herd like the beasts that perish.
And they do perish.
+ Take London. London today is the
problem of seven millions crouching
over a chalk pit. That seven is soon
going to be ten. During the war alone
London, the octopus, sucked in another
million. Possibly quarter of a mil
lion need houses as write. The Lon
doner is becoming sort of city no.
mad He shifts from room to room.
He crouches under the states. He is
a troglodyte. He burrows into the
earth. Building has scarcely begun.
j Crowd human beings and you kill
them as surely as if they were rabbits.
And many ofsthese hunted, harried peo-.
pie are rabbits. Nibbling at adversely.
With the brains of rabbits. Seeing to-
day-but neither yesterday nor to-.
| morrow. But that is a picture of Eu-
rope itself.
T. n