THE SIGNIFICANCE OF A FALLING BIRTH-RATE

illustrated by the varying birth-rate of the upper and lower social classes belonging to the same community. If a high birth-rate were a mark of prosperity or of advanced civilization, we should expect to find it among the better social class of a community. But the reverse is the case; it is everywhere the least prosperous and the least cultured classes of a community which show the highest birth-rate. As we go from the very poor to the very rich quarters of a great city—whether Paris, Berlin, or Vienna—the average number of children to the family diminishes regularly. The difference is found in the country as well as in the towns. In Holland, for instance, whether in town or country, there are 5.19 children per marriage among the poor, and only 4.50 among the rich. In London it is notorious that the same difference appears; thus Charles Booth, the greatest authority on the social conditions of London, in the concluding volume of his vast survey, sums up the condition of things in the statement that "the lower the class the earlier the period of marriage and the greater the number of children born to each marriage." The same phenomenon is everywhere found, and it is one of great significance.