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CHAPTER EIGHT

there is most prudence, foresight and self-control[1] than among the population at large." A vivid illustration of, the racial danger of wrong and uncontrolled breeding is given by a dignitary of the Church of England who quoted Professor Karl Pearson in his argument favouring contraception.[2] "A blind woman had two daughters blind at 40. Of her five grandchildren only one escaped; the other four were blind by 30. Of her fifteen great-grandchildren thirteen had cataract. Of the forty-six great-great-grandchildren who can be traced, twenty were of feeble sight at 7, and some lost the sight of both eyes. Forty defective individuals in a stock still multiplying, which nature, left to herself, would have cut off at its very inception!"

Leaving aside tainted stock, the value of the spacing of births as a purely hygienic measure is of great national importance. Statistics have been prepared from carefully selected families showing the mortality of young children according to their place in the family and the spacing measured in

  1. ↑ Sidney Webb (1905): "The Decline in the Birth-Rate." Fabian Tract, No. 131. Second reprint. Pp. 19. London, 1913.
  2. ↑ W. R. Inge, D.D. (1922): "Outspoken Essays (Second Series)." Pp. vi, 275. London, 1922.

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