Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/263

Rh that are called slums. But the old cities were all slums. The great increase of modern city life is due not to the degeneracy of the race, as is often foolishly supposed, but to improved sanitary conditions and improved health. The modern city grows by its own productive force as well as by immigration and has ceased to be a death trap for the people.

Rapid increase of population is due to cleanliness, thrift, intelligence, prosperity, contentment, and happiness, because these things preserve and lengthen life. As a rule, civilized people are apt to be blessed in these particulars even when their birth-rate is somewhat low. But it is not true, as is often supposed, that the more civilized have necessarily a low birth-rate. Ireland and Greece are countries of an inferior order of civilization, and their birth-rates are respectively 2·77 and 24 per thousand inhabitants; while the birth-rate of England is 33·3 per thousand, and of Holland 34·8.

But we must not rest the question on mere generalizations. Civilization includes many things and is a broad term. Increase of population is accomplished by different causes, and not in every instance by the same cause. Each instance should be considered in all its surroundings before any general principles are applied. Mere sentiment, opinions, and ideas often affect the growth of population as much as the price of corn and meat. The failure of the French to increase rapidly is generally believed to be caused by an almost morbid desire on the part of French parents to start their sons in life with a fortune and give their daughters a dowry on their marriage. The size of these portions becomes a matter of pride, and great importance is attached to them even among the middle classes. The fewer the children the larger the portions. This condition is generally believed by modern French statesmen to have been brought about by the law of 1793 which restricted the freedom of leaving property by will and compelled parents to divide their estates evenly among their children. On the other hand, the English feeling is just the reverse of this. The Saxon race has always been remarkable for its love of facing life single-handed, and battling with the chances of the world. English parents of all classes have seldom any hesitation, and often a pride, in bringing up more children than their fortune will enable to live with ease. The thought that the eldest child will have all their money and the rest have to begin life anew, or that all will have to make their own way in the colonies, which would fill a French family with horror, is rather pleasant to English parents.

Any one who will read the history of the Know-Nothing movement in pamphlets, speeches, and deeds of that time can hardly fail to be convinced that hundreds of thousands of native