Page:Meda - a tale of the future.djvu/125

Rh equal footing with those with whom you will associate.

"I shall now begin my sketch of what has taken place since your day. Five hundred years after your time the populations of the various countries of the earth had increased enormously. So much was this the case that the earth was then literally a crawling mass of people striving and fighting for very existence. There had been many wars and many famines; still the destruction of life by these scourges had not any material effect in keeping down the increase of population. All the land that was uninhabited in your day was now peopled. What you termed the Dark Continent of Africa, as well as the great continents of SonthSouth [sic] America and Australia, was over-run by humanity. For many centuries the various governments of the earth had made it a rule to do all in their power to preserve decrepit life and allow it to multiply. What between boards of health and sanitary boards, combined with great medical skill, the most sickly children