Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/677

 POPULATION AND WAGES 66 1

of nourishment or by some other means.' He also quotes the opinion of several physicians to the effect that abortion is of very frequent occurrence among married women, but is not him- self inclined to accept their testimony, adding that the problem is "a mystery" of difficult solution. In this, however, we may feel certain that he is carrying his (may I sa.y affected f) incredu- lity and his "agnosticism" a little too far. The American people may be assumed not to have ^one beyond the French in this line of "improvement;" and who would speak of abortion as being "a mystery" in this country? But the circumstance to which I especially wish to call attention is the view the public take of the matter. M. Levasseur himself, referring to the trial of a man whose professional occupation was to bring about mis- carriages, remarks, as a "characteristic feature of [French] sentiment" {^trait de moeurs caract^ristique), that neither the accused, who were nineteen in number, nor many of the specta- tors seemed to attach any seriousness to the act.'' And not only the spectators, but the judges themselves, seem to join in the general indifference (or the general approbation), if it be true that, as M. van der Smissen tells us, "the history of crime shows how the number of abortions and infanticides increases through the leniency, and even the connivance, of juries." 3

It is, however, difficult to determine with all exactness the extent to which the French unprolificness is entirely voluntary. It is not improbable that the psycho-economic check may react upon the organism and accelerate the physiologic or biologic check. A continued aversion to, and dread of, reproduction, and

■ Levasseur, La population frattfaise, t. II, pp. 168-71, 184, where several tables are given. Bertillon's opinion, which M. Levasseur properly qualifies, seems too absolute. Among other causes, shame and poverty must be counted as greatly influ- encing the mortality of illegitimates, which in all countries by far exceeds that of legitimate children. In Switzerland, out of every 1,000 legitimate children, 77 die under thirty days of age, and 180 under twelve months; for illegitimates the corresponding numbers are 136 and 280. In Saxony, during the six years ending in 1870, the aver- age annual death-rates were 256 and 353 per 1,000 born, for legitimates and illegiti- mates, respectively ; in the city of Dresden the figures were 250 and 705 — 70 per cent, of the illegitimates died. (Mulhall, s. v. " Deaths," pp. 186, 187.)

' Levasseur, op. cit., t. II, p. 58.

^La population, p. 400.