at the annual meeting of the malthusian league in may, 1887, held in london at the south place institute, finsbury, dr. charles r. drysdale, president of the malthusian league, read the presidential address, which contained the following passages:—
to that objection to the neo-malthusian propaganda which is usually successful with timid people, that incontinence would be increased if the means recommended by new-malthusians were adopted, mr. place says: “i am of opinion it would not; so much depends on manners, that it seems to be by no means an unreasonable expectation that, if these were so improved as greatly to increase the prudential habits, and to encourage the love of distinction, the master-spring of public prosperity, and if, in consequence of the course recommended, all could marry early, there would be less debauchery of any kind. an improvement in manners would be an improvement in morals; and it seems absurd to suppose an increase of vice with improved morals.”
mr. james mill, a friend of mr. place, writing also in 1820, (article “colony,” encyclop. brit.) speaks of the question of checking population rationally as “the most important practical problem to which the wisdom of the politician and the moralist can be applied.” “if,” he says, “the superstitions of the nursery were discarded, and the principles of utility kept steadily in view, a solution might not be difficult to be found, and the means of drying up one of the most copious sources of human evil—a source which, if all other sources of evil were taken away, would alone suffice to retain the great mass of human beings in misery, might be seen to be neither doubtful nor difficult to be applied.”
mr. francis place and mr. james mill exhibited in these utterances one of the qualities of true men of science—that is, they were enabled to foretell truly what has taken place before the end of the century in civilised countries like england and france. the truth of their prophecies is shown in the fact that the inhabitants of france, who, at the commencement of this century, had a birth-rate of 33 children annually per 1000 of inhabitants, have now one of 26 per 1000; while the west 117end of london shows a still lower birth-rate than this—in kensington of 20, in st. george, hanover square, of 19, and in hampstead parish of 22 per 1000. in france, the low birth-rate is due, as every intelligent person now knows, to neo-malthusian practices and not to celibacy, for france contains, in every 1000 inhabitants, 140 married women between the ages of fifteen and fifty, against 133 in this country and under 128 in prussia. this prudence among the french population, since the time of the french revolution, seems to have been due to a certain extent to the acquisition of landed property by the masses of the population, and also to the law of equal inheritance in france, which prohibits parents from leaving their real or personal estates to one person. the extreme desire to keep the land in the hands of a few descendants has made the more respectable of the french peasants the most careful of europeans. thus we find, from an essay by the late dr. bertillon, that in the thirty departments of france where there are the greatest number of proprietors of land, 285 per 1000 inhabitants, the birth-rate is only 24·7, against 28·1 in those departments where there are only 177 proprietors per 1000 of the population. the professional classes in france are so thoughtful in regard to the number of children they bring into the world, that they do not have quite two children (1·75) to a family; whilst the average children to a family in france does not exceed 3, against 5 in germany, 4? in england, 5? in scotland, and 5? in poor and distressed ireland. how true it is, then, what james mill and mr. francis place predicted!
universally we may say of modern europeans, that the poorer classes are less prudent in the size of their families; and, indeed, it has been said by m. de haussonville (“la vie et les salaires à paris”) that the number of children to a family in the poor quarters of paris is three times as great as it is in the rich quarters. the same story holds nearly true in modern london since 1877—i.e., since the date of the trial of mr. charles bradlaugh and mrs. annie besant; for the birth-rate in kensington is at present 20 per 1000, against 40 per 1000 in bethnal green, a result which is yearly becoming due rather to small families in the west end than to late marriages or celibacy, the old-fashioned causes of lower birth-rates. the celebrated cases of “regina v. bradlaugh and besant,” “regina v. edward truelove,” and, at this moment, of the royal college of physicians of edinburgh against the esteemed and learned physician, dr. h. a. allbutt, of leeds, who is threatened 118by that body with expulsion from the list of its members, because he has published, in a popular work of a practical character, what has been said so many times, that large families lead to early death, prostitution, and every horror to which mortality is subject, have disclosed the fact that there is an idea strongly implanted in the minds of the majority of mankind, that, if people in general knew, especially at an early age, what any medical student knows as soon as he commences to study anatomy and physiology, vice and profligacy would immediately abound. this is, indeed, a strange idea. civilisation differs from savage life mainly in that civilised men know more of nature than savages; but, just on that very account, civilised people are more moral than savages. “it is impossible for us to understand,” says m. joseph garnier, “how the counsels of marital prudence can lead to the abolition of marriage and the debauchery of the young. has not prudence the effect of rendering the state of marriage more happy and more attractive? youth is encouraged to marriage more easily by the example of prosperous and wisely managed households than by the example of households crushed under the tortures of misery.” and m. villermé, one of the greatest writers on health that this century has produced, mentions that the workmen of la croix rouge, lyons, had, in his day, an average of only 3? children to a family; and that “these workmen were the foremost in france for behavior and dignity of character.” “the question is,” says a distinguished vice-president of the malthusian league, mr. van houten, deputy at the hague, “whether morality can demand that a married couple shall have offspring immediately after their marriage; that constantly, as soon as the mother, after giving birth to one, is able, a second one should at once succeed the first. the question is, whether those less blessed with worldly goods must restrain their desires and remain celibates, because they are unable, while following the traditional morality, to provide for a family? or whether those whose inclination for one another, or whose trust in the future was too great when their expectations proved deceptive, must be condemned, in the name of morality, to procreate children who will be insufficiently fed, tended and educated, and can never become energetic citizens, or who, if sickly, are born only to descend speedily to the grave, to be succeeded by others equally unfortunate.” mr. van houten truly says: “an end must be put to our ignorance of physiology. everyone ought to know; and it must be left to his own requirements and to his own judgment what use he will make of his knowledge.”
119how dangerous such superstitions as those referred to by mr. van houten are to the happiness of mankind is best seen in the old civilisations of hindostan and china. owing to certain strange doctrines in those countries as to the importance of children as a religious duty, the unfortunate hindoo people are so terribly over-peopled that a man will work hard for wages equivalent to six shillings a month. the most learned of italian medical writers on health, senator paulo mantegazza, mentions that his work was placed on the index by the pope of rome in 1863, because he had ventured to recommend to persons afflicted with hereditary disease, such as insanity or epilepsy, or to excessively poor people, to marry but to have as few children as possible. when two human beings (says that author) love each other, and yet from the bad health of one or both of them there is every likelihood that diseased children will result, is it a greater fault to engender epileptic, insane, or scrofulous children, or to prevent such births? or when, from the excessive increase of the family itself, human beings are brought into the world almost inexorably condemned to hunger, to degradation, to disease, is it a greater sin to limit the number of children or to increase the sufferings of the human family? what reply ought we to give? whilst the royal college of physicians of edinburgh is displaying to the denizens of the end of the 19th century, an amount of ignorance and conventional bigotry which will be incredible to the next generation, it is remarkable that what is usually considered the most benighted church in christendom, the holy catholic apostolic roman church, has latterly shown evident signs of admitting that neo-malthusian practices, which are so habitually made use of in france, must at least be acknowledged to be morally innocent. thus, in 1870, the vatican council was implored by a french priest, dr. friedrich, to reconsider its judgment on conjugal prudence: “and not to cause the damnation of so many millions of souls by letting the directors (confessors) lay upon their consciences, commands or prohibitions impossible to observe. it will be our duty (he exclaims) to search in the holy books alone for condemnation of the act in question; if it be found to be forbidden neither by the decalogue nor by the other laws of god contained in holy writ, nor by the apostles, nor by the commands of the church assembled in council general, nor by the pope speaking ex cathedra, we shall say it (conjugal prudence) cannot be condemned by anyone.” dr. friedrich continues: “a learned and holy devotee of a very austere 120order says: ‘i have studied this case with all the powers of my intelligence and of my conscience, and i have come to this formal conviction, that we are on the wrong track. to my mind, this act is enormously below the smallest mortal sin, and it is enormously lessened by all the motives that provoke it, real motives of health, even of interest, of family, &c.’” lastly, he informs us that rome has enjoined on confessors to question very little and to dwell as little as possible upon this subject. surely, after this, the royal college of physicians of edinburgh might hesitate! what rome has done, other churches might surely do; and i am pleased to say that many excellent members of the english establishment are inclined to side with the malthusian league in its earnest recommendation to all classes of the community to replace the heartrending positive checks to population—war, pestilence, and famine—and the torturing agonies of prolonged celibacy, which dr. bertillon’s statistics show to be so inimical even to longevity, by the far more humane and rational plan of early marriage conjoined with very much smaller families than are at the present time the fashion among all classes. some check to population we must submit to; and there is not the slightest doubt in my own mind that the morality of the near future will look upon the production of large families in european states as the most anti-social of all the actions of a citizen. then, and not till then, will indigence disappear from the face of all civilised society.
