Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 69.djvu/520

516 rates between 1881 and 1901. Dr. Newsholme and Dr. Stevenson, on the one hand, and Mr. Udny Yule, on the other, do, indeed, compare the corrected birth rates for 1901 of five separate groups of metropolitan boroughs, arranged in grades of average poverty. This comparison gives us the interesting result that the small group of three 'rich' boroughs have, per 100,000 population (corrected) 2,004 legitimate births; the four groups comprising nineteen intermediate boroughs have almost identical legitimate birth rates of between 2,362 to 2,490 per 100,000; whilst the poorest group of seven boroughs has a legitimate birth rate of no less than 3,078, or 50 per cent, more than that in the 'rich' quarters. From these figures it has been inferred that we are, in London at any rate, multiplying most prolifically from our most inferior stocks. It should, however, be noticed that the group of seven 'poor' boroughs happens to include, not only those containing the greatest numbers of Irish Roman Catholics, but also those in which the great bulk of the Jews are to be found. Practically half the marriages that take place in the registration districts of Whitechapel and Mile-end Old Town are solemnized according to the Jewish rite. It is against all the influences of the Jewish religion, tradition and custom to limit the family, and the birth rate among Jews of all classes and all nationalities is known to be large. We can not, therefore, infer from these statistics, either that the birth rate of the poorest strata of the English race in London is greater than that of the artisan or lower middle class. The remarkable evenness of the corrected birth rate throughout the nineteen 'intermediate' metropolitan boroughs, though they vary from having about 15 up to about 45 per cent, of servantkeeping households, is rather an indication to the contrary. This is in accordance with the fact that the decline in the corrected birth rate appears to be as great in the counties made up preponderatingly of the poorly paid agricultural laborers, as in those districts in which the average level of wages is much higher.

5. The decline in the birth rate appears to be much greater in those sections of the population which give proofs of thrift and foresight than among the population at large.

Here we have to leave the carefully corrected birth rates supplied by Dr. Newsholme, and fall back upon evidence which is statistically less perfect. What would be desirable would be to have precise and 'corrected' birth rates for different years of two sections of the