Page:The American Magazine (1906-1956) - volume 73.pdf/601

 second born, the figures stand: expected frequency, 64; actual observed frequency, 80. When we get to the third- born child, however, the relation is reversed. The expectation is 58, and the actual frequency only 40; — and all the way down the order of birth, from this point, the expected frequency is continually in excess of the observed frequency. In criminality and albinism, expected frequency is in excess of observed frequency after the second-born; but in the first-born, actual observed criminality stands at 120 as against an expectation of 56.



These records are startling. They show the great liability of the first- and second-born to the weight of a heavy social handicap, and the corresponding chance for the later-born to be exempted into normality. But the results of this law, taken in connection with an artificially reduced birth rate, are remarkable. Clearly, if you cut off the later members of the family, — if you have two children instead of seven to a family — you are cutting into the exempt class, reducing the relative proportion of sound stock in the community, and greatly increasing the relative proportion of the tuberculous, insane, criminal, and albionotic.

The Galton Laboratory has published statistics showing that this is precisely what has taken place. Observed lunacy in Scotland has risen from 2.2 per 1,000 in 1871 to 3.5 in 1897; infant imbecility has risen from .4 in 1873 to .7 in 1895; and the proportion of pauper lunatics to total paupers from .9 in 1872 to 2.0 in 1895.

Nor is this quite all. The Laboratory also considers the relative fertility of normal and pathological stock. It has published a table showing that in a given number of families