The very poor includes amongst its numbers, the drunkard, the criminal,
the professional pauper, and the physically and mentally defective.
The drunkard is not distinguished by his prudence, nor by his
self-restraint. In fact the alcohol which he imbibes paralyses what
self-control he has, and excites through an increased circulation in his
lower brain-centres an unnatural sexual desire. What hope is there of
the drunkard curtailing his family by self-restraint?
Dr. Billings says, (Forum, June 1893) "So far as we have data with
regard to the use of intoxicating liquors, fertility seems greatest in
those countries and amongst those classes where they are most freely
used."
Neither is the criminal blessed with the important attributes of
prudence and self-control. They are conspicuous by their absence in him.
In all defectives, in epileptics, idiots, the physical deformed, the
insane, and the criminal, the prudence and self-restraint necessary to
the limitation of families is either partially or entirely absent.
To the poor in crowded localities, with limited room-space and
insanitary surroundings, effective self-restraint is more difficult than
in any other class of society.
In all defectives the sexual instinct is as strong, if not stronger,
than in the normal, and they have not that interest in life, and regard
for the future that suggest restraint, nor have they the power to
practise it though prudence were to guide them.
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