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fe 2-5 'y 5
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
POVERTY:
ITS CAUSE AND CURE.
POINTING OUT A MEANS BY WHICH THE WORKING CLASSES MAY RAISE» •
THEMSELVES FROM THEIR PRESENT STATE OP LOW WAGES AND
CEASELESS TOIL TO ONE OF
COMFORT, DIGNITY, AND INDEPENDENCE;
AND WHICH IS ALSO CAPABLE OF ENTIRELY REMOVING, IN
COURSE OF TIME, THE OTHER PRINCIPAL SOCIAL EVILS
BY-
M. G. II.
“ The Diseases of Society can, no more than corporeal maladies, be prevented or
cuied, without being spoken about in plain language."— J ohn Sxuabt.Miu.
ILoniJon:
E. TRUELOVE, 256, HIGH H0L30RN;
REMOVED FROM TEMPLE BAR.
1885.
[PRICK ONE PENNY.]
�INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.
This little tract—made as small as possible in order that, by its mode
rate price, it may be within the reach of even the very poorest—is
written for the purpose of pointing out to the working classes, and
indeed to all other classes, the only true means of bettering their
condition. Its object is thoroughly practical, since the means we
advocate is simple, and requires no self-denial; but, on the contrary,
must cause a speedy improvement in the circumstances of the parties
adopting it. And, moreover, if its practice were universally recog
nized as a great social duty (as there is every reason to believe it will
be in time), it leads us to hope that, besides Poverty, the two other
great evils of our country, Prostitution and Celibacy, may be entirely
extirpated. We doubt not that at first it will be overwhelmed with
contempt and abuse, more especially by the “moralist;” but we
firmly believe that after such a calm examination of the subject as
its immense importance deserves, it will be acknowledged to be the
only means of escaping from the manifold evils under which we all, rich
and poor, now suffer. We have thought it necessary to precede the
communication of this means by a short explanation of the principal
cause of the present state of Low Wages, in order that the reader
may the more deeply feel that any scheme, benevolent or otherwise,
for the abolition of poverty, hitherto tried, must either be totally
powerless to effect its object, or, if successful, can only be so at the
cost of inflicting fresh evils, hardly less grievous than Poverty itself.
�3
POVERTY:
ITS
AND
CAUSE
CURE.
L
“The life of our working classes is worse than that of most of the
beasts of burden. They toil unremittingly, at a laborious, monotonous,
and in many cases a deadly occupation; without hope of advance
ment, or personal interest in the work they are engaged in. At night
their jaded frames are too-tired to permit their enjoyment of the few
leisure hours; and the morn awakens them to the same dreary day of
ceaseless toil. Even the seventh day, their only holiday, brings them,
fa this country, little gaiety, little recreation.................... Thus have
the poor to toil on, as long as their strength permits. At last some
organ gives way, the stomach, the eyes, or the brain; and the un
fortunate sufferer is thrown out of work, and sent to the hospital,
whilst his wife and family are reduced to the brink of starvation.
Often, the man, rendered desperate by his hopeless position, plunges
into drink, and gives himself over to ruin. At other times, the
Working classes, in a frenzy of rage at their infernal circumstances,
determine that they will have higher wages or perish. Hence result
the disastrous strikes, and the terrible social revolutions, that have in
recent times so often convulsed society. But they are vain; they are
but the blind efforts of men to do something or die, the fruitless
heavings of a man in a night-mare. The mountain of misery in
variably falls back upon their breast, with only increased pressure ;
and forces them, worn out by impotent struggles, to bear it quietly
for another little season.”
The above extract presents a sad, but too true, picture of the
*
manner in which thousands, nay millions, of our fellow countrymen
are forced to pass their lives. That it is not overdrawn, all belonging
fo the class referred to must be able to testify. Those who earn good
wages, and therefore save themselves and families from a personal ex
perience of the bitter miseries of poverty, doubtless know many less
favored by fortune, who have sunk and been trodden upon, in the hard
struggle for the bare necessaries of life which is going on around us.,
• From “The Elements of Social Science; or, Physical, Sexual,
ind Natural Religion.” E. Truelove, 256, High Holborn.
�4
Were we to ask, “ What is the cause, and what trie cure (if any) ot
¡this sad state of things ? ” how various and how contradictory would
be the replies. Some, and these would be of the richer classes, would
attribute it principally to idleness, drunkenness, or improvidence ;
recommending as its remedy education, the establishment of penny
Banks, sick funds, hospitals, &c. A large portion of th® middle
classes, viewing it from religious grounds, would declare it to be a
visitation-from heaven, sent for our spiritual good; and offer no Other
hope than that all -will be set right in the next world. Other®, of a
more practical turn, lay it at the door of over-competition, and re
commend emigration to the colonies as a cure. From the above,
opinions would vary, in proportion as we descend the Social scale,
through all the gradations ot trades unions, associated industry, socialism, change of laws, down to the extreme of red republicanism, and
a forcible division of the property of the rich amongst the poor.
'Now, in a work of this limited kind, it would be quite impossible
to examine in detail all these various schemes for the bettering of th®
state of the working classes. We must therefore content ourselves
with remarking that those among them that are at all practical, and
that - have had a trial, partial or general, have either been totally
powerless, or, at best, have only had a-very passing effect, in raising
the poor from the mire in which they are sunk. The main question
is, “ How can we raise wages ? ” All else is comparatively unim
portant—for as long as the present miserable rate of wages prevails
(a rate hardly sufficient to keep starvation from a man’s door), edu
cation, savings’ banks, and the like, are but mockeries. Even reli
gion itself is but a poor substitute for food and other necessaries.
No; if we could but raise wages to a fair rate, all the rest would
follow in time, even to the reformation of our criminals and prosti
tutes, who are for the most part driven into those wretched paths of
life Tor very bread.
Inorder to solve the question, “How can we raise wages?” we
must first look to the cause of the present low rate. This, it must be
evident to all, arises from the fact that the number of hands able and
willing to work greatly exceeds the capital for their employment at
good wages; in short, that the supply of labor is too large in propor
tion to the demand. When this is the case, wages will always be
low; and all efforts to raise them by such means as trades-unions and
strikes can only result in misery to both employers and employed«
We do not wish here to discuss the vexed subject of the combinations
of workmen against employers for the purpose of forcing up wages;
we only state a fact which few will dispute, namely, that this means
of bettering their condition is scarcely ever successful, but on the
contrary, nearly always leaves those who have taken part in it in a
worse condition than ever. Equally powerless for good is the plan,
once very popular, of fixing wages by law, at a higher rate than
would be warranted by the demand. Such compulsory interference
with the labor market was -.easily evaded.; but where enforced, it
always had the effect of throwing a number of men out of work. A
�ô>
moment’s consideration wiH'convince us that such must be the result.
Capital is a certain sum which is divided, in the form of wages,
amongst a certain number of men. If, without altering the relative
proportion between capital and labor, we forcibly raise the current
rate of wages, a portion only of the hands may indeed obtain that
advance, but at the cost of depriving the rest of their shares alto
gether; that is, throwing them out of work, to starve, or rely on
charity.
Brom the above considérations, we believe it will be acknowledged
that the only means of raising wages, without at the same time
causing a number of hands to suffer by it, would be to increase the
capital, and therefore the demand for labor, as compared with the
supply.
Now, from various causes, amongst the principal of which we may
mention the application of steam to land and sea travelling (that is,
railway and steam navigation), the rotation of crops and other im
provements in agriculture, &c., this country has increased in wealth
within the last fifty years to an extent and with a rapidity hitherto
unknown. And yet the working classes have by no means benefited
by all this increase of capital. It is quite as difficult for them to gain
an honest livelihood now as it was formerly. The very small weekly
snnas (six or eight shillings, for instance) which we find to have been
the current wages two centuries or so back, may seem to give the lie
to this; but such sums were in reality equal to double or treble their
present value, since food and rent were then not one-half or one-third
as high as at present. To convey some idea of the cost of living at
that period, we give the following table of the price of some of the
necessaries of life about the middle of the 17th century :—
Oatmeal, per quart .......... 1 Ad.
Beef and Mutton, per lb. ... 34d.
Beer, per gallon.................. 3d.
Bacon
„ ... 3^-d.
Eggs, per dozen.................. 3d.
Dutch Cheese
„ ... 2|d.
Sack of Best Coals ...........6d.
Best Salt Butter
„ ... 4d.
Weekly rent of a laborer’s
Biscuit
„ ... l^d.
Cotton Candles
„ ... 4d.
cottage.......................... 2d.
We have not given the price of wheaten bread, because in the middle
of the 17th century it had hardly come into general use, its place
being supplied by .rye, oatmeal, or buck wheat, whose price bore about
the same relative proportion to wages as wheaten bread now does.
Few will be bold enough to assert that wages have advanced in
greater proportion than this. We here speak of factory and other
trade operatives. The agricultural laborer has fared far worse, for
his wages have never considerably varied, during two centuries, from
10s. per week, notwithstanding the increase in the cost of the prin
cipal necessaries. As we should expect, we find his condition to be
worse than any other class of honest laborers, and by far inferior to
that of the condemned criminals. From Mr. Mayhew’s work we
learn that, whilst prisoners on hard labor are supplied with a weekly
allowance of 254 ounces of solid food—that being’the smallest amount
which (according to eminent medical men) can be given consistently
�6
with health and vigor—the English laborer can procure for himself
alter feeding his family, no more than an average of 140 ounces’
that is to say, the honest working man gets hardly more than half
as. 7n}ch
the crlminal, whose allowance is the smallest consistent
with health and vigor. In plain terms, a large portion of the most
hard-working of our industrial classes are half-starved.
If the case of male laborers is bad, doubly so is that of the females
lhe miserable condition of the sempstresses and slop-workers for
large shops is well known. Indeed, so truly appalling is the life they
lead, that instead of wondering at our streets being over-run with
prostitutes, we ought rather to feel astonishment that so many young
women should be found willing to prefer a virtuous life with sixteen
hours daily toil, and barely enough food to keep life in them, to the
degraded course of living on the streets: in which way, however
■shameful, they can at least generally procure an abundance of food.
After such facts as these, and they might be multiplied indefinitely,
let us- no longer boast of our civilization, our respect for religion our
wondrous progress in arts and sciences. Such only tend to dazzle us
and to hide with a gilded cloak the vast mass of poverty, over-work’
and vice, beneath. If all our glorious achievements cannot lighten
the sufferings of our fellow beings, then have they nothing accom
plished worthy of being called glorious.
We are now led to inquire into the causes which have prevented
the poorer classes from sharing in the great increase of wealth which
has taken place during the present century. Such, all our best
modern authors declare to be ovek-pofulation. We shall now
examine and explain what is called the “Law of Population.”
n.
One of the chief propositions of this law is the following:_ “All
animated nature has a constant tendency to increase beyond the
means for its support; ” that is to say, that, however great may be
the increase in the produce of the soil, it will always in old countries
be far short of the increase of living beings, supposing nothing were
to prevent their following natural instinct, and multiplying their
species unchecked. This applies equally to the human race, not
withstanding the power they possess of immensely augmenting the
produce of the soil above the natural yield.
Now, although man’s greatest power of multiplication is not exactly
known, it can be approached nearly enough for our present purposes.
It has been variously stated by different writers at the power of
doubling the numbers in the course of every 25 years, to as rapidly
as every 10 years. We will choose the more moderate rate, and
suppose population capable of doubling itself every quarter of a
century. Representing the present population as I,' at the end of
25 years it would be 2; in fifty years it would have again doubled, 4;
in another 25 years, 8; and at the end of the century, 16; that is, it
would be sixteen times as numerous as at first.
�1
As to the rate of increase of the produce of the soil, it is even more
difficult to arrive at a true result, than in the case of population; but
one thing we may be certain of, that it is very far indeed behind the
latter. For the sake of argument, however, we will suppose that the
produce of this island might be increased every twenty-five years, by
a quantity equal to what it at present produces. No sane man could
suppose a greater increase than this. Indeed in a few centuries it
■would make every acre of land in the island like a garden.
In the table here given we see these two rates contrasted :—
At the end of
Present 25
50
75
100
Time. Years. Years. Years. Years.
Increase of Food .....
1
2
3
4
5 &c.
Increase of Population ...
1
2
4
8
16 &c.
By this we see, that, were it possible for min to follow his greatest
rate of multiplication, at the end of a century he would exceed, by
more than three times, the food for his sustenance. But we know
that this would be practically impossible. A larger number of in
dividuals than could procure food would not be able to exist a week
after food began to run short; which, in the above example, would
occur after the lapse of the first 25 years. We therefore see that the
Mte of increase of the human race must be limited to the very
moderate rate of increase of food; all efforts to exceed that rate being
met by a falling off in the necessary supply of food, that is, by
famine. But though this must operate to repress excess of multipli
cation, were there no other checks; still, in point of fact, it is rarely
that this is the actual one. It is replaced (especially in more civilize^ ■
Countries) by a large variety of other checks. In describing these,
we shall for convenience divide them into two great divisions, the
Positive and the Preventive checks. The former consists of wars,
vice, disease, misery, and all other causes whatsoever which tend to
shorten the duration of human life. The latter, having no direct
influence on the deaths, operates in checking the births, and consists
in Sexual Abstinence or Celibacy, whatever form it may assume.
The priesthood, convents and nunneries in Catholic countries, the
large standing armies and navies of most civilized states, to whose
members marriage is generally impossible; above all, the class who
remain single from motives of prudence, common to all countries, but
most numerous in Switzerland, Norway, a few German States, and
our own, all have the effect of reducing the number of births, and
thus effecting, by opposite means, precisely the same end as is brought
about by the positive check, namely, keeping down the population to
the level of the food.
From the action of one or other of these checks man has had no
means of escape. He cannot choose apart from them: he can only
choose between them. If he follows natural instincts without restraint,
and brings more beings into the world than can find support (making
every allowance for increased yield of the products of the soil con
�8
sequent on improving knowledge of agriculture, &c.), the Stirplus
twist be cut off by disease, vice, or war; unless, indeed, a part of
these evils are warded off, as amongst the working classes of England,
by fearful efforts of industry, which reduce them to the condition of
mere machines. . On the other hand, if he exercise that prudence
and foresight which is peculiar to civilized man, and restrain himself
from begetting offspring until late in life (say thirty), he will by this
prudence procure for himself exemption to a very great extent from
the evils of over-population: but at the cost, besides an immense
amount of unhappiness, of introducing vicious habits.
Had we space we should examine in detail the condition of every
modern state in the world, and show how population is repressed in
each, either by the positive or preventive check; and how in pro
portion to the rarity of the one, we shall be sure to find the opposite
check in force. However, as such would lead us beyond the limits of
á small tract of this nature, we must content ourselves with reviewing
two or three countries where their action is most plainly seen
Amongst the most remarkable is Hindostán or India. Here marriage
is greatly encouraged, by the religious code, which makes the pro
creation of male children one of the greatest merits In the
ordinances of Menu (their Bible,) it is said, “ By a son, man obtains
a victory over all people; by a son’s son, he enjoys immortality; and
afterwards by the son of that grandson, he reaches the solar abode.”
Thus, marriage in India is considered a religious duty; and therefore
the preventive check operating little, the positive one must of necessity
supply its place. The people are so crowded that the most excessive
poverty prevails, and periodical famines have been always very Se
quent. Wars and pestilences have also at times carried off large
numbers. So much for the positive check falling on a race but lialfcivilized ; let us see its effect on a people much more advanced_ the
Chinese.
In China the population is enormous, being upwards of 300 millions
or about one-third of the human race. These vast numbers are
owing to the goodness of the soil and climate, the very great attention
that has always been paid to agriculture, and also the extraordinary
encouragements to marriage, which here, as in India, is considered a
religious duty; to be childless being held a dishonor. The preventive
check having therefore operated but little, the positive has been the
chief one. The most grinding and abject poverty prevails among the
lower classes, together with an untiring industry and hard work, (&
combination which finds a parallel perhaps in England alone).
Famines are very frequent, which sweep off vast numbers, and
infanticide is very general. It is in these modes rather than by wars
(which, till lately, have not been so destructive in China), that the
positive check operates. The check to population from vicious sexual
intercourse does not appear to be very considerable in China. The
women are modest and reserved, and adultery is rare.
From the above two examples of the operation of the positive
check, let us turn to the opposite extreme, where the preventive check
�9
or sexual restraint, is in greatest force, namely, in Switzerland, Nor
way, ^nd several of the German States. We shall borrow the words
of a weekly periodical, which sets forth in glowing terms the pros
*
perous and happy condition of the people of those countries. “ They
are certainly in advance of us in England,” says the writer. “ They
have almost destroyed pauperism; they have no ragged children, nor
ragged schools; the very boys have such regard for the rights of pro
perty, that the orchards are not enclosed, and cherry trees hang loaded
over the paths and roads, without being robbed by the pilferer, or
watched by the owner; not even watch-dogs are kept; each defends
the property of his neighbour as well as his own. The houses are
large and comfortable, two stories, and sometimes three, with nu
merous apartments; and in all the country there are no such cots
hovels as there are in England. The people are all well but simply
dressed; and even the few laborers that live on day wages are as well
dressed, and as comfortably fed and lodged, as their masters; and
work and live in hope that by their savings, which are weekly accu
mulating, they shall be able to purchase a little farm for themselves,
and spend the evening of their days in comfort.” We should remark
that the writer of the article from which the above is taken, attri
butes all these beneficial results to the system of “ peasant pro
prietors” there in force; that is to say, the possession by every
laborer of a piece of land of from five to ten or more acres, which is
Cultivated by himself and his family. Now we do not deny that such
may be a very useful means of raising the condition of the working
classes, giving them, as it does, a personal interest in their work;
still w® assert that alone it would be quite powerless to raise one jot
the poor from their miserable condition. In proof of this, we point
to the description of the state of the Chinese above given, which
shows the results of the above system (for there it is in greatest force,
nearly every peasant being a land-holder) when unaided by sexual re
straint.
The true cause of this prosperity we find in the custom of late
marriages and celibacy, more general in those countries than in any
other in Europe. Indeed, so much is it felt to be a duty to refrain
from wedlock until the man is able to maintain a wife and children,
that in some of the states alluded to, a law is enforced which requires
every person intending to marry, to prove before a magistrate that he
possesses the means of supporting a family; otherwise he cannot
marry. However repulsive such a law may seem to us Englishmen,
born and bred in an atmosphere of liberty, there can be no doubt that
it has effected in those countries all the improvements so remarkable
of late years.
We shall now turn to our own country, and endeavour to solve the
question put in th,e first part of this work, “ What are the causes
* “Family Herald,” for the week ending Feb. 22, 1857, article,
“The World but little known.”
�10
which have operated in cutting off the working classes of England
from their due share of the vast increase of wealth, which has takes
place in this country during the present century ? ” To thia we
boldly answer, early marriages and undue procreation; and in this we
are supported by all the greatest modern writers on the state of the
poor, to wit, Messrs. John Stuart Mill, Malthus, McCulloch, Dr.
Whately, and others too numerous to mention. We are so impressed
with the idea (which has descended to us from the ancient Hebrews),
that to rear a large family is a very meritorious act, that it may seem
startling when we lay at its door all the poverty, misery, and even
crime, so rife amongst the poorer classes. And yet from the facts
before passed in review, namely, the existence of universal poverty in
all those countries whose inhabitants do not practise sexual restraint,
and, on the contrary, its rarity in proportion as sexual restraint is
exercised, we can no longer shut our eyes to the conclusion, however
harsh it may appear, that the large families common amongst the
working classes have not only the effect of dragging down and
crippling the parents who have to toil for their support, but are also
the great cause of the present state of low wages, ceaseless drudgery,
and early death, consequent on an over-crowded population, and too
great a supply of labor in proportion to the demand. As long as the
number of hands seeking work is greater than the capital for their
employment at fair wages, it is vain to expect a rise in wages ; just
in the same way as when the population of a country exceeds the
food for its comfortable support, it would be impossible for all to get
enough sustenance.
III.
From what we have said in the preceding chapters, it may be
thought that we would wish to impress upon the poor and working
classes the duty of exercising moral restraint; that is, sexual ab
stinence. This is the view of the question taken by Mr« Malthus,
Dr. Chalmers, and many other writers; and no doubt whatever can
exist as to the power of this means, if it could be adequately prac
tised, to remove poverty and want in England. But, with all due
deference to such eminent authorities, we cannot refrain from ex
pressing our firm conviction that such a remedy for poverty is almost,
if not quite, as bad as the disease it would cure. Our endeavours
should be not merely directed to the removal of poverty, which is but
one form of human misery, but to the much larger question of a re
moval of all the causes of unhappiness. If we remove one only to
replace it by another as bad, then have we done no real good.
This subject—the evils of moral restraint or sexual abstinence
will require a little careful examination; as, although we all feel by
instinct that it is an evil, yet (from its very nature causing its victims
to hide their sufferings) it is much less capable of being clearly de
fined and put down in black and white, than is that of over-popula
tion, and its natural result—poverty.
In order the better to explain this subject, we shall borrow a few
�.11
passages from the work already quoted from, which, being written
by a student of medicine, who has evidently carefully studied this
branch of physiology, is entitled to our serious attention.
“It is most unwise,” he says, “ to suppose that our chief duty with
regard to our appetites and passions, is to exercise self-denial. This
quality is far from being at all times a virtue ; it is quite as often a
vice; and it should by no means be unconditionally praised. Every
natural passion, like every organ of the body, was intended to have
moderate exercise and gratification. ... At the present, in this
country, abstinence or self-denial, in the matter of sexual love, is
much more frequently a natural vice than a virtue; and instead of
deserving praise, merits condemnation, as we may learn from the
mode in which all-just nature punishes it. Wherever we see disease
following any line of conduct, we may be certain that it has been
erroneous and sinful, for nature is unerring. Sexual abstinence is
frequently attended by consequences not one whit less serious than
sexual excess, and far more insidious and dangerous, as they are not
io generally recognised. While every moralist can paint in all its
horrors the evils of excess, how few are aware that the reverse of the
picture is just as deplorable to the impartial and instructed eye.”
Those who require a more detailed account should consult the work
itself, where also are shown in vivid colors the hundred times more
ruinous effects resulting from the abuse of this part of our frames,
whether in the form of self-pollution, or that of prostitution, with the
melancholy list of diseases in their train ; both of which vices are
sure to be rampant wherever great obstacles to marriage exist.
Let us now view moral restraint or sexual abstinence from a lower,
but, to the majority, more influential point of view; that is, its effect
On the every-day comfort of the working man. It is here that would
be found the greatest difficulty in its adoption; for to a young
operative a wife is a necessity, if he would obtain any of those in
numerable small comforts, without which, however trifling they may
be thought by some, this life is hardly worth the having. Unable to
hire a cook or housekeeper, as is done by the more wealthy bachelor,
he would find it impossible to procure comfortable meals, nor even
any degree of cleanliness in his home, engaged as he is from morning
to night at work, probably far away from home. If the life of the
unmarried working man is comfortless and dreary, ten times more so
must be that of the unmarried woman after a certain age. Indeed,
amongst the poorer classes, such a person is quite in the way; she is
felt to be a burden to her family if she remain at home; and it is
hardly possible to support herself independently in lodgings, except
in the most miserable way. Thus, apart from any other reason,
marriage is felt to be an absolute necessity to both sexes, soon after
their reaching full growth, for the sake of that dearest of all things
to an Englishman, no matter how miserable it may be, a home. The
last remaining objection to moral restraint and late marriage, namely,
the deprivation, during the flower of man’s life, of the two dearest
objects for which human nature yearns—to love and be beloved by a
�12
wife and children—is too evident from the unhappiness it is universally
acknowledged to produce, to nc-ed illustration. Suffice it to say that
by this, the lot of the greater part of the middle classes, especially
the female portion, is rendered so comfortless and dreary, that many
of them would joyfully exchange their comfort and wealth, enjoyed
in solitude, for the poverty of what are called their less fortunate
neighbours, who at least are not deprived of all outlet for the social
and domestic virtues with which we are all endowed. Indeed, so ut
terly cheerless and miserable are the lives of most of that much to
be pitied section of the middle classes, called in ridicule “old maids,”
that we could not have the heart to wish to see the like state amongst
the poor, who, God knows, have as it is but very few pleasures.
“Is there no escape, then,” we are tempted to cry in despair, “from
the miseries inflicted on man by want of food, love, or leisure.”
“There is none,” cries the orthodox political economist; “none,”
repeats the disciple of Malthus; “none,” echoes the religionist. “If
such be the case then, if ordinary political economy, Malthusianism
of the ascetic school, religion itself, can do nothing but tear from us
all hopes of improvement in this world, and content themselves with
croaking resignation and patience under our afflictions: then will we
have none of them.” But we truly believe that human affairs are not
so hopeless, else should we have refrained from opening afresh the
many wounds which torment us. No, there is a means, the only
means, by which the evils of want of love, equally with those of want
of food and leisure (those three great necessities of our nature), may
in course of time, be entirely cured. It may appear at first sight,
perhaps, ridiculously unequal to such gigantic results, perhaps im
moral, perhaps unnatural, but we are confident in being able to meet
and refute any objections which can be made to it, and prove it to be
the only solution to the question nearest to the interests and happiness
of mankind—“Is it possible to obtain for each individual a fair share
of food, love, and leisure ? ”
IV.
The means we speak of, the only means by which the virtue and
the progress of mankind are rendered possible, is preventive sexual
intercourse. By this is meant, sexual intercourse where means are
taken to prevent impregnation. In this way love would be obtained
without entailing upon us the want of food and leisure, by over
crowding the population.
Two questions here arise: First, “ Is it possible, and in what way?”
Second, “Can it be done without causing moral and physical evil?”
In answer to the first question, we reply that there are several
means which have been adopted in this country, and more especially on
the continent, for the purpose of checking the increase of an already
numerous family without the exercise of perfect continence; but we
shall.chiefly recommend the following, as most of the others are more or
less iniurious to the health or nervous system of the parties adopting
�13
them. The following, however, has none of these objections, being
perfectly harmless, easy of adoption, and at the same time not in the
least diminishing the enjoyment of the act of coition. It consists in the
introduction of a piece of fine sponge, slightly soaked in tepid water,
and of sufficient size, in such a way as to guard the womb from the
entrance of the male semen during sexual connection. This might
be followed by an injection of tepid water.
By this means a fruitful result would be rendered Impossible. The
other means of preventing conception which have 1 een employed or
proposed, are, firstly, withdrawal before ejaculation; secondly, the
use of the sheath, or “French Letter;” thirdly, the use of injections
immediately after intercourse; and fourthly, the avoidance of con
nection, from two days before, till eight days after, the monthly
courses—at which time impregnation is far most likely to occur. Of
these, the two first are the most certain preventives: but the two
last, as well as the sponge, are the least open to objection in other
respects.
The second question was, “ Can preventive sexual intercourse be
used without causing physical or moral evils?” We firmly believe
that it can, or at least, that if there be any evil results, such would
sink into insignificance beside the present ones, which, arising as they
do from over-population, are otherwise irremediable. We think a
ealm consideration of the principal objection which may be urged
against the adoption of this invaluable means, will enable us to con
vince the reader that it is founded on error. We allude to the idea
that many entertain, of preventive intercourse being a kind of murder
or infanticide. In order to do this, we must pause to explain the
nature of the act of generation, which, though one of the simplest,
and at the same time most beautiful operations of nature, has often
been considered as a deep mystery and a subject never to be
mentioned.
The fixture human being is formed by the union, in the womb, of
two very minute cells, of opposite sexes, invisible to the naked eye,
called the sperm (male) and germ (female) cells, which is effected by
the act of copulation. When once this union has taken place, the
embryo, as it is then called, possesses life, which is as sacred as that
of the adult’s, and the destruction of which would truly be murder.
But to prevent this union from taking place is a totally different
matter. Before coition the seminal fluid is no more than a secretion,
like the saliva, perspiration, &c.; and consequently it is a total con
fusion of ideas to associate its loss with infanticide, as it cannot be
murder to destroy that which has never existed as life. Moreover,
the curious discovery has recently been made, that every time a
woman menstruates (that is, has the monthly illness), one or more of
the germ cells or eggs is spontaneously discharged, and, if sexual
coition have not previously taken place, it is wasted. So that, if we
go on the principle that to prevent a birth is murder, we might with
equal justice accuse those persons who remain unmarried during the
time of potence (namely, more than 30 years) of the murder of all
�14
the children who might have been bot~n, had they married. Far from
being murder, preventive intercourse is the only possible means of
preventing murder; for that is hardly too strong a word to apply to
the bringing into the world of such a number of beings as we know
could never find support should they all reach manhood. Let us see
if facts do not bear us out in this assertion. In this country, amongst
the poor, 53 in every 100, or more than one-half of the children who
are born, die in infancy. Now in spite of this large amount of mor
tality, those who survive to manhood, perhaps not more than one-third
of those born, still find it next to impossible to gain a livelihood.
What, then, would be the result, think you, were it possible, by im
provements of dwellings and other means of health, to save those
children from an early grave, and throw upon the already over
crowded labor market a triple number of hands? Famine.
Thus, if we know that, as at present, twice or thrice as many being#
are brought into the world as can by any possibility find food, instead
of a crime, would not preventive intercourse rather be the greatest
virtue we could possibly practise, since it would save nearly twothirds of our fellow-beings from the death by slow starvation, poverty, ■
or neglect, which is otherwise inevitable?
For the satisfaction of those who may feel timid in adopting any
thing which they suppose to be new, it will be as well to mention that
Messrs. Francis Place, Richard Carlile, Robert Dale Owen, Dr.
Knowlton, and the author of the Elements of Social Science, have,
in the journals or books edited or published by them, strongly re
commended the adoption of preventive intercourse. It is also openly
advocated by a number of the most eminent foreign writers, some of
them holding high positions in the universities of their respective
cities.
With regard to the extent to which it should be practised, that
must of course depend greatly on the present state of population of
the country, or of the class adopting it; but we believe we should be
near the mark in saying that, under existing circumstances, married
persons should in no ease allow themselves more than two children, at
least in this country. Indeed, considering the fearfully over-crowded
state of England, it would be a noble sacrifice on the part of married
persons to refrain from having any for the present, until the rate of
wages has somewhat risen.
*
The day will come, and soon too, we hope, when the having a large
family, far from being thought a virtue, as at present, will be looked
upon in its true light--that of a great social wrong; and although
this tract is more particularly addressed to the working classes, as
they are probably the greatest sufferers by the present state of things,
and the least aware of its true cause, we nevertheless believe limited
procreation ts be a duty equally binding on all classes, rich or poor.
Mr. Malthus, the discoverer of the great Law of Population, laid it
* Or until the price of the necessaries of life—as bread, house
rent, clothing, &c.—has fallen ; which, as we have before shown, is
practically the same as an increase of money-wages.
�15
down as a duty strictly binding on all, “ Not to bring beings into the
world for whom one cannot find means of support;” but what would
be the result of following that course? Why, to give the rich a
monopoly of those blessings, or rather those necessaries of life, love
and offspring, cutting off the poor from what is now often their only
solace. Instead of the above, we should rather say, “It is a sacred
duty for us all, by the use of preventive means, to limit the number
of our families, in order that we may not prevent our fellow beings
from obtaining their share of love, food, and leisure,” any one of
which is, in the present age of celibacy and large families, quite un
attainable without a proportionate sacrifice of the two others. .
Preventive intercourse, then, is the only means by which it i3 pos
sible for mankind to make any real or satisfactory advance in happi
ness; and were it to be universally practised, it could not fail to
cheapen food, raise wages, and remove the greater part of the vice
and disease for which, in spite of all our boasting, this country is
remarkable.
But although preventive intercourse is the main remedy for poverty
amongst the poor, and celibacy amongst the rich, there are some other
schemes which, tried with the above, would doubtless do much good.
Amongst the foremost is associated industry, that is, the system which
gives every working man in trade a direct interest in the success of his
labor, and a share of the profits, raising him from the condition of a.
mere machine to that of a kind of junior partner. In a similar
manner, there is no doubt that to raise the country laborer from his
present condition of a hired drudge, to that of an owner of land,
however small in quantity, would have a very beneficial effect in im
proving his state, moral and physical. This would require an altera
tion in the laws regarding freehold land, which now render its ac
quirement almost impossible for any but a rich man. However, as
such reforms are for the most part out of the reach of the class to
whom this work is addressed, and are, after all, of little consequence
compared with the duty of limiting procreation, we need not longer
pause to consider them.
In conclusion, we call upon all to throw away false prejudices, and
unite in the adoption of preventive sexual intercourse. By such
means the state of ideal happiness for which we all instinctively
yearn, may not be in time so unattainable; meanwhile, the working
classes can, by the practice of the above simple and harmless ex
pedient, very much better their condition with regard to wages: in
which it is vain to expect a rise as long as the supply of labor is so
great in proportion to the demand, as is the case in these days of
large families and over-crowded population. Working men! your
salvation is in your own hands. If you allow yourselves to turn
from it and lean solely upon socialism, red republicanism, and
trades’-unions, your condition is indeed hopeless; but we sincerely
believe that when once you learn the true remedy for your ills, you
will not be slow to adopt it: and by using every effort in your power
to Spread the knowledge of it amongst your fellow workmen, will
be the means of raising the class to which you belong, from the state
�16
of semi-slavery, ^ith ceaseless toil and scantv food, which is but too
commonly their lot, to one of comfort and Independence.
POSTSCRIPT.
The reader is earnestly requested to do all in his power towards
making widely known the contents of this tract. This he might do
with little or no trouble to himself, by lending it amongst his friends
or fellow workmen, or by leaving it on the tables of coffee-houses,
mechanics’ institutes, and other public places. It must be evident
that unless the duty of limited procreation be almost universally
recognized, any good effected by its practice in raising wages, will be
liable to be counteracted by the earlier marriages and increased pro
creation of those not adopting it.
The 22ndEdition, enlarged by the addition of a Fourth Part, of the
TpLEMENTS OF SOCIAL SCIENCE; or, Physical, Sexual,
and Natural Religion. With the Solution of the Social
Problem. Containing an Exposition of the true Cause and only Cure
of the three primary social evils—Poverty, .Prostitution, and
Celibacy. By a Graduate of Medicine. Price 2s. 6d.; or in cloth 3s.
Post-free.
Upwards of 600 pages.
%
u
Opinions of the Press.
. . si)me respects all books of this class are evils; but it would be weakness and
criminal prudery a prudery as criminal as vice itself—not to say that such a book as
the one in question is not only a far lesser, evil than the one that it combats, but in
\??nse a
which it is mercy to issue and courage to publish.”—Reasoner.
.
. av?xnever risen from the perusal of any work with a greater satisfaction
thrni this. i Ur ^reatest hope is that it may get into families where the principles
w
inculcated by a parent, who will use his authority in the advice to both sons
and daughters, which should always accompany the reading of works like this. And
we are certain that in every case where it is read with care, there will be another
soldier gained to that brave band who are ever encircling the ramparts of bigotry
and ignorance.
**This book is the BIBLE OF THE BODY. It is the founder of a great moral
reform. It is the pioneer of health, peace, ami virtue. It should be a household Lar
in every home. head it, study it, husbands and wives Had you, had your parents,
read a book like this, a diseased, dwarfed, deteriorated race would not now be
wasting away in our country. By reading this wonderful work every young man may
preserve his health and his virtue. Some will say the disclosures are exciting or
indelicate—not so; they are true, and the noblest guide to virtue and to honour.
That book must be read, that subject must be understood, before the population can
be raised from its present degraded, diseased, unnatural, and immoral state. We
really know not how to speak sufficiently highly of this extraordinary work; we can
only say, conscientiously and emphatically, it is a blessing to the human race.”—
Ptepte's Paper.
“ Though quite out of the province of our journal, we cannot refrain from stating that
this work is unquestionably the most remarkable one, in many respects, we have ever
met with. The anonymous author is a physician, who has brought his special know
ledge to bear on some of the most intricate problems of social life. He lays bare to the
public, and probes with a most unsparing hand, the sores of society, caused by anoma
lies in the relation of the sexes. Though we differ toto ccelo from the author in his
views of religion and morality, and hold some of his remedies to tend rather to a dis
solution than a reconstruction of society, yet we are bound to admit the benevolence
and philanthropy of his motives. The scope of the work is nothing less than the whole
field of political economy
.. .
—The British Journal of Homoeopathy. January, 1860. 1 (Pub
lished Quarterly, Price 5s.)
London: K Truetx>ve, 256, High Holborn, W.O.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Poverty : its cause and cure [...], by M.G.H.
Description
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 16 cm.
Notes: Published anonymously. Publisher's advertisement for Elements of social science, 22nd ed., on p.16. Full title: Poverty: its cause and cure pointing out a means by which the working classes may raise themselves from the present state of low wages and ceaseless toil to one of comfort, dignity and independence and which is also capable of entirely removing in course of time, the other principal social evils. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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E. Truelove
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1885
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N294
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[Unknown]
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Social problems
Birth control
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English
Birth Control
NSS
Poverty
Working Class-Great Britain
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M4-73
national secular society
PRICE ONE PENNY. J
MARRIED LIFE:
COMFORT OR MISERY?
Qvamati#
TC AyFj
)
Mary ( married ladies.
Ethel
an unmarried lady.
Ethel (entering to Kate). How are you, Kate ? What an
age it seems since I saw you, and how well you look! Not a
day older, I declare, than on your wedding day—how long ago
is that now ?
Kate. Almost six years. I am so glad to see you, dear;
but I can’t return your compliments : you seem to be thinner?
and what is the meaning of those dark rings under your eyes ?
Ethel. Oh! that’s nothing; I am quite well; I used to be
too fat.
Kate. What rubbish! you were just right, and you look
depressed, too.
Ethel. That’s all your fancy, Kate! I’m all right, but tell
me about yourself: how have you been all this time ? What a
lovely little room you have got! Where did you get that
beautiful dado ? It’s hand-painted, I do believe. Oh ! you
extravagant woman, is it for this your poor husband toils in
the city ?
Kate. Spare my blushes, and don’t be so severe. That’s
il a, little thing of my own”, and cost me.about ten shillings
for colors.
�Ethel. You don’t say so ! "What made you so awfully
clever? I don’t seem to remember anything of the kind at.
school.
Kate. Well 1 I did take the second prize for drawing in our
last term, though you don’t seem to remember it; but that
was eight years ago, and I have been taking lessons ever since.
Ethel. Curiouser and curiouser I It is borne in upon me
that you used to hate every kind of lessons.
Kate. Your memory is painfully accurate this time, but I
had a reason. But talking of school, do you remember Mary
Burns ?
Ethel. Oh! quite well—a pretty, fair girl, with a lovely
complexion; she was extraordinarily High Church, wasn’t
she ? and used to fast, and appear unexpectedly in black, and
sit up at night keeping vigils, or some queer thing of that sort.
What about her ?
Kate. She lives here, and I expect her every minute. When
I got your note I asked her to come too, poor thing! I thought
she would enjoy a chat over old times.
Ethel. Why, what’s the matter with her ?
Kate. Wait till you see her: you will soon find out. You
know she is married; her husband is Mr. Crossley, a curate
here.
Ethel. A curate, is he ? I suppose they are not just
rolling in wealth ?
Kate. They are not. Here she is, I think; don’t remark
on her looks. {A servant shows in Mrs. Crossley..) Well,
Mary dear, here you are; I was afraid you could not come
after all, and I would not pour out the tea, because I wanted
you to have the best cup. Try this chair, we have just got it,
and it’s delightful.
Mary. You are always so kind, Kate. I thought I should
never get away. Just as I was ready, the baby woke and
screamed, and Bessy was washing up, and I had to take him;
and then Emmie fell down stairs, and hurt her head lather
badly, so that stopped me again; and then, just at the door,
the baker met me with his bill, and I had to persuade him---Why, Ethel, is that you? What a start you gave me, I was
afraid it was a stranger.
Ethel. It’s the first time I have been considered a terrify
ing object, and I am rather flattered. I am very glad to see
you, Mary. What changes there have been since we last met
in that dingy old s*chool-room! Do you remember how glad
�( 3 )
we all were to get away from it ? And all the ridiculous plans
we used to make about our future lives. You were to be a
nun, Kate was to go about lecturing on woman’s rights, and I
was always carnally-minded, and intended to marry the first
* man I met, provided he was young, had a Greek profile, Spanish
-eyes and the curliest black hair (I think we called it hyacinthine locks then), and was six foot four, and possessed six
thousand a year, and came of a noble family. You will be
surprised to hear that I have not met him yet, and I begin to
doubt if that sort are quite as common as they were when I
was seventeen.
Mary. How you do rattle on! You have not lost your
good spirits, evidently. As for your hero, if you can find a
man with six thousand a year, take him ; if he were as ugly as
sin and as old as Methusaleh, never mind; nothing is so dreadBful as poverty.
Ethel. Oh I Mary: you don’t mean that seriously, surely;
I and, besides, I am engaged, only mother says we are too poor
to marry.
Mary. Ethel, take my advice, don't yaexTy a poor man!
Take warning by me: I married a poor man for love, and have
' repented it ever since. I thought if we gave up luxuries and
I lived very quietly, we could manage: but I did not reckon on
I having five children in six years.
Kate. Mary, you know you need not have had them.
Mary. Kate, don’t talk so; I can’t bear to hear you. I
know what you mean, but these things are in God’s hands,
and we must submit to His will. If my husband knew you
had mentioned such a thing to me, he would be very angry, and
perhaps stop my coming here any more. But, Ethel, do listen
to me; my life is nothing but a burden; often I wish I were
I in my grave; we can only afford one servant, and no good
■servant would work in such a household as ours. I never get
half the sleep I want, and I’m sure no London maid-of-all-work
does as much as I do. I often sit up half the night mending
and making, and that’s not all. Two years ago my little Eddie
died; he was only ill two or three days, and we owed the doctor
Hso much I did not like to send for him again; and when at
last I did, it was too late. It was inflammation of the lungs,
and he said Eddie’s life might have been saved if he had seen
him earlier. I shall never forgive myself. And when we
buried him, we could not afford even the plainest tombstone.
It is the same with everything; we can’t pay our way. You
�( 4 )
heard me speak of the baker just now; you would not believe
the. degrading things I have had to do, to coax tradesmen into
waiting for their money. I never can overtake my work ; it’s
useless to attempt it. As to books, I have not opened one for
years.
Ethel. And your singing—you had such a sweet voice.
Mary. Singing ! we can’t afford a piano ; I have forgotten
it all. That would be nothing, but I can’t keep the place even I
clean, and the children never get all the milk they should, and
this is my best dress—just look at it I And just look at me,
did you ever see such a fright as I have grown ? But I could
bear it all if it were not for my husband, he looks so wretchedly
ill, and he is not half warmly enough dressed. If he could but
have a great-coat this winter, but I know it is impossible, and
then he slaves day and night at any literary work he can get,
even copying he does. But, oh I Kate, the worst is still to be
told : another baby is coming, and the last two are so delicate,
what will this one be ? And how can I do more than I do now ?
(Mary breaks down and sobs; Ethel tries to comfort her, and
Kate leaves the room, and returns with a glass of port wine.)
Kate. Now, Mary, drink this; there, you will feel better
directly. Come and lie on the sofa a little.
Mary. Dear Kate, thank you; but I must go home—I don’t
know wbat the children may be doing. I ought not to have
stayed so long. Good bye, dear; good bye, Ethel, and remem
ber what I have said. {Exit Mary.)
Ethel. Oh, Kate, what a shocking story! And how ill
she looks, and how miserable! I don’t think I should have
known her. And I’m afraid she is right, and one ought not to
marry a poor man. To live as Mary describes, I am sure
would just kill me. I don’t think I am very selfish, but I
■could not give up every comfort like that, and with it all to be
so miserable. And I am sure it would drive Jack into a lunatic
asylum! Kate : what ought we to do ? We have been engaged I
five years, and I sometimes think Jack is getting tired of it—H
his letters are colder now. Oh! I wish he were as well off as
your husband; if Jack and I could have a smart little house
like this, we should want nothing better.
Kate. I thought something was wrong, and I am glad you
told me. Who is “Jack ” ?
Ethel. J ack Dawson : he is a doctor, but only beginning to I
practise, and-------Kate. Why, I know Mr. Dawson very well, and like him
�U )
iso much. I knew he was engaged, but had no notion it was
to you. I do congratulate you-—he is one of the nicest men I
know.
Ethel. I thank you, dear, but I don’t know that there is
much to congratulate us on, for I don’t see a chance of our
getting married for years, and I’m not exactly growing younger.
Kate. You are twenty-five, I think, and Mr. Dawson, I
know, is twenty-seven. He was here the other day, talking
over his prospects with Fred; and now I have good news for
you, Ethel—Mr. Dawson and my husband are making almost
exactly the same income.
Ethel. Kate! What! Oh! I can't believe it. Do you
mean to say you are living on the sum Jack earns now ?
Kate. Yes; and, what is more, Mr. Crossley, who is so
steeped in poverty, has very nearly the same. Within three
=or four pounds, I believe, the three incomes are exactly similar.
Ethel. I am more astonished than I can say. Then is it
simply the children that make the enormous difference between
you and Mary ? Why, I thought you were quite rich.
Kate. It is as I say; but then our income is divided by
two, while theirs is divided by seven already.
Ethel. Ah ! yes; but that simply means that you are
lucky to have no family.
Kate. You should say, how wise I am.
Ethel. Kate, what did you mean by telling Mary she need
not have had them ? Can one really prevent it ? Do tell me
(truly, because, if one can, Jack and I might marry to morrow.
K ate. I am anxious to tell you the truth. It can be done :
-it’ only requires perseverance; and if you make up your mind
to marry, I will tell you all about it.
Ethel. Oh! Kate, how can I thank you—I was so un
happy! Mother had just shown me a letter from that horrid
Mrs. Grundy, and she said: “You are never going to let Ethel
marry that wild young Jack Dawson.” And then—oh ! I can’t
"tell you what she said; and I don’t believe it; but I know
Jack is vexed with me for delaying our marriage so long.
Kate. Never mind Mrs. Grundy. Fred knows Mr. Daw
son well, and I know there is nothing for you to be alarmed at.
But, remember, he is not the stuff out of which ascetics or
hermits are made—nor, for that matter, is Fred. I should not
like it if he were. But we married very young, and I am certain
Fred has never thought of another woman in that way, although
lie is good friends with several. Then I am always well and
�able to go out with him; and, though I say it, I don’t believethere is a prettier or more comfortable home in England than
his; so what temptation has he to be wild or fast ?
Ethel. But, Kate, why did Mary say her husband thinks
it so wrong ? Ought one not to believe what a clergyman says?’J
Kate. I cannot see why Mr. Crossley’s opinion should have
more weight than yours or mine. This is not a question of re-£
ligious dogma, but of morality and the welfare of the human,
race, in which questions we are all equally interested.
Ethel. But suppose Jack agreed with him.
Kate. In that case you had better not marry; but it is
very unlikely. Jack is a really well-educated and thoughtful
man, and all advanced thought in the present day tends in thisdirection. But, if you Eke, Fred shall find out casually in con
versation, what his views are, and I will tell you.
Ethel. I wish he would; but, Kate, how did you find this
out ?
Kate. You know my old aunt Dorothy. In her youth shewas engaged to a young man for ten years, and then he jilted'
her, and married a young girl. She was dreadfully heart
broken, and has spent her life almost in propagating these;
ideas. She wrote a book about it, and when I became engaged
she gave Ered a copy to read, and when he told her he thought
it very sensible, and that he agreed with every word, she
urged us to marry. And we did. You see the result. But
that is not all. I have plenty of leisure time, and I earn money I
too. Fred’s earnings supply the necessaries and a fair amount
of comfort; mine supply my dress and all the little luxuries
you see round us, and keep a cot in the children’s hospital be
sides. If I had a family to attend to, I could not earn any
thing, for I should not have time.
Ethel. How do you earn money, Kate; could I ?
Kate. Very likely you could. I earn money by my draw
ings. You were admiring my dado : I have painted three others
in different drawing rooms, and was well paid for it. I paint
screens, too, and design Christmas cards by the score. I paint
menus and programmes and all sorts of things. And I take a
lesson every week; I work between three and four hours a day,
and I like it.
Ethel. Well, I can’t draw, but I can make lace. I soldsome the other day at fifteen shillings a yard at a fancy bazaar,
and I overheard the purchaser saying that she thought it cheap
at the price. I know I could help in that way; but, Kate,
�(&t)
would you not like to have children ? I do love them so.
Kate. Yes, I should, but we can’t afford it yet. I am only
I twenty-five, and there is plenty of time. When we can afford
■t I hope to indulge in one or two. I am sure it would be
wrong to have a large family.
Ethel. But why, if you could afford it ?
Kate. Because the country is too full now, and we should
"■do wrong to add to the pressure of competition, which is already
I too great.
Ethel. Kate, how clever you are; I never heard anyone
else talk like this.
Kate. I’m not a bit clever, and my ideas are all second- Kand: but you see I have time to read and improve myself, and
I have read a good deal since we married.
rj Ethel. Well, you have taken a great weight off my mind;
I but what will mother say to all this ?
Kate. You must, of course, use your own discretion about
telling her; but you are old enough to please yourself, and
remember you must choose between her and Jack. When she
sees that you are happy and comfortable, she will surely be
content.
Ethel. Yes, I suppose so—at least that is all she can want
yor me. And now I must go. Good-bye, dear Kate ; I am so
much obliged to you, and I’ll come and see you' again very
< soon. (Exit Ethel.)
I Kate (soliloquises). I think I have smoothed her way a little.
I wish everyone were as quick and sensible. Nothing can be
done for those poor Crossleys: one can’t get them to listen to
reason; and what a dreadful example for a clergyman to set I
Their case is hopeless; but Ethel is different, and for her I
I foresee both a useful and a happy life.
A. Bosneb, Printer, 34, Bouveris Street, London, E.C.
�LIST
OF
BOOKS .
SOLD BY
W. H. REYNOLDS, Publisher, New Cross, London, S.E.
(Sent through the POST ONLY).
THE LAW OF POPULATION. By Annie Besant. A work
designed to induce married people to limit their families
within the means of subsistence. Post free, 8d.
THE WIFE’S HANDBOOK: How a Woman should order
herself during Pregnancy, in the Lying-in Room, and after
Delivery ; with Hints on the Management of the Baby, and
on other matters of importance necessary to be known by
Married Women. By Dr. H. A. Allbutt. Post free, 8d.
THE ELEMENTS OF SOCIAL SCIENCE. The most com
plete work on sexual matters ever published. Should be read
by every adult. Bound in cloth, 604 pages. Post free, 3s. 4d.
THE POPULATION QUESTION. By Dr. C. R. Drysdale,
President of the Malthusian League. Post free, Is. Id.
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF T. R. MALTHUS. By Dr. C.
R. Drysdale, President of the Malthusian League. With
portrait of Malthus. Post free, Is. Id.
GOD’S VIEWS ON MARRIAGE. By Annie Besant. Post
free, 3d.
THE RADICAL REMEDY IN SOCIAL SCIENCE; or,
Borning Better Babes through Regulating Reproduction by
Controlling Conception. By Dr. E. B. Foote. Post free, Is. Id.
EARLY MARRIAGE AND LATE PARENTAGE: The only
Solution of the Social Problem. By Oxoniensis. Post free, 4d.
SOCIAL ASPECTS OF MALTHUSIANISM. By Annie
Besant. Post free, 2d.
POVERTY: Its Cause and Cure. By M. G. H. Post free, 2d.
WHY DO MEN STARVE? By C.Bradlaugh. Post free, 2d.
LABOR’S PRAYER. By C. Bradlaugh. Post free, 2d.
POVERTY : Its Effects on the Political Condition of the People.
By C. Bradlaugh. Post free, 2d.
THE MALTHUSIAN: A Crusade against Poverty. The
monthly organ of the Malthusian League. Post free, l|d.
MALTHUSIAN LEAFLETS.—A packet will be sent on receipt
of postage to any person who will undertake to distribute
them.
�
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Married life : comfort or misery?
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 7 p. ; 19 cm.
Note: Publisher's list on back cover (books sold by W.H. Reynolds, Publisher, New Cross, London, S.E.). Printed by A. Bonner. Written in the form of a dramatic conversation between two married ladies and an unmarried lady. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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[191-?]
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Marriage
Birth control
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Birth Control
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e>2-rn
tJoZ|/
SEXUAL ECONOMY,
AS TAUGHT BY
CHARLES BRADLAUGH, M.P.
BY
PETER AGATE, M.D.
WITH ADDENDUM BY SALADIN.
London:
W. STEWART & Co., 41, FARRINGDON St., E.C.
��CONTENTS.
PAGE
Introduction ...
...
...
...
The Two B.’s and “ The Elements ”
...
Bradlaugh’s Quarrel with Joseph Barker ...
Sexual Religion
...
...
...
The Neo-Malthusian Doctrine of Marriage
Palaeo-Secular Views of Social Evils
...
Palseo-Secular Medicine...
...
...
The Palaeo-Secularist Malthusians
...
Palaeo-Secularist Society
...
...
Addendum, by Saladin...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
..
5
15
18
22
28
32
37
45
5;
53
��INTRODUCTION.
Saladin, chaste knight ot Secularism, Freethought, Agnos
ticism, says my essay, or compilation, illustrative of Bradlaughism, Cat-and-Ladleism, Knowltonism, and the moral
sewage question generally, needs an introduction. He knows
better than I; so probably it does. My instant and eager
reply was : Who so fit and proper to introduce an unknown
volunteer, meddling in a matter which does not in the least
concern him personally—who so competent as the illustrious
Saladin—poet, philosopher, moralist—whom I have never
seen, and only read a year or two, from week to week in his
Secular Review I
But why not give the letter as I wrote it ? Here it is,
verbatim et literatim. In a matter which future ages will
consider so important every scrap relating to the champion
of Freethought and purity of morals will have its interest
and value. I wrote :—
“My Dear Saladin!—You think I need to be intro
duced. Well, why not introduce me ? You know the whole
matter of this controversy so much better than I do. A
few lines from your vigorous pen will be better than any
thing I could write. I agree that they should be written ;
but, as you have the matter so much better in hand, and as
I really need to be introduced, why not prettily and grace
fully introduce me ?
“ I remember, many years ago, reading an English book
which defended—in fact, recommended—incest, Sodomy,
�6
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
and bestiality, and denounced the laws against them as
superstitious tyranny. It was a nasty, bad book; but I do
not believe it was a tenth-part so mischievous as this work of
Dr.--------- , which I hold to be false in science—which
is, of course, to be bad in morals. Man, as the highest, or
most developed, animal, should be better, more natural, than
the lower species. Why man goes wrong, and how he goeswrong, in these matters, I do not know, as I do not know
the ultimate why or how of anything; only that all vicesseem to me unnatural, and all unnatural practices vicious—
two words for the same thing.
“When I can get to it I mean to go into all these ques
tions as thoroughly as I can. In the meantime, or just
now, will you write the few needed lines of introduction, asyou so well can, or must I write them as well as I can under
the circumstances? You knowing so much better the
reasons why my small pamphlet should be written at all, and
occupying the leading position in this really important con.
troversy.
“ P.S.—It strikes me that the reason for these excessesof early Secularists was the disposition to defend and
recommend whatever had been denounced or forbidden
by religious teachers : the Bible denounced Sabbath-break
ing, so they made it a duty to break the Sabbath; the Bible
burnt up people with fire and brimstone for Sodomy, there
fore they defended Sodomy; and so on.
“Now, if I were to write the introduction or preface, it
would be something like this note. With this note will you
be so kind as to write the introduction ?
“I presume you will, at the proper time, also publicly
introduce, as you have announced, the pamphlet. And I
fancy that, just because it is a scrimmage, it will be read by
a great many who, perhaps, might hesitate to read the Secular
Reviews
That is what I wrote to Saladin. I leave it to the candid'
�INTRODUCTION.
7
veader to say, to himself, whether it is not a reasonable
letter. And here is Saladin’s reply, or, rather, part of it;
for he “ private ”-ly assures me that he has tried and failed,
■and then goes on in this way“ Although, at the date of the publication of the Knowl
ton pamphlet, I was hardly known in the party at all, I
managed to have my name placed on the list of speakers
in.the first meeting that met to protest that anti-Christian
thought was not necessarily associated with an adoption
■of the practices of Onan. The meeting was held at Cleve
land Hall, and was a crowded and excited one. Those
who could not accept Christ, but who seemed eager to
accept Onan, were largely in the ascendant. Mr. Bradlaugh
was evidently the hero of the hour, as he always is with the
rougher and less-cultured order of Freethinkers, who let
him do the thinking, after his fashion, in order to save them
the trouble of thinking at all.
“ Mr. Charles Watts was in the chair, and on the platform
were Mrs. Harriet Law, Mr. George Jacob Holyoake, Mr.
G. W. Foote, and myself. Mr. Holyoake was, as usual,
excessively prudent. He diagnosed the temper of the
meeting, and, instead of venturing to sail against the stream,
■delivered himself of a few colourless platitudes. His shilly
shallying prudence cast its spell over the other speakers
Mr. Watts, as I told him afterwards, made a timid and half
hearted speech, from which I gathered that he wished to
still keep the door open for reconciliation with 1 our chief.’
In fact, in spite of its fleshliness, he had published the
Knowlton pamplilet down to the point where publishing it
became dangerous, and there he had deserted it. Mrs. Law
looked ludicrously sagacious, and half stood to her guns
and half ran away from them. Confronted by that meeting
(probably packed), Mr. Foote alone, of all the prominent
speakers, did not allow his heart to sink down to his boots.
His platform experience was to him invaluable; he uttered
�8
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
some cutting and caustic things, but adroitly managed to
secure as many cheers as hisses. I followed, more in
earnest and more bitter than Mr. Foote, and sadly lacking
in his tact and platform experience. In reply to the hiss of
opposition, which I cared not to conciliate, even if I had
known how, I raised my voice to a shout of defiance. I
managed to make myself heard over the hiss and groan of
Onanic disapprobation, till I thundered forth the words,
‘Charles Bradlaugh has dragged the standard of Freethought through the mire of Holywell Street.’ Upon this
the storm which had been raging burst into a hurricane.
There were clenched fists, and an angry and ominous
surging towards the platform. I stood facing the mass,
mute and defiant. Mr. Holyoake seized my coat-tail, to
pull me back to my chair. Still facing the audience, I
lifted my arm, and, not over gently, dashed away his hand.
The audience noticed this incident, and, for a moment,
their cries and hisses of anger were mixed with a peal of
laughter. Close to my ear I heard, ‘ Draw it mild,’ from
the thin, tin-kettle voice of Mr. Holyoake. I still stood
facing the audience, erect and motionless ; and when, at
length, the storm of groans and hisses died away, I took
one step forward, and repeated, with firm, slow, and syllabic
deliberation : ‘ Charles Bradlaugh has dragged the standard
of Freethought through the mire of Holywell Street I’ ”
There—that is how a poet tells you he cannot write.
How he can write is shown in the Secular Review and, as
to the matter in hand, in “ Knowltonism,”* which he issued
four or five years ago, and which every one who can com
mand twopence-halfpenny may read. In its preface Mr.
Charles Watts recognised the “ unique ability ” of Saladin
in his attack upon “ the vulgar teachings of Knowltonism,”
and also expresses the opinion that this “ must be acknow
ledged as the great social question of the day.”
* “ Knowltonism,” by Saladin.
(London : Watts & Co.)
�INTRODUCTION.
9
In this essay, well worth reading for the powerful conden
sation of its style, Saladin distincts Malthus from Knowlton
with a cut of his sharp scimitar through the bone and marrow
of the Neo-Malthusian Trinity. He insists “ that the means
specified to prevent conception are inadequate to that end,”
as any physiologist can see with half a glance, and as many
a poor girl, no doubt, has experienced to her infinite sorrow
and shame. Saladin maintains that, “ even if Knowltonism
were practicable, per se, it would be unconformable with
physical, and an outrage upon ethical, law.” It is better,
he holds, that the struggles of life should go on, and bring
about their natural results in the “ survival of the fittest.”
He holds with nature all through, yet quotes the delicate
and forcible lines of the Marquis of Queensberry :—
“ Go, tell mankind, see that thy blood be pure,
And visit not thy sins upon thy race;
Curse not thy future age with poisoned blood,
For, cursing, it shall curse thee back again.
*
*
*
For there are they
Who, either from hereditary sin,
Or from the sin they have themselves entailed.
Possess no right to be progenitors. *
*
*
Alas ! that such a cruel wrong should be,
Of sins upon the children visited.
And shall these grow to be progenitors
Of other souls, more burdened than themselves
With feeble bodies of impurity ?
Ye gods, forbid it !”
Saladin eloquently—how could he say anything otherwise
than eloquently and poetically ?—defines the right of every
human being to'be born, and fight his way in this beautiful
world. “ The cardinal duty of humanity,” he holds, is “ to
discover the processes of cosmical law and obey them, not
try to reverse or modify them in the plenitude of spurious
science and the hauteur of unphilosophical arrogance.
Down amid the green algae and the gleaming shells of the
ever-swinging and thundering ocean it is joy to be a bright
�IO
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
and agile herring, even for an hour, before the jaws of the
shark snap rapaciously, and one egoism in the vasty deep
ceases to be. The Babe born on the straw of a hovel, or
amid the silk and down of a palace, inspires and respires
the glad air of being—for life is a boon, whether in cottage
or in castle—sucks from its mother’s breast the nectar of life
and love, stretches out its fingers and its toes, elate with the
rich wine of vital existence; and what is death at seven days
or seventy years ?—Only a forgetting of what has gone by
and an arrestment of what is to come ; only a returning to
where you were before the sun shone in the heavens, towhere you may be when the sun may be no more.
‘ ’Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.’
And it is better to have lived under some circumstances than
never to have lived at all. The trifling differences between
brown bread and water and roast beef and champagne,
between the ingle of the cottar and the saloon of the duke,
are insignificant when taken into consideration with the
cardinal luxury of life. The sky is as blue to the peasant
as to the peer; as sweet is the fragance of the hawthorn, as
magnificent is the vista of hope; as joyous is the action of
muscle and nerve; as sublime and holy the first ecstacies of
‘Love’s Young Dream.’ It is an unfounded assumption,
resulting from the wide social hiatus which separates class
from class, that postulates all the sweetness of life with
riches, and all the bitterness of existence with poverty. If
it be true that the poor man does not eat his dinner because
he has no dinner to eat, the rich man as frequently cannot
eat his on account of dyspepsia and want of appetite ; and
perhaps the latter evil is worse than the former. The worn
fustian, with its spots of grime, ministers as well to the
animal caloric as does the purple and the ermine, flashing
with gold lace and resplendent with jewels. I ask, with him
'
�INTRODUCTION.
11
of Galilee, ‘ Is not the life more than meat and the body
than raiment?’
f
“The Knowltonian, by implication, admits himself to be
a coward, who would shirk the cosmical conditions which
are successfully coped with by the frog and the thistle, and
■even by the ephemera, which at the utmost has only an hour
to live, and has to plunge into the Struggle for Existence
for the privilege of entering upon the part or the whole of
the brief span of its life. With its stifled hum as it buzzes
in the blue air, or expands its wings in the flash of the
summer sun, it recites a homily that the Knowltonian might
con with profit. It enjoys the few minutes it has to live,
provides that there shall be ephemerae when it is no more,
and hums itself into the eternal non-ego of which it knows
as much as the wisest man that ever lived or ever will. Is
man afraid he may succumb to conditions which are suc
cessfully coped with by the aphis ? Even if absolutely
isolated from the male, the female aphis, by the peculiar
method of reproduction known as parthenogenesis, will pro
duce female young, and female young only, at the rate of
fourteen or fifteen a day; and these, in their turn, and in a
very short time, give birth to a third generation, and so on;
and this will go on for years without any male aphis whatever
being for once admitted. And yet in the whole world there
is, perhaps, not a single aphis more than there was a thou
sand years ago. The rapacity of the lady-bird, the lace
wing fly, and other enemies which prey upon the aphidre,
keep them within their legitimate bounds; and so the lady
bird of disease and the lace-wing fly of famine will keep
homo sapiens in his proper bounds without troubling him to
tax his ingenuity to degrade himself off the face of the
earth;
“ With the Knowltonian the earth is analagous to a boat I
at sea crammed with fifty shipwrecked men, but with food
for fifteen only. Under such circumstances it is normal to f
cast lots, and the Jonahs are thrown overboard. But it is
�12
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
better to ultimately get thrown overboard than never to have
been born. A struggle for six minutes in the deep is not so
much more terrible than a six months’ wasting disease in
bed. The man upon whom the lot falls to be drowned may
strip his coat and dive resolutely to death with the conscious
ness that he has, at least, had a grim and wild extension of
fairplay. Thus Knowltonians had better, than exercise
their sexual ‘ checks,’ go to the denizens of Whitechapel and
the Seven Dials at regular intervals, and mark out, Valkeyrylike, the particular individuals they deem redundant in their
microcosm, causing each to take a dose of strychnine, so that
only the correct number of ‘genteel’ people may take the
place of the plethoric fauna of the slums. As I have
pointed out, it is incalculable what philosophers and poets
and statesmen the ‘ checks ’ may dam back in the stream
of human existence. If the Knowltonian must adjust the
supply of the hoi poloi to the demand, he had surely better
do so in the light than in the dark; he had better engage in
a game of discriminating skill than in one of indiscrimi
nating hazard. By his ‘ checks ’ you know not whom he is
keeping out of the world: but, by his gallows, you would
know whom he is sending out of it. If the Knowltonians
were to erect a gallows in Vincent Square and clear out the
Westminster slums by the simple and drastic resource of
good plain hanging, one could have some voucher that they
had not robbed the world of a Shakespeare or a Bacon or a
Gladstone. But by their empirical pottering with sexual
physiology and pathology, with a view to make woman less
of a mother than a sort of safety-valve to sensual passions,
we know not whether we have not lost a spermatozoonal
Milton or a foetal Cromwell.”
In another place he says : “ I ask any of my readers to
note for themselves whether a non-Knowltonian mother of
fifty, and who has borne six or seven children, is not
stronger and healthier and happier than the Knowltonian
mother of the same age, and who has borne only one or
�INTRODUCTION.
13
two. I ask any of my readers to further note whether
every boy and girl of the family of six or seven is not
stronger, healthier, and happier than any member of the
family of one or two. If a woman do succeed in evading
her natural functions of parturition and lactation, she can
do so only by incurring greater sacrifices than parturition
and lactation entail. It is not my purpose to enter here
into the nosology of women who attempt to shirk their
natural and incumbent duty of Motherhood; but the
diseases, ailments, and mental and moral affections incident
to such are many and complicated ; and I aver unhesitat
ingly that the careful and extensive observation of any of
my readers, directed to this subject, will corroborate my
allegation on this point. You can, of course, prevent the
apple-tree from bearing apples; you can bark it, or dig it
half out of the ground, or cut it half through with an axe.
It is just as natural for a woman to bear children as it is for
an apple-tree to bear apples ; and in neither case can you
prevent production without doing violence to the producer.”
The Spartans settled the question in their fashion long
ago. Ignorant of, or scornfully rejecting, preventive checks,
they weeded out all babies that could be better spared. ,
The weaklings went early to the wall. The survival of the
fittest was decided as soon as fitness or unfitness was
apparent. They took also nearly as much trouble in the
breeding of the best qualities of men and women as our
stock-breeders and dog-fanciers now do in producing the
finest specimens of our favourite quadrupeds. Sensible, (
practical people, those Spartans; but not quite what we 'j
should call moral.
My object, in preparing this pamphlet, scarcely needs ex
planation. It is simply to show what is the actual position
of Charles Bradlaugh, M.P., on important questions of morals
and society. I show where he has stood for twenty odd
years. I do not question his right to stand there, nor the
right of the burghers of Northampton to have him for their
�14
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
representative, nor his right to have a seat and vote for his
constituents, the worthy cordwainers, pig-drivers, and Catand-Ladleites. He may stand before Mr. Speaker and shout,
“ So help me God !” (or “ god ”) to his heart’s content.
When Charles Bradlaugh swears allegiance to Queen Victoria,
and asserts his belief in god or God, or publishes “ The
Fruits of Philosophy,” or Mrs. Besant’s improvement upon
Knowltonism, or patronises “ The Elements of Social
Science,” it is no affair of mine. I hold to free thought and
free discussion; but I hold also that a man who aspires to
an eminent and responsible position should be clear, open,
above-board, and responsible for his words and deeds.
I have referred to Bradlaughism or Cat-and-Ladleism asPalaeo-Secularism, and to Saladinism or Anti-Cat-and-Ladleism as Neo-Secularism.
P. A.
�SEXUAL ECONOMY,
AS TAUGHT BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH.
Chapter I.
THE TWO B.’s AND « THE ELEMENTS.”
For about thirty years Mr. Charles Bradlaugh has been a
speaker and writer in the cause of Freethought, Secular
ism, and Atheism. Ambitious of political distinction, he
obtained, a few years ago, an election to the House of
Commons from Northampton. He also managed, in con
nection with a lady who has for some years assisted him in
his labours as writer and public speaker, to get convicted
of the misdemeanour of publishing an immoral pamphlet,
and both were sentenced to a term of imprisonment by the
then Lord Chief Justice; but both managed to escape what
many considered a merited punishment by a technical
informality. Not that a man or woman is the worse for
being legally convicted and unjustly punished. Mr. Brad
laugh and his partner in this supposed iniquity are Malthusians, and the pamphlet for which they were condemned
was written to teach people how they could gratify their
animal propensities without increasing an already burthensome population. The law, as represented by Judge and;
Jury, considered this immoral and criminal. The “Fruits;
of Philosophy ” was suppressed, and the lady in the case
wrote another pamphlet, which she considered better and!
more effective than Knowlton’s.
When elected member of Parliament for Northampton
nothing stood between Mr. Bradlaugh and the object of
�i6
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
his ambition but the oath, which he declared was meaning
less to him, but which he was, nevertheless, quite ready to
take. That is, Charles Bradlaugh, an avowed Atheist, was
more than willing to declare his belief in a God, in the most
solemn and public manner, by an act of religious faith and
worship—by kissing the Bible and saying, “So help me God!”
He actually did this. He read the oath and kissed the
book, putting up a public prayer to God in the House of
Commons; but the House, by a considerable majority,
refused to accept the solemn sacrifice. The Atheist’s prayer
remains unanswered.
I am not condemning Mr. Bradlaugh for not believing in
a God; I am not justifying the House of Commons for
requiring a declaration of such belief from all its members.
Belief is not a voluntary act of the mind, though supposed
to be necessary for admission to heaven and—at least, its
pretence—for taking a seat in Parliament. Mr. Bradlaugh
has for years insisted upon his right to kiss the Bible he
publicly denounces, and to say, “ So help me God!”
Whether an avowed Atheist, a public teacher and defender
of Atheism, can consistently and publicly put up this prayer,
or make this act of faith, is a question of conscience.
Thought is necessarily free. The advocacy of Freethought is not needed. The question is only whether any
expression of the free thoughts of men should be restrained
or punished. When such expression is considered a libel
the law punishes it by fine and imprisonment; when it is
considered treason it may bring heavier penalties. Mr.
Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant were sentenced to imprisonment
for the publication of their free thoughts as to the policy
and the means of satisfying sexual desires without increas
ing population.
As editor, for a long period, of a Freethought and Secularist
newspaper, and while until recently President of a Secularist
organisation, Mr. Bradlaugh publicly promoted the sale of
a book, entitled “Elements of Social Science”—a work
infinitely more demoralising, according to the common
ideas of morality, than “ The Fruits of Philosophya
book which denounces as a sin and a crime in men and
women what the civilised world has for ages considered
virtue and morality. I have no reason to doubt the sincerity
of Mr. Bradlaugh and His amiable coadjutor, Mrs. Besant
�THE TWO B.’s AND “THE ELEMENTS.”
17
I am not questioning their right to think and feel as they
can or must on all matters of religion or morals. The
policy of electing persons who promulgate such opinions to
Parliament is quite another matter, which constituencies must
settle for themselves. My sole object in this pamphlet is
to show what Mr. Charles Bradlaugh, M.P., has avowed as
his belief, and what he has publicly taught and, if a con
sistent man, privately practised; but that, of course, is no
one’s business but his own and that of “ whom it may
• concern.” I have nothing to do with any portion of his life
but his public teachings. For many years he has been the
friend and associate of the author of “ The Elements of
Social Science.” He has defended, eulogised, and, to the
extent of his influence, promoted the circulation of that
book. What I do and all I do is to show what that book
is by extracts from its pages. I only review the book, as
might be done in any magazine or newspaper, with such
extracts as show its scope, intention, and character.
I have nothing to do with the motives of either the
anonymous author or the well-known promoter of “ The
Elements.” I think I shall do a public service by showing
the character of the book and its promoter, even if its sale
is thereby increased. It is better, in all such cases, that the
truth should be known. If, knowing the facts, people choose
to stand by Mr. Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant, that is their
affair, not mine. I have no animosities to gratify. If a
majority of the electors of Northampton wish to be repre
sented by Mr. Bradlaugh, that is their business. If the
people of the United Kingdom wish to adopt the opinions
of Mr. Bradlaugh and his co-workers, it is no affair of
mine. If the palseo-Secularist sect or party wants him for its
leader, champion, and chief, their choice is free. They can
throw over Saladin, stand by the Neo-Malthusians, fatten
on “ The Fruits of Philosophy,” and revel in “ The Elements
~^f Social Science.”
�18
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
Chapter II.
BRADLAUGH’S QUARREL WITH JOSEPH
BARKER.
Strange as the fact may seem, it is quite true that the Secu
larist party in Great Britain has divided on the question of
social or sexual morality. The party of Bradlaugh and
Besant—the readers of the National Reformer, the NeoMalthusians and Knowltonites—have taken their stand
irrevocably on the doctrines of the Malthusian League and
“The Elements of Social Science.” This book was first
published about twenty years ago. It purports to be written
by “ A Graduate of Medicine,” whose name has never been
made public; but, as the articles on Political Economy and
Malthusianism, in the National Reformer in i860,.signed
“ G. R.,” are evidently by the same hand, and as “G. R.”
is the annotator of Mr. Bradlaugh’s and Mrs. Besant’s edition
of “ The Fruits of Philosophy,” we cannot be wrong in
attributing to “ G. R.” the authorship of “ The Elements of
Social Science.”
In the National Reformer of July 20th, 1861, Mr. Joseph
Barker, co-editor with Mr. Charles Bradlaugh, denounces, in
his half of the Secularist organ, people who are filling the
other half with “ follies, indecencies, immoralities, and
crimes.” “ The Elements of Social Science ” having been
commended by Mr. Bradlaugh, Mr. Barker declares that
“a work that exhibits, in ranker abundance or grosser
hideousness, all the bad qualities of the most revolting books
we never read;” and he denounces it as containing “ the
greatest amount of evil in the world,” and full of “ demo
ralising sentiments and odious vices ;” as containing “ popu
lation fallacies,” things “as foul as filth, the best of which a
man of sense and decency would sooner die than recom
mend
and yet this book, Mr. Barker complained most
bitterly, had been advertised and strongly and repeatedly
recommended in the other half (Mr. Bradlaugh’s half) of the
�BRADLAUGH’S QUARREL WITH JOSEPH BARKER.
19
National Reformer. He complained also that Mr. Bradlaugh
had sent a secret circular to the shareholders of the National
Reformer, and had formed a conspiracy with some of his
friends to get exclusive possession of it, “ and so exclude all
articles of a moral tendency, and devote it to the spread of
negative and purely demoralising forms of Secularism,” their
object being, he said, “ to destroy all sense of moral obliga
tion, and curse mankind with an unbounded sensual license.”
11 G. R.” came to the rescue and defended Mr. Bradlaugh.
Mr. Barker, August 3rd, admits that many public advo
cates of liberal views had been notoriously immoral, and
had published indecent and immoral works. Mr. Holyoake,
more scrupulous than many others, would not publish
Rousseau’s “ Confessions ” entire; but another Freethought
publisher did, and his edition was recommended in Mr.
Bradlaugh’s side of the National Reformer. Then Mr.
Barker goes on to denounce immoral Sceptics, and declares
that, if he cannot find moral ones, he will bury himself in
the wilds of America; as he did, poor man, some years later.
He says : “ Mr. Bradlaugh is terribly mistaken if he supposes
he can drag down Buckle and Mill into the filthy slough in
which he is wallowing, or raise himself from his horrible
position by an abuse of their honourable names.” To
“ G. R.” he says : “ I expect to shortly expose in a pamphlet
the revolting doctrines which you and Mr. Bradlaugh are
endeavouring to promoteand speaks of “ the atrocious
Elements of Social Science,’ which Mr. Bradlaugh has so
often and so loudly praised.”
Finally, in the last number of the National Reformer
which he was permitted to edit, he fills pages with extracts
from the book to prove what he had said of its horrible and
revolting character.
Later, in his own paper, Barker's Review, vol. i., p. 118,
he vigorously denounces the doctrines taught by Mr. Brad
laugh and the National Reformer, and points out that “ the
principle that the animal appetites should rule; that powerful
animal appetites are great virtues ; that there is no danger in
their free, unlimited indulgence, is represented by the author
of the loathsome publication in which this theory is taught
and defended, and by those who commend the work and aid
an its circulation.”
And in Barker s Review, vol. i., p. 170, he says: “Only
�20
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
one public man among the Secularists condemned the book
until we exposed it. It has been advertised, recommended,
and circulated by Secularist lecturers; its author almost
worshipped, and the moment a Secularist retracted his com
mendation of the work he was savagely assailed by the
editor of the National Reformer.”
It was in vain that Joseph Barker worked for the separa
tion of Freethought from immorality, and called his oppo
nents “ the unbounded license party.” The majority was
against him. Mr. Bradlaugh was consistent, and stands to
day where he did twenty years ago, with Mrs. Besant as hisfirst Vice-President of the National Secular Society, and the
eloquent defender of the doctrines denounced by Mr. Joseph
Barker, who had vainly tried to carry the morals of Methodism
into the advocacy of Secularism. From that day, up to a
recent period, during sixteen years, “ The Elements of Social
Science” was advertised in the then leading organ of
Secularism, and its principles advocated in its columns ; and;
in “The National Secular Society’s Almanack for 1878” I
find the following advertisement:—
LEMENTS OF SOCIAL SCIENCE; OR, Physical, Sexual,,
and Natural Religion. An Exposition of the True Cause
and Only Cure of the Three Primary Social Evils—Poverty, Prostitu
tion, and Celibacy. By a Doctor of Medicine. Sixteenth Edition.
Twenty-eighth Thousand.
E
Translations of this Work have been published in the following
languages:—
In French—Elements de Science Sociale.
In German—Die Grnndzilge der Gesellschafts-vissenschaft.
In Dutch—De Elementcn der Sociale Wetenschag.
In Italian—Elementi di Scienza Sociale.
In Portuguese—Elementos de Sciencia Social.
And among the “ Opinions of the Press ” we read :—
“ This is the only book, so far as we know, in which, at a cheap price
and with honest and pure intent and purpose, all the questions affecting
the sexes, and the influence of their relations on society, are plainly
dealt with. It has now been issued in French as well as in English,
and we bring the French edition to the notice of our friends of the In
ternational Working Men’s Association, and of our subscribers in France
and Belgium, as essentially a poor man’s book.”—National Reformer
edited by Mr. Charles Bradlaugh.
�BRADLAUGH’S QUARREL WITH JOSEPH BARKER.
21
The Medical Press and Circular says :—
“We are told that it has been largely read in London by medical
men.”
The Examiner, in one of its many phases, said :—■
“.This is’ we believe, the only book that has fully, honestly, and in
a scientific spirit, recognised all the elements of the problem, How are
mankind to triumph over poverty, with its train of attendant evils ? and
fearlessly endeavoured to find a practical solution.”
The Reasoner, edited by Mr. G. J. Holyoake, said:—
“ It is, in one sense, a book which it is a mercy to issue and courage
to publish.”
The Boston Investigator, the leading palaeo-Secularist paper
in America, says :—
“ We_ have never risen from the perusal of any work with greater
satisfaction.”
Italian and German Secularist writers even more emphati
cally commend it.
This book, “ The Elements of Social Science,” was thus
for years advertised, eulogised, and promoted by Mr. Brad
laugh. He has never, to my knowledge, withdrawn his
commendations or repudiated its teachings. It remains,
therefore, only necessary to show what are the doctrines of
the book, in order to show what are the social and moral,
beliefs of Mr. Charles Bradlaugh, M.P., etc.
�22
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
Chapter III.
SEXUAL RELIGION.
The religion of Palaeo-Secularism, as accepted and promul
gated by Mr. Bradlaugh and his associates, consists in the love
of the world and the worship of matter, and especially of the
human body. Thus, in this “ Bible of Secularism,” we have
sections on “ Natural Religion ” and “ Physical Religion
but nearly the whole book is occupied with teaching the
most important principle, or doctrines, of “Sexual Reli
gion.”
According to this religion, the chief end of man is to
glorify his animal desires, and, this being his only world and
only life, to have in it all possible sensual enjoyment. This
great duty of humanity is enforced as a matter of natural
religion, sexual religion, science, and philanthropy. It is
urged for physiological and pathological reasons, and recom
mended as a means of preserving health and of curing
disease.
The union of the sexes in marriage has been supposed by
moralists to have for its principal end the production of
offspring and the continuation of the human race on the
earth. ThePalaeo-Secularist Bible teaches an entirely different
doctrine. The great object of such intercourse is pleasure;
and the production of offspring is, beyond a very narrow
limit, an evil which it is our duty to avoid. Chastity, it
■contends, is a violation of natural law; continence is a
•crime ; marriage, so far as it limits or hampers the enjoyment
of the senses, is a superstitious and tyrannical institution;
fidelity is an evil; prostitution, as far as it goes, is a remedy
for bad institutions; but it may be abolished by the universal
acceptance of Palaeo-Secularist doctrines and practice as re
commended in “ The Elements of Social Science,” a book
which is so warmly commended and widely circulated among
Palaeo-Secularists all over the world, and especially by Charles
�SEXUAL RELIGION.
23
Bradlaugh and Annie Besant, who say, in the Publishers’
Preface to “The Fruits of Philosophy,” last edition, 1877 :
“ Physiology has made great strides during the past forty
years, and, not considering it right to circulate erroneous
physiology, we submitted the pamphlet to a doctor in whose
accurate knowledge we have the fullest confidence, and who
is widely known in all parts of the world as the author of
‘ The Elements of Social Science.’ The notes signed
‘ G. R.’ are written by this gentleman.” Thus it appears
that “ G. R.,” the annotator of “ The Fruits of Philo
sophy,” is the author of the Bible of Secularism, “The
Elements of Social Sciencewhile Dr. Drysdale, also
a distinguished physician, is President of the Malthusian
League, whose offices are’ those of the publishers of the
National Reformer and “The Fruits of Philosophy;” and
Mrs. Besant, first Vice-President of the National Secular
Society, is Hon. Secretary of the Malthusian League and
the author of “The Law of Population,” a pamphlet written
to take the place of the legally-condemned and rather obso
lete one of Dr. Knowlton, and which is intended to aid
people in carrying out more thoroughly the most important
duties of “ sexual religion,” as laid down in “ The Elements
of Social Science.”
I have stated briefly what these duties are. It is evident
that they are the exact opposites of the duties taught and
practised more or less by what are called respectable people.
Christians are supposed to renounce “ the world, the flesh,
and the devil;” Secularists, of “ The Elements ” type, glorify
the world; they teach the duty of revelling in sensuality, and,
rejecting all ideas of spiritual existence, they do not, of
course, believe in angels, good or bad.
It remains for us to show, by extracts from the book,
which contains the most comprehensive and authoritative
statements we can find of Mr. Bradlaugh’s doctrines respect
ing sexual morals," or “ sexual religion ”—a book so
thoroughly endorsed in the National Reformer that we have
not mis-stated nor over-stated the purport of such doctrines
as he so warmly approves, and mean to do simple justice in
this matter by giving the doctrines as set forth in the words
of the writer of “ The Elements of Social Science,” as well
as the reasons he gives for maintaining them.
This book, so highly commended by Mr. Bradlaugh—
�24
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
written by one of his most active partisans, as well as his
teacher in morals—holds that all men and all women should,
not only as a right, but as a duty, and as a religious duty
appertaining to “ sexual religion,” live in the free, full, fre
quent exercise of their sexual propensities. It teaches
as duties what moralists condemn as lust, and fornication,
and adultery. It teaches that continence and chastity, com
mended by others as virtues, are unnatural vices and deadly
-sins. It teaches the necessity, and therefore the right, of
marital infidelity and the duty of seduction. It defends
and honours prostitution, while it regards universal license
and promiscuity as a more natural and desirable condition.
These are the doctrines which some of the chosen, or self
appointed, leaders of the Palaeo-Secularist party have for many
years accepted and defended, and which they have pro
pagated in their far-reaching organisation.
It is probable that many Palaeo-Secularists will be disposed
to deny, and angrily resent, this indictment. I can sympathise
with them ; but I am obliged to do what is much worse than
to make such charges—I am obliged to prove them. To do
ihis I must give a few extracts from “ The Elements of
Social Science,” as Joseph Barker did twenty-four years ago
in his portion of the National Reformer, before he ceased to
be one of its editors.
Here, then, are the doctrines and morals set forth in a
book highly commended by Mr. Bradlaugh, M.P., circulated
wherever the English language is read, and translated into
the most important languages of Western Europe.
In the section on “ Sexual Religion : Laws of the Sexual
‘Organs,” it is stated that:—
“One physiological law of supreme importance and
“ universal application in our constitution is, that every
“ several member must, in order to be vigorous and
“ healthy, have a due amount of exercise, and that of the
“ normal kind. Thus the eye must have light, the limbs
“ motion, the intellect reflection, and our appetites and
“ passions their normal gratification, else will they infallibly
“ become enfeebled and diseased. Either excessive or
“ deficient exercise is injurious ; and, in order to have a
“ well-balanced bodily constitution (just as much our
“ honour and our duty as a well-balanced mind), we must
�SEXUAL RELIGION.
2$
“ obey this law. The generative organs are subject to it
“ as well as every other; and hence we shall see the duty
“ and necessity of their having due exercise from the time
“ of their maturity, which takes place at puberty, till that
“ of their decline ” (page 78).
“ Hence we must acknowledge that every man who has
“ not a due amount of sexual exercise lives a life of natural
“ imperfection and sin ; and he can never be certain how
“ far Nature’s punishment for this will proceed in his
“ case ” (p. 83).
“ The commonly-received code of sexual morality is
“ most erroneous, and erected in ignorance of, and opposi“ tion to, natural truth; the real natural duties of every
“ human being (however social difficulties may interfere
“ with the discharge of them) towards his reproductive
“ organs, and the passions connected with them, consisting
“ in their due and normal exercise, for which the social
“ provision of marriage is quite inadequate. Nature lays
“ one command on us : ‘ Exercise all thy functions, else
“art thou an imperfect and sinful being” (page 153).
“ It is absolutely certain that Nature meant the sexual
“ organs in either sex to have a due amount of exercise,
“ from the time of their maturity till their decline; and
“ no one who knows anything of the bodily laws can
“ doubt that every departure from the course she points
“ out is a natural sin; and she shows this herself by the
“ punishments she inflicts. She forms no organ that she
“ does not intend to be exercised, rouses no desires merely
“ to torment by their self-denial. It is not by shutting
“ our eyes to these facts that we can hope to progress
“ either in knowledge or in virtue” (page 163).
“ Chastity is considered one of the greatest of all virtues
“ in woman, and in man too, though in his case it is
“ practically less regarded. We have no longer voluntary
“ nuns, but of involuntary ones there are myriads_ far
( more, in reality, than ever existed in any Roman
“ Catholic country. Millions of women pass a great part
“of their sexual lives, and immense numbers pass the
“ whole, in total sexual abstinence, without any of the
“ enjoyments of sexual pleasures or the happiness of a
“ mother’s affections. For all this incredible self-denial,
“ which causes more anguish and disease than any mind
�-2 5
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
“can conceive, they have for their reward the barren
“ praise of chastity ” (page 162).
“Chastity, or complete sexual abstinence, so.far from
“ being a virtue, is invariably a great natural sin. We are
“ short-sighted beings, full of errors and false theories;
“ but Nature is absolutely unerring, and it is only by con“ suiting her that we can gain a true knowledge of our
“ virtues and vices. If we attend to Nature, we shall find
“ that all our organs are subject to the same law of health;
“ the great law of normal and sufficient exercise. There
“ is no organ in our body, nor any faculty in our mind,
“ which, to be healthy (or, in other words, virtuous), does
“ not require its due share of appropriate exercise. The
“ sexual organs are subject to this law exactly as all others;
“ and, whatever theories we form about them, Nature in
variably rewards or punishes them, according as the
“.'conditions of their health are observed. She cares not
“ for our moral code ; marriage has nothing sacred in her
■“eyes; with or without marriage, she gives her seal of
“ approbation to the sexually virtuous man or woman in a
“ healthy and vigorous state of the sexual organs and
“appetites, while she punishes the erring by physical and
“moral sufferings ” (p. 162).
“The two natures [of man and woman] are built on
“ the same original model, and, in the main, they are alike
“ in their laws. The great law of exercise of every part
■“ applies equally to both sexes; and in woman, as in
“ man, physical strength is more virtuous than weakness;
■“ courage than timidity; nervous power than nervous
“debility; and it is a sign of an effeminate and un“ natural theory of life that these truths are not deeply
“ felt by all of us ” (p. 163).
“ We may do what we please in the way of other healthy
“ influences ; we may bestow every other care on the
“ nurture and education of our beloved ones; but it is
“ absolutely impossible to make women healthy or happy
“without a due amount of sexual enjoyment” (p. 175).
“ When the universal applicability of the great law of
“ exercise to all our organs is understood, every one will
“ perceive that he is morally bound to exercise duly his
“ sexual organs throughout the period of sexual life. Thus
“ the young man, on entering upon puberty, will feel that
�SEXUAL RELIGION.
27
“ Nature commands him to indulge, to a moderate extent,
“ his sexual desires; and, when once he is fully convinced
“ of the natural rectitude of this, he cannot fail to perceive“ the insufficiency and unnatural character of our moral
“ code ” (p. 176).
We need not extend these quotations, which cover the
whole ground of sexual morality as taught by the highest
Malthusian authority, and as accepted and taught by pro
minent Secularist leaders. The book from which they are
taken is to be found in most Secularist libraries, and it isread in six languages.
�28
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
Chapter IV.
THE NEO-MALTHUSIAN DOCTRINE OF
MARRIAGE.
Marriage, according to the principles laid down in the
preceding chapter, is an unnatural institution, a hateful
monopoly, a delusion and a snare. The one fact of a large
surplus female population is, with Palaeo-Secularistic Malthusians, sufficient to condemn monogamic marriage. Polygamy
would be a partial remedy for that evil; but in other
countries, and in all new colonies, there is a surplus male
population—sometimes a very large one—whose require
ments are to be provided for, which would introduce the oppo
site institution of Polyandry, said to exist in Thibet, where
one woman is married to several husbands. The only other
resources are prostitution, as it exists in nearly all com
munities, or general promiscuous intercourse, such as is
advocated by the author of “ The Elements.” He is too
scientific, in his way—too logical, and too honestly out
spoken, to leave us in any doubt on a matter of such im
portance. He sees clearly that “Sexual Religion,” as he
preaches it, cannot be practised with the existence of legal
marriage. This is a clear deduction from his “ Law of
Exercise;” but it is enforced, as we shall see in another
chapter, by reasons drawn from what he considers medical
science.
In “The Elements of Social Science” (department of
“ Sexual Religion ”) we read :—
“ Many of the sexual evils most widely spread among
“ us depend directly upon the errors of our code of sexual
“morality. According to this code, all love except
“married love is considered sinful. Marriage, it is held,
“ moreover, should bind people together for life, without
“ leaving them the power of indulging in any other sexual
“ intimacy, or of divorce from each other, unless either
�THE NEO-MALTHUSIAN DOCTRINE OF MARRIAGE.
29
“ the husband or wife commits adultery. If this, which
“ is the view of marriage generally entertained in this
“country, were to continue, there are very many fearful
“ sexual evils which could not be removed. In the first
“place, what is, or should be, the grand object of any
“social institution for uniting the sexes? It is, that each
“ individual in society, every man and woman, should have
“ a fair share of the blessings of love and of offspring, and
“ that the children should be duly provided for. But, if
“ marriage be the only honourable way of obtaining sexual
“and parental pleasures, very many must be excluded
“ from them; for, even supposing that there were room
“ for the exercise of all the reproductive powers, as in
“ America, or that, by preventive intercourse, the propor“ tion of children in each family were to be small, so as
“ to allow of a great many marriages, still there would be
“ a large number of women, and even of men, who, from
“ plainness and other unattractive qualities, would find no
“ one who would be willing to be rigidly bound to them
“for life” (p. 356).
“ The irrevocable nature of the marriage contract, and
“ the impossibility of procuring divorce, lead to the most
“fearful evils. Mr. Hill shows this in his work on
“ ‘ Crime,’ telling us that the great majority of murders
“ and brutal assaults now-a-days are committed by
“ husbands upon their wives, and showing that it is in the
* nature of all long and indissoluble contracts to cause
similar evils. All contracts binding two human beings
“ together in an indissoluble manner for long periods are
“the fruitful source of crimes and miseries............. The
“ custom, moreover, of selecting one sole object of love,
“steeling one’s heart, as far as sexual desires are con“ cerned, against all the rest of man or womankind, has a
“ very narrowing effect on our capacity for affection and
“ appreciation of what is good and amiable in the different
“ characters we see around us. Hence, in great measure,
has arisen that fastidiousness in love which is so marked
“ among us, and is the sign of a narrow and effeminate
“ culture ” (p. 358).
The great natural sexual duties of man and woman
“ do not, as is commonly imagined, consist in being a
“constant husband or wife, or in avoiding unmarried
�3°
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
“ intercourse, but are of a very different nature. It is of
“ the highest importance that the attention of all of us
“ should be steadfastly concentrated upon the real sexual
“ duties, and not dazzled by mere names. Marriage
"■diverts our attention from the real sexual duties, and
“ this is one of its worst effects ” (p. 363).
“ Every individual man or woman is bound to exercise
“duly his sexual organs, so that the integrity of his own
“ health shall not be impaired on the one hand, and so
“ that he shall not, on the other, interfere with the health
“and happiness of his neighbour.
Every individual
“ should make it his conscientious aim that he or she
“ should have a sufficiency of love to satisfy the sexual
“demands of his nature, and that others around him
“should have the same. It is impossible, as has been
“ shown before, that each individual should have this in
“ an old country, unless by the use of preventive means.
“ The use of these means, therefore, comes to be incum" bent upon all those who seek to enjoy the natural
“ pleasures of love themselves without depriving their
“neighbours of them ” (p. 366).
“ It is absolutely impossible to have a free, sincere, and
“dignified sexual morality in our society as long as
“marriage continues to be the only honourable provision
“ for the union of the sexes, and as long as the marriage
“ bond is so indissoluble as at present............ It is only by
“ relaxing the rigour of the marriage bond, and allowing
“greater sexual freedom, that it is possible to eradicate
“prostitution, and with it venereal disease” (p. 368).
“ Now, in reality, facility of divorce does away with
“ marriage ; it thoroughly alters the theory of the institu“ tion, and makes it in reality nothing more than an agree“ ment between two people to live together as man and
“ wife, so long as they love each other. And such is the
“ only true mode of sexual union; it is the one which
“ Nature points out to us; and we may be certain that
“ any institution which defies the natural laws of love, as
“ marriage does, will be found to be the cause of immense
“ evils; ever accumulating as the world rolls on, and man“kind become more free and more enlightened in the
“physical and moral laws of their being............. Let
“those who will marry; but those who do not wish
�THE NEO-MALTHUSIAN DOCTRINE OF MARRIAGE.
31
“ to enter upon so indissoluble a contract, either on
“ account of their early age, or from a disapproval of the
“ whole ceremony, should deem it perfectly honourable
“and justifiable to form a temporary connection” (p. 371).
“ As I have already endeavoured to show, the present
“ system of prostitution and indissoluble marriage (which
“ are closely connected together), might be, or ought to
“ be, superseded by preventive intercourse, and by a re
laxation of the marriage code, when the diseases of
“ abstinence and abuse might not only be satisfactorily
“ treated, but effectually prevented ” (p. 504).
“ The noblest sexual conduct, in the present state of
“ society, appears to me to be that of those who, while
“ endeavouring to fulfil the real sexual duties, enumerated
“ in a former essay, live together openly and without dis“ guise, but refuse to enter into an indissoluble contract
“of which they conscientiously disapprove ” (p. 504.)
It is needless to multiply quotations on this point, for the
whole science and logic of the book are utterly irreconcil
able with the institution of marriage ; so that this book, so
highly commended by Mr. Bradlaugh, M P., in its chapters
on “ Sexual Religion,” is a protest and a conspiracy against
it; and, if the teachings of “ The Elements of Social
Science ” are carried into practice, marriage, as commonly
understood, becomes impossible.
�32
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
Chapter V.
PAL^O-SECULAR VIEWS OF SOCIAL EVILS.
Let it be understood that I do not impeach the motives of
the author of “The Elements of Social Science.” No
doubt he would abolish marriage and chastity, and what
men have for so many ages called purity and virtue, for what
he believes to be the best interests of humanity.
The author of “ The Elements ” is earnestly, and even
pathetically, philanthropic. In the last paragraph of the
book he says:—
“ It is not for myself that I ask consideration; it is for
“ the unfortunate sufferers to whom this work is devoted,
“and for whose benefit I would readily submit to any
“ amount of obloquy—even from those I wish to serve.
“ Alas ! when I see around me the poor perishing in their
“ squalid homes, the forsaken prostitutes wandering in our
“streets, the sexual victims pining in solitude and bitter“ ness; when I look down into the fearful abyss of our social
“ miseries and wrongs, and think, moreover, of the mutual
“ destruction by which all this suffering is attended, the
“reflection overpowers me—that it matters little what
“ becomes of myself. What am I better than they that
“ I should be happy when so many are miserable ? If I
“ can help my suffering fellow-men, it is the dearest wish
“of my heart—that for which I live—that for which
“I would willingly die; if not, I am indifferent to
“ my own fate. But I have a deep and abiding convic“ tion that these evils are not insuperable ; that the future
“ of our race will be brighter than the past; and that what
“ I have written has not been written in vain ” (p. 592).
In another place he says :—
“Morality, medicine, religion, law, politics are solemn
�PAL7E0-SECULAR VIEWS OF SOCIAL EVILS.
33
“ farces played before the eyes of men, whose imposing
“ pomps and dazzling ceremonies serve but to divert the
“ attention from the awful tragedies behind the scenes.
“ We may be absolutely certain of this, that, unless we can
“attain to some other solution of the social difficulties,
“our society must for ever continue, as it ever has been,
“a chaos of confusion, of wrongs, and of misery.”
The ground he takes in regard to our great social evil,
prostitution, proves his humanity, as the whole book does
his sincerity. He regrets its evils, he mourns over its
degradation, he pities its victims, but thinks “ the life of
voluntary celibacy led by these ladies ”—who try to reform
prostitutes—“ quite as sinful a one as that of the prostitutes
they endeavour to convert,” and asks :—
‘In what light, then, is prostitution to be regarded
“ when we take into consideration the great primary
“ necessity of sexual intercourse ? It should be regarded
“as a valuable temporary substitute for a better state of
“ things. It is greatly preferable to no sexual intercourse
“ at all, without which, as has been shown, every man and
“ woman must lead a most unnatural life. Therefore, the
“ deep gratitude of mankind, instead of their scorn, is
“ due, and will be given in future times, to those unfortu“ nate females who have suffered in the cause of our sexual
“nature. We shall find that, if we love and reverence
“these girls (at the same time that we endeavour totally
“ to remove from our society the fearful evil of prostitu“ tion), they will love and reverence us, and on no other
“consideration. If Society enfold them in her bosom,
“ they will soon learn gratefully to repay her love; but,
“if she continue to spurn them, her punishments and
“ sufferings will be no less than theirs. Her unnatural
“ treatment has made them so degraded, and from that
“ degradation only her repentant love and reverence will
“uplift them” (p. 270).
In the present social state, the only resource of a young
man, he says, is one of three necessary evils, of which mer
cenary love is the least. But—
“ Mercenary love, besides the fearful dangers of venereal
�34
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
“ disease, is exceedingly degrading; and the amount of
“ evil done to men, as well as to women, by this general
“ degradation of their first sexual experiences is little con“ceived. The young woman is in a much worse sexual
“ position than even the young man, for even mercenary
“love is far better than total sexual abstinence” (p. 239).
Here, as elsewhere, our author seems content to make
woman the victim of what he considers the necessities of
man ; but the social system he advocates would make men
and women equal, and there is, from his point of view, both
justice and good feeling in the following observations :—
“ Clandestine love fills the whole of society with deceit
“ and suspicion ; every one suspects his neighbour, and is
“in his turn the object of suspicion ; and even were there
“ no other obstacles to the elevation of the human cha
racter, this alone, as long as it continues to exist, must
“ be fatal to the hopes of the moralist.
“ But, if man be placed in so humiliating a position in
“ sexual matters, unfortunate woman is infinitely more so.
“ In the first place, we have the vast multitude of
'•'■prostitutes, on whose awful degradation one cannot think
“ but with dismay and anguish. That there should be
“among us a class of unfortunate women, who are
“ treated worse than dogs; who are hunted about by the
“ police, despised and abhorred by their own sex, and
“abused and neglected by man, to whose wants they
“minister, is a page of human shame too dark for tears.
“ It is the greatest disgrace of civilised society—a dis“ grace deeper even than negro slavery. And for what
“are these poor girls hunted down in this merciless
“ manner ? In truth, for acting exactly the same way as
“ all of us—as all young men, who go with them, enjoy
“ ourselves with them, and then desert them, and leave
“ them to their fate; for supplying a want in our society,
“ which man, by the necessities of his nature, cannot do
“ without, and which only they, who know little of human
“nature, imagine may be withheld without the most de“ structive consequences. Instead of contempt, these
“poor neglected girls deserve the warmest thanks of
“ society, for the heroic mode in which they have borne
�PAL7E0-SECULAR VIEWS OF SOCIAL EVILS.
35
“ the misery and the burden of our shame. Notwith“ standing the enormous evils which they aid in causing,
“ they have been in the main exceedingly serviceable to
“ mankind, by palliating in some degree the other alter“ native evils of the law of population—namely, sexual
“ abstinence or premature death; and thus, as already
“ mentioned, they should be regarded as sexual martyrs.
“ If youth is to be humiliated and disgraced for indul“ ging in sexual intercourse, at least let all of us bear our
“ share, and be ashamed to throw the whole burden on
“ poor helpless woman. While so glaring an injustice
“ exists, how can we talk of the nobility or dignity of
“ man ? In truth, no one member of the human family,
“ no prostitute nor criminal, can be degraded, without
“ dragging down all the rest. In the case of prostitution
“ the whole of society is concerned in it. Men, it may be
“ said, are as a general rule all prostitutes ; for there are
“ but an inconsiderable section of them who do not
“ indulge more or less at some period of life in mercenary
“ loves, and it matters little in such a case whether the
“ money be given or received. The general character of
“ woman also is exceedingly debased, and their dignity
“ and freedom lessened, by the existence of such a class
“among their sex” (p. 409.)
He feels deeply and he complains bitterly of this unnatural
state of things, and says :—
“ As long as the present sexual system lasts there is no
“ such thing as a dignified life for youth. Mercenary
“ love, in itself, is an abomination, utterly abhorrent to
“Nature, and full of degradation to all concerned in
“it........... In fact, in all sexual intercourse, except in
“ marriage, the young man has to act and feel like a pick“ pocket, shunning the light, and being for ever on his
“guard against discovery ; and it can readily be perceived
“ what an effect this must have in degrading his character”
(p. 407).
Condemning prostitution as abominable, utterly abhorrent
to nature, full of degradation, our philosopher can still look
upon prostitutes as heroic martyrs, who “deserve the
�36
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
warmest thanks of society.” But a scientific philanthropist
can look charitably even upon what are called unnatural
vices. He says:—
“All these vices have met with an opprobrium far
*
“ greater than they deserved ; for the public mind loses all
“ sense of justice when it comes to consider a sexual fault,
“and is always far too harsh in its judgments. I should
“ say that, of all acts, none are viewed with such unjust
“ severity as these unnatural vices........... As long as the
“present obstacles continue to the gratification of the
“ normal desires ; as long as all unmarried love is regarded
“ in a harsh and degrading light, so long will prostitution
“ and unnatural vices flourish, and it will be out of human
“ power to suppress them ” (p. 249).
The present obstacles to perfection are the institution of
marriage and the common ideas and feelings opposed to
universal license and promiscuity. The great evil—almost
the only evil in the world—is the repression of what Chris
tian moralists call licentiousness. The greatest good possible
for humanity would be the removal of all such prejudices
and restrictions, so that prostitution, shameful, unnatural,
abhorrent as it is, is to be preferred to civilised morality;
and our author says :—
“ As long, however, as prostitution continues to be, in
“ many cases, the only attainable intercourse, although I
“ deeply deplore its existence, it seems to me a far smaller
“ evil that a man should indulge in it than that he should
“ waste away under the miseries and evils of abstinence
“ or unnatural and diseasing abuses.”
In a word, the “ social evil ” is to be tolerated, and even
cherished, until women generally become so far Malthusianised—or, may I say, Bradlaughised ?—as to make it no longer
a necessary evil.
�PALAEO-SECULAR MEDICINE.
37
Chapter VI.
PAL^EO-SECULAR MEDICINE.
It could not be expected that a “ Graduate of Medicine ”
would write a book upon “ The Elements of Social Science
and Sexual Religion ” without treating largely of the diseases
which are caused by civilised morality, and are to be cured
by the opposite system, accepted, adopted, and recommended
by the partisans of the seatless M.P. What are called the
sexual diseases of men and women are, therefore, described
at length; but it is not necessary that we should enter into
these unpleasant professional details. It will be sufficient to
show that, according to this author, all these diseases have
their origin in the one evil of sexual restraint or chastity,
and their one cure is sexual license.
Writing of “Hysteria,” the author of the “Elements”
says :—
“ Chastity or sexual abstinence causes more real disease
‘‘and misery in one year, I believe, in this country than
‘‘sexual excesses in a century. We must not include
‘‘venereal disease among the evils of excess, as it has
“ nothing to do with it; it depends always on infection,
“not on over-use of the sexual organs ” (p. 186).
“Woman’s peculiar torments begin at puberty, and
“ from that time, in innumerable cases, till her marriage,
“ she is the constant prey of anxiety. Ungratified desires
“ distract her, endless temptations and excitements
“surround her, marriage is for her so critical a step, and
“ yet she has not the power of selection. The fatal ques
tion, Shall she be married at all? gradually dawns
“ upon her, and the clouds and whirlwinds of anxious
‘‘and conflicting passions darken her sky............ The only
“ one who can cure a hysterical young woman is a young
‘‘ man whom she loves, and with whom she may gratify
“ her natural feelings, and have a free and happy outlet
�38
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
“ for the emotions which have been so long disordering
“her” (p. 183).
“ I am convinced,” says this high medical authority, “ that,
if sexual intercourse were used early enough in these diseases
[mentioning some to which young girls are liable], very few
cases would exsist ” (p. 172).
Treating of “ Chlorosis,” a disease of girls, he says :—
“ The crippling idea of chastity and female decorum
“ binds her like an invisible chain, wherever she moves,
“ and prevents her from daring to think, feel, or act, freely
“and impulsively........... If we examine into the origin and
“ meaning of these singular ideas with regard to woman,
“we shall find that they are based upon no natural distinc
tion between the two sexes, but upon the erroneous
“ views of man, and especially upon the mistaken ideas as
“to the virtue of female chastity. It is to guard this
“ supposed virtue that all the restrictions on female liberty
“ and female development in body and mind have arisen.
“........... Society is itself to blame for all such errors as
“unnatural sexual indulgences in either sex. Until we
“ can supply to the violent sexual passions of youth a
“ proper and natural gratification, we may be absolutely
“certain that an unnatural one will be very frequently
“resorted to............ The only true and permanent remedy
“is a proper amount of sexual exercise” (pp. 167-171).
Of course, the same remedy is prescribed in diseases of a
similar character in men, and there is no doubt that this kind
of practice has spread to a considerable extent in the medical
profession, and that—
“It is now comparatively common among our most
“skilful medical men to recommend sexual intercourse to
“young men suffering from genital debility.”
With them there is little difficulty in carrying out such a
prescription; with women it is different. Our author says :—
“ But for suffering woman no one has yet raised his
“ voice, no one has applied to her case the only true and
“scientific remedy; that remedy which is the keystone of
�PALJEO-SECULAR MEDICINE.
39
“ female therapeutics, and without which all treatment or
“ prevention of female disease is a vanity and a delusion.
“ The great mass of female sexual diseases, even more than
“ those of men, arise from sexual enfeeblement, consequent
“ on the want of a healthy and sufficient exercise for this
“important part of the system. From the want of this,
“the green sickness, menstrual irregularities, hysterical
“ affections without number, proceed; and it is utter
“ vanity to expect to cure, and still more to prevent, these
“ miserable diseases, without going to the root of the
“ matter. It is a certain and indubitable fact that, unless
“ we can supply to the female organs their proper natural
“ stimulus, and a healthy and natural amount of exercise,
“ female disease will spring up on every side around us,
“ and all other medical appliances will be powerless against
“ the hydra ” (p. 163).
But, in addition to the slavery of one sex to prejudices
and superstitions about chastity, virtue, and morality, there
are still but comparatively few physicians who have the
science and the courage to make the proper prescription :—
“ How few English physicians are there who have the
“ courage, even if they have the knowledge, to prescribe—
“ nay, even to tell the patient of this one and only physio
logical remedy! No; overawed by the general erro“ neous moral views on these subjects, they shrink from
“ their duty of asserting the sacredness of the bodily laws
“ in opposition to all preconceptions ” (p. 81).
In some cases physicians advise marriage; but how seldom
can such advice be taken! What man or woman would
wish to be administered in that way as a remedy for disease ?
Our author sees and admits the difficulty. He says :—
“ Marriage deserts us at our greatest need; and, if it
“ should continue to be the only attainable sexual inter“ course, the cure of vast numbers of genital diseases
“ would be, as at present, impossible, and might be given
“ up in despair. But not only the cure, the prevention of
“ these diseases in any satisfactory degree would be
“ impossible; for, unless all young people were to marry
�40
,
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
“ about puberty, which would create the most fearful sub“ sequent repentances, an immense amount of genital
“ disease would be certain to arise, were no other honour“ able provision made for the gratification of the first and
“ most impetuous passions. It is very generally about and
“shortly after the age of puberty that masturbation
“ begins to be practised among both sexes; chlorosis is
“ most frequent in girls still in their teens ; in short, it is
“ an absolute impossibility to prevent the development of
“ an immense amount of genital disease and morbidity if
“ marriage be the only sexual provision for youth.”
The sole alternative, as we shall see more fully stated later
on, is to abolish marriage, and adopt universal promiscuous
intercourse.
Treating of “ Dysmenorrhoca,” our author, after prescrib
ing his panacea, says : —
“ To prevent this disease, we must endeavour to eradicate
“ throughout society the causes which lead to it. Of
“these by far the most important is sexual abstinence...
“....... And I believe that by far the most important class
“ of sexual diseases are those which arise from sexual
“abstinence or abuse, and which are characterised by
“ genital enfeeblement, giving rise to general debility and
“ mental irritation, discontent, and despondency. These
“are universally spread throughout our society in the
“present day, and spring naturally from the universal
“ difficulties opposing the healthy exercise of the sexual
“ organs” (p. 238).
Young men suffering from a very common form of nervous
exhaustion are advised to use “ the natural remedy ” very
moderately at first—once a week or so—gradually increasing
with the waxing powers (p. 105).
I regret the necessity of entering into these particulars,
but can see no other way of bringing this very important
subject to the attention of thoughtful men and women. It
is right that fathers and mothers should know what kind of
advice such a “ Graduate of Medicine,” and all who may
agree with him, may give their sons and daughters, and it is
right that society should know what kind of medical doc
�PAL2E0-SECULAR MEDICINE.
41
trines are approved and widely promulgated by those who
sympathise with the author of this book, and those who
have done most to aid its circulation. But for the fact that
this book, from which I have so liberally quoted, solely
because I do not wish to do any injustice to its distinguished
author, or his more distinguished or better known patrons
and supporters, has been and is a recognised text-book of a
great movement, or one branch of a growing organisation, I
might have hesitated to lay such doctrines or such opinions,
claiming to be scientific and medical, before the possible
readers of these pages. But since I have decided that it is
best that the real facts of life should be known—whether of
the slums investigated by Royal Commissions, or the moral
slums of false science and false philosophy, I think it right
to give the author’s defence of what most men, and, one
may hope, nearly all women, will consider horrible doctrines.
It is also but just to the unseated member for Northampton,
who has so long and steadfastly stood by the book and worked
with its author, who was, it will be remembered, the profes
sional endorser and friendly annotator of “ The Fruits of
Philosophy,” published by Mr. Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant.
The author of the “ Elements ” says :—
“ Every act of every organ is essentially good. This
“ law applies exactly in the same way to all the intellectual
u and moral operations ; every thought and feeling of the
“ mind must, by the necessity of our being, tend to the
“ preservation, and not to the destruction, of the organism,
“ and therefore must be in like manner essentially
“good ” (p. 415).
“ In health and disease,” he says, “ this is alike true
so that it is impossible for a man to think a bad thought or
do a bad act.
All thought and all action is the result of material forces,
which can, of course, have no moral character. He says :—
“ Matter, when in the form of a muscle, can contract;
“ when in the form of living nervous substance, it can
■“ think. Thought is, in some mysterious manner, con“ nected with phosphorus, and must, in some way or other,
“ be an exaltation and refinement of properties naturally
�42
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
“ inherent in that substance and in the other elements of
“ the brain, but in what way is yet totally unknown. On
“ reflection, we perceive that, as there is a chemical action
“ attending every mental process, just as there is one
“ attending every act of life, every change in the mind
“ must be connected with an exactly corresponding change
“ in these chemical actions ” (p. 440).
Certainly no one would think of attributing free will,
responsibility, and morality, or immorality, to chemical com
binations ; and here is the whole philosophy of Materialism.
There is no longer any question of morality, since morality
cannot exist.
Mr. G. J. Holyoake, a less logical Materialist than the
“Graduate of Medicine,” admits accountability for the
operations of phosphorus, carbon, and oxygen, but limits
it. He says (“ Principles of Secularism ”): “ No man or
woman is accountable to others for any conduct by which
others are not injured or damaged.” As it must be difficult
to determine when or how much others are injured by our
acts, this rule is not easy of application; and it clearly
denies the right of interference with any act whose conse
quences may be supposed to be confined to the individual,
as suicide or murder; since it cannot be certainly proved,
according to palaeo-Secularist principles, that for a man to
hasten his own annihilation can be an evil to society ; while it
may be a decided benefit; and the “ painless extinction ” of
the lives of others might be, under conceivable circumstances,
a mercy to them and a favour to the community. In any
case, it would only interrupt unpleasant chemical action.
The action of phosphorus, according to the author of
“ The Elements,” has hitherto been very unfortunate. He
says :—
“When we look around us among our friends and
“ acquaintances we can scarcely find a single individual
“whose life we could call a happy one. For my part, I
“ do not think that I know in this country a single such
“ case, and I have heard the same opinion from others.
“ All of us are worn by anxiety, and depressed by the
“ atmosphere of misery that overspreads our society........
“ Hitherto all happiness has been built on the misery of
�PAOEO-SECULAR MEDICINE.
43
“ others. No man at present can be happy himself without
“inevitably causing his neighbour’s misery” (p. 335).
The remedy for this miserable condition of the chemicals
by whose reactions we think, feel, and suffer we have given
in abundant extracts from the palaeo-Secularist’s text-book and
Materialist’s vade mecum. It consists in unbounded freedom
of “ Sexual Religion,” and the artificial prevention of its
natural consequences—only a very slight interference with
the chemical operations of phosphorus, carbon, etc.; for
he says:—
“ An increase of sexual connections is, indeed, in itself,
“ one of the greatest blessings; but it is only a subject
“ for true and unqualified congratulation when it is not
“ followed by a corresponding increase of offspring ”
(p. 481).
Mrs. Besant, the present shining light of Bradlaughism,
though a devout believer in “The Elements,” whose
doctrines she has written a special pamphlet to promote,
attributes the miseries of human life to that peculiar result
of the operations of phosphorus and other chemicals called
Christianity. In No. 10 of the National Secular Society’s
tracts, “The Fruits of Christianity,” which are “black,
bitter, and poisonous,” she says: “How Christianity has
darkened the innocent brightness of the world is known to
■every student. Roman Catholic Christianity made a miser
able life a holy life, but was content to leave it to the
religious only: Protestant Christianity forced it on all
alike. The Swiss Calvinists set the example of austerity,
and the French Huguenots quickly followed. They forbade
theatres, private theatricals, dancing, gay dresses, conjuring,
puppet shows, etc., making gloom synonymous with piety.
In Scotland the Protestants made the Sunday a misery.”
And she quotes Buckle as saying of them : “ Men, in their
daily actions, and in their very looks, became troubled,
melancholy, and ascetic. Their countenance soured, and
was downcast. Not only their opinions, but their gait, their
demeanour, their voice, their general aspect, were influenced
by that deadly blight which nipped all that was genial and
warm........... Thus it was that the national character of the
�44
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
Scotch was, in the seventeenth century, dwarfed and muti
lated.” Astounding effects of chemical reactions, natural
selection, and the survival of the fittest! and only to be
remedied by joining the National Secular Society and the
Malthusian League, sending Mr. Bradlaugh to Parliament,
and making a diligent study of “ The Elements ” and Mrs
Besant’s “ Law of Population.”
�THE PAUEO-SECULARIST MALTHUSIANS.
45
Chapter VII.
THE PAL/EO-SECULARIST MALTHUSIANS.
Mr. Malthus was a respectable English clergyman, who
thought that there was a danger that the population of a
country might increase faster than its supply of food, and
he proposed that people should prevent the calamity of
having more children than they could take care of by avoid
ing early marriages.
As a matter of fact, the people of several European coun
tries do postpone marriage from prudential motives, and,
in England, while the lower classes in towns marry at twenty,
in the upper ranks the average age at marriage is about thirty.
The calculations and warnings of Malthus made some
excitement in his time, and his ideas were adopted by James
Mill, John Stuart Mill, and other political economists, and
also by Richard Carlile and some Socialist writers. Some of
these were not, however, content with the prudential checks
to population of late marriages, or of married people living
in continence, to limit the number of their children; and
they recommended the use of certain methods for preventing
pregnancy. Some went further and advocated infanticide, or
what was called the “ painless extinction” of every unwelcome
babe at the moment of its birth. There is no doubt that,
more or less in consequence of such teachings, a vast
number of children have been wilfully murdered; as a vast
number are also dying continually of unsanitary conditions
and parental neglect.
The Population Question, as it is called, has been taken
up by the leading Cat-and-Ladleites, and they have generally
advocated “ preventive intercourse ” in preference to late
marriages or married abstinence. Carlile in his “ Every
Woman’s Book,” Robert Dale Owen in his “ Moral Physio
logy, ” Dr. Knowlton in his “ Fruits of Philosophy,” the
�46
SEXUAL ECONOMY
“ Graduate of Medicine ” in his “ Elements of Social
Science,”' and Mrs. Besant in her “ Law of Population,”
have all taken the same ground—the dangers of too great
and rapid an increase of population, and the necessity of
finding some check; and they have adopted some mechani
cal or chemical method of preventing conception.
After Richard Carlile, Watson, a Secularist publisher, sold
“ The Fruits of Philosophy,” which was also sold by the
Holyoakes, and by Charles Watts until his prosecution,
when it was taken up by Mr. Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant.
But the great authority accepted by nearly all the Secu
larist leaders is the book from which I have made so many
extracts. The “ Graduate of Medicine ” is a thorough
Malthusian ; only he rejects Malthus’s remedy for over-popu
lation. He is not in favour of late marriages—he prefers
that people should not marry at all; but he is in favour of
perpetual and limitless licentiousness, and of preventing its
natural result. Here is the case as he puts it over and over
again, with all his force and eloquence:—
It is absolutely necessary to health and happiness that
every male and female should have frequent sexual inter
course, from the age of puberty as long as the propensity
exists.
It is absolutely necessary that the number of children
born should be limited to the supply of food.
Therefore, it is absolutely necessary to prevent the natural
result of sexual indulgence.
Granting the premises, it is impossible to arrive at any
other conclusion.
Let us give the concise statement in his own words :—
“ The Law of Exercise. The health of the reproduc“ tive organs and emotions depends on their having a suffi“ cient amount of normal exercise ; and the want of this
“ tends powerfully to produce misery and disease in both
“ man and woman.
“ The Law of Fecundity. Each woman tends to pro“ duce from ten to fifteen children or thereabouts.
“ The Lazo of Agricultural Industry, or Diminishing
“ Productiveness. The proportional returns to agriculture
“ tend to diminish. In other words, the produce of the
“soil tends to increase in a less proportion than the labour
“ bestowed on it.
�THE PAUEO-SECULARIST MALTHUSIANS.
47
“ From these three laws arise—
“ The Law of Population, or Malthusian Law. The
“ natural increase of population has always been, and
“ will always continue to be, most powerfully checked in
“ all old countries, and in new colonies also, as soon as
“ their cultivation has reached a certain extent, by Celibacy
“ (that is, Sexual Abstinence), Prostitution, Sterility, Pre
ventive Intercourse, or Premature Death, whose collec“ tive amount varies inversely in proportion to the rapidity
“ with which the population of the country is increasing,
“ and to the number of emigrants minus that of immi“ grants ; while the amount of each individually varies
“ inversely in proportion to the others.
“ From these laws arise two duties—
“ The Duty of Limited Procreation. In an old country
“ it is the duty of every individual, whatever be his or
“ her station in life, to bring into the world only a very
“ small number of children.
“ The Duty of Sexual Lntercourse. It is the duty of
“ every individual to exercise his or her sexual functions
“ during the period of sexual life, abstinence and excess
“ being alike avoided ” (p. 558).
This is, briefly stated, the doctrine of the book which has
been, and is, accepted by the Palaeo-Secularist leaders, and
we may fairly conclude is approved by the great body of their
followers; for this is the doctrine set forth in the speeches
of Mr. Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant, with great ability and
eloquence, in our courts of justice and in their lectures to
crowded houses in the principal towns in Great Britain.
After giving an abstract of the essay of Malthus on
“ Population ” in “ The Elements,” the author says
“Thus finishes this wonderful essay, the most im
“portant contribution to human knowledge, it appears
“ to me, that ever was made. On rising from it, with a
“ mind overpowered by the vastness of the subject, and
“ the incomparable way in which it has been treated, I
“ cannot but consider its author to have been the greatest
“ benefactor of mankind, without any exception, that ever
“existed on this earth” (p. 315).
�4«
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
Describing the evils of poverty, he can find but one
remedy:—
“ Poverty is a sexual evil, depending on a sexual cause,
“ and admitting only of a sexual cure ” (p. 484).
“ If the proportion of the people to the food can be
“made a smaller one, poverty will be benefited [pre
sented?], but by no other conceivable means. The
“ only possible way to remove poverty is to have fewer
“children” (p. 341).
Admiring Malthus as he does, the author condemns his
advice in regard to marriage ; besides, there is a vast number
of women for whom marriage is impossible :—
“ In some parts of England, and in many counties in
“ Scotland, the proportion of spinsters is as high as forty“ one per cent, of the women, from the age of twenty
“upwards. There are 1,407,225 women between the
“ ages of twenty and forty who have never married, and
“359,969 old maids of the age of forty and upwards.
“ Those who are at all aware of the misery and disease of
“ sexual abstinence will be able to form a slight idea of
“ the suffering arising from this form of the preventive
“check” (p. 343).
“ The great error in Mr. Malthus’s reasoning was that
“ he, like most of the moralists of his and our own age,
“was unaware of the frightful evils and fearful natural sin
“ of sexual abstinence. The ignorance of the necessity of
“ sexual intercourse to the health and virtue of both man
“ and woman is the most fundamental error in medical
“ and moral philosophy ” (p. 345).
Here, as in every instance, the italics are those of the
author.
“ There is a way, and but one possible way, of sur“ mounting these evils and of securing for each individual
“ among us a fair share of food, love, and leisure, without
“ which human society is a chaotic scene of selfishness,
“injustice, and misery” (p. 347).
“ The means I speak of—the only means by which the
�THE PAL7E0-SECULARIST MALTHUSIANS.
49
“ virtue and the progress of mankind are rendered pos'“ sible—is Preventive Sexual Intercourse. By this
“ is meant sexual intercourse where precautions are used
“ to prevent impregnation. In this way love would be
obtained without entailing upon us the want of food and
“ leisure by overcrowding the population........... Women,
“ if they had not the fear of becoming pregnant before
“ their eyes, would indulge their sexual desires just as
“ men do. Hence the vehement prejudices in favour of
“ our present code of sexual morality, and of the institu“ tion of marriage, together with the determined hostility
“ to anything in the shape of unmarried intercourse—at
“ least, on the part of women—are the chief obstacles to
“the consideration of the most important of all subjects—
“ preventive sexual intercourse ” (p. 349).
“ Preventive sexual intercourse, then, is the mode, and
“ the only possible mode, of reconciling the opposing
“difficulties of the population problem, and is the only
“possible solution for the great social evils of this .and
“other old countries. I stake my life—I would stake a
“thousand lives—on the truth of this. There is no
“ subject on which I have thought so long and felt so
“ deeply as the sexual one. It has been ever present to
“ me for many years; and, long before I read the works
“of Mr. Malthus and Mr. Mill, my mind was absorbed
“ in the evils I saw and read of from sexual abstinence
“and other sexual difficulties and diseases ” (p. 352).
“ Therefore, any man or woman, it matters not what
“ be their station in life, whether their destiny be a palace
“or a hovel, who has more thari the small proportion of
“children which the circumstances of an old country
“ allow, as the fair average to each individual, is an irre“ ligious being, and disregards one of the most sacred of
“ all the moral duties, thus inevitably causing disease and
“misery to some of his fellow creatures” (p. 362).
This must end our quotations from a book which we
need not characterise; written, as the reader may be able
to judge from the examples we have given, with great
earnestness and with considerable ability. We have quoted
fairly, but could not properly go into medical and surgical
-details, and we refrain from publishing the methods suggested
�5°
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
for securing the end proposed. They are similar to thosegiven in “ The Fruits of Philosophy ” and in Mrs. Besant’s
“ Law of Population.”
Will it be pretended that these are merely the teachings
of one man, for whom the great body of Secularists are not
responsible? Mrs. Besant thinks otherwise. “What is
morality ?” she asks, in her “ Law of Population.” “ It is
the greatest good of the greatest number. It is immoral to
give life where you cannot support it. It is immoral to bring
children into the world when you cannot: clothe, feed, and
educate them.”
And she goes on to instruct women as to how they can
avoid the greatest evil of life, and justifies herself by
quotations from a long list of Secularist philosophers:
Francis Place, James Watson, Robert Dale Owen, the two
Mills, the two Holyoakes, and several others. But we have
already had abundant evidence that “ The Elements of
Social Science ” embodies the principles of Cat-and-Ladle
Secularism, and we should as soon expect to see the Koran
repudiated by Mohammedans, or the New Testament by
Christians, as “ The Elements ” by any palaeo-Secular orga
nisation.
�PAL7E0-SECULARIST SOCIETY.
51
Chapter VIII.
PAL^EO-SECULARIST SOCIETY.
It is time that we consider what is involved in these Palaeo
Secularist doctrines, and what would be the condition of
human society if they were universally adopted and carried
out in practice. Either boys and girls, as soon as they
arrived at the age of puberty, say from fifteen to seven
teen years, would marry, or would engage in sexual amours
without marriage. If the rule were marriage, it would
necessitate polygamy in old countries where there is a
surplus of women, and polyandry where there is a surplus
of men. Virginity in either sex is denounced as a state of
mortal sin, dangerous to health and life. For the married
some provision must be made for husbands during the
periods of maternal disablement, necessary absence, or the
illness of either wife or husband; and there could be per
mitted only very brief widowhood.
Palaeo-Secularists stipulate for free and easy divorce, and
that means simply a system of concubinage such as now
exists to some extent, and is not considered of sufficient
importance for legal registration. If the physiological
doctrines of “ The Elements ” are true, special arrange
ments should be made for the army, navy, and all sea-going
vessels. Women should be enlisted in all the services as
well as men. Prostitution, as we have seen, though de
grading, is honourable; but, if all women would adopt
these principles, there would be no need of a particular
class, because all women would be virtually prostitutes, and
The now necessary and useful profession would be abolished.
Seduction would be neither actionable nor immoral—in
fact, as soon as all women are converted to palaeo-Secularism
it would cease to exist. As common hospitality and common
humanity would forbid men and women to deny to others
any necessary of life, there could no longer be any jealousy,
�52
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
or miserably selfish suits in the Divorce Court about
adultery. With free divorce the court could be abolished,
and marriage itself, in its legal form, must quickly disappear.
All poems, novels, tragedies, and comedies, based upon past
or present ideas of virtue, chastity, fidelity, and what have
been considered manly and womanly virtues, would be obso
lete, and read only as antique curiosities. We should have
a practical palaeo-Secular world, satisfying its animal propen
sities and using artificial means to prevent having too many
children.
Men and women of England, this is the picture of the
society of the future set before you by the palaeo-Secularist
leaders and the author of “ The Elements of Social
Science.” These are the lessons taught to the young men
and young women in the halls of science, advocated in news
papers and pamphlets, and studied in Secular reading-rooms^
Look at these doctrines :—
Chastity is a crime.
Unbridled sensuality is virtue.
The Law of Nature commands the constant exercise of
the pro-creative function.
The Law of Population forbids that this act should be
allowed to produce its natural result in the production of
offspring.
There have been Atheists who worship Nature; but the
Secular Malthusians hold her in small reverence. They
mend her blunders with their superior wisdom. Nature
has united pleasure with the function which continues the
life of the race. They seek to enjoy the pleasure and
prevent the object for which the function was made. This
is the outcome of development by natural selection. There
must be, however, some old-fashioned people in the world
to whom these results of “science, falsely so-called,” are
what the Bible has characterised them, in three words:—
“ Earthly, Sensual, Devilish.”
�ADDENDUM.
55
ADDENDUM.
We have heard a good deal about the heroism involved
in the publishing of such works as “ The Elements ” and
the Knowlton pamphlet. There is no heroism in the thing
at all; but there is a good deal of cowardice, not without a.
dash of greed and avarice. A section of the public is
prurient, and the publication of “ nasty ” books like “ The
Elements’’and “The Fruits of Philosophy” is profitable.
It is a trait of a coward to insult when he deems he can do
so with impunity. The publishers and abettors of these
feculent works have insulted society, but they dare not
defy it. If a certain lady and gentleman be earnest and
consistent teachers, they surely ought to practise what
they preach re promiscuous coition and artifices to escape
*
maternity.
Dare they state in the press that they do so ?
Dare they mount the platform and illustrate before the audi
ence animal as they might do vegetable physiology, as re
gards fructification and reproduction ? They dare not do
this because of the police. They have the avarice and
truculence to insult society; but they have not the earnest
ness and heroism to defy it. They can put their names to
obscene works ouf of which they can make notoriety and
money, but beyond this they dare not go: decency they
have already set aside, but they are deterred by fear.
* It must be strictly understood that I deal with the two persons,
referred to as public teachers, and as public teachers only. As indi
viduals I have nothing whatever to do with them.
�54
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
While we execrate their indecency, let us be thankful for
their fear. Let us congratulate ourselves that, although by
their pruriency Freethought has been insulted, we owe it to
their cowardice that Freethought has not been outraged.
Talk of the Pagan Saturnalia and Eleusinian Mysteries ; talk
of the early Christian Agapse : what were these to the Brad
laugh and Besant theory carried out to public demonstra
tion “in the interests of the poor”? Split in the party!
Better a thousand splits than a moment’s acquiescence in
such inexpressible subter-beastliness ! Attacking fellowFreethinkers ! Fate forfend that I should acknowledge them
as fellow Freethinkers of mine. The cross is the symbol
of Christianity; and, if the syringe is to be the emblem of
Freethought, I must mourn without ceasing that, in virtue of
my mental and moral organisation, it is impossible for me to
'be a Christian and accept the creed whose symbol is the
•cross and not the syringe.
Do I state a far-fetched and false corollary when I allege
that the propagandists of Knowltonism should resort to
practical demonstration if they were consistent and had the
■courage of their convictions ? I submit that the corollary
is a pertinent, inexpugnable one. Knowltonism involves
practical physiology, practical chemistry, and practical
mechanics, and I contend that those branches of science
cannot be taught effectively without demonstration and ex
periment. In a little theoretical treatise at sixpence I
deny that they can be taught effectively “ in the interests of
the poor.” Why, in the name of courage and consistency,
is the demonstration lacking ?
Do I write on an indelicate subject ? The fault is not
mine. I am a Freethinker, and those describing themselves
by the same specific term have committed themselves to
abominations against which I, in the name of Freethought,
must protest. I must protest, too, that the only organised
•Society of “ Freethinkers ” in England perpetually elects as
President one who has done worse than blasphemed fifty
�ADDENDUM.
55
gods, has outraged the highest and purest instincts of human
nature. Do I write harshly ? It is because the language
of mortals lacks in bitterness that I do not write more
harshly still. The gentleman who could sit down with
another gentleman’s wife to edit in conjunction with her a
work on sexual commerce should be painted in pigments the
due manipulation of which is beyond my skill as a limner.
Is it well to place in the front of English Freethought
a gentleman who, in conjunction with another gentleman’s
wife, edited a work which dealt with making sexual inter
course abortive, and which work a jury of his countrymen
pronounced obscene ? I say it is not well. And, since on
the subject every other voice in the Freethought ranks is
dumb, I lift my voice in the name of the mothers and
daughters of England who, in renouncing Christ, did not
also renounce chastity; who, in disbelieving that their
bodies were temples of the Holy Ghost, did not necessarily
believe that they were mere organisms for the gratification
of carnal desire. In the name of the English wife and
mother I plead and I appeal. Against obscenity in office
and filth in high places in bur party I, a man in the ranks,
lift up my testimony, execrating all that would sully the
purity of woman and the sanctity of home.
I am willing to admit that our existing social arrangements
are not all that can be desired; that the social machine
works with considerable friction. This may be a reason
why the machine should be lubricated; but it is no reason
why it should be broken to pieces. That wives are not
always happy is no reason why all women should be un
married harlots. The besetting sin of mob-Freethought of
the Richard Carlile school is the prejudiced assumption
that everything that is is wrong, simply because it is.
“Down with all that’s up!” is practically the motto and
watchword of the unthinking outcasts and rebels who, for
the last seventy years, have made Freethought stink in the
nostrils of everybody whose adhesion would be valuable.
�56
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
Prima facie, because a thing is up it should be up, and
because a thing is down it should be down. The world was
not “created” yesterday; and, by the doctrine of Evolu
tion, about which mob leaders prate so loudly, and which
they understand so imperfectly, it has had considerable time
and opportunity to arrange itself according to evolutionary
law. Evolution must be permitted to work till we rise to
higher and purer social levels. In the home and the family
centre the most dearly-cherished love and the holiest
sentiment of the English race. This cannot and must
not be overthrown by cataclysm. We cannot and must
not substitute for the family only isolated children, whom
sulphate of zinc have spared, and who may know their
mother, but who cannot possibly know their father; while
•their mother’s ignorance on the subject would necessarily be
nearly as profound as their own. The bare idea is a crime,
because it is revolting to the holiest instincts of our nature.
Would man gain as much by the free exercise of sensuality
as he would lose by having no home—for a wife a supply of
harlots, and for sons and daughters promiscuously-begotten
and promiscuously-supported children, the results of sen
suality having failed in its devilish artifices ?
The Freethinkers, so-called, persistently place at their head
a man who, as I have said elsewhere, the gentlemen of the
British House of Commons will not permit to sit on the
same benches with them, even though, by keeping him out,
they break the law and outrage the Constitution. On
technical pretexts he is prevented from taking his seat; but
the true reason for the aversion to him is not heresy and
Radicalism—there are plenty of heretics and Radicals in
the House already—but men turn away, as from a toad or
a serpent, from a person who teaches that marriage is an
•evil and chastity a crime, that promiscuous coition is most
desirable, and that seduction is a virtue. Liberal and Con
servative alike bolt the door in the face of this Caliban who
■would, by his teachings, make every woman a prostitute, every
�ADDENDUM.
57
home a maison-de-joie, and licentiousness and the manufac
ture of syringes the staple industries of England. And this
person, not permitted to sit with the most abandoned rake
and reprobate the House can produce, the English “ Free
thinkers ” elect as their President, and then they wonder that
they do not succeed, that they have to meet in tenth-rate pub
lic-houses, and clank their applause with pewter-pots ; while
not even a solitary thinker of distinction has ever joined
them—not one scientist of reputation, not one poet or man of
letters, not one individual of the slightest social weight. The
Freethinkers proper—the Herbert Spencers, the Huxleys,
the Tyndalls, the Frederic Harrisons, the Matthew Arnolds,
and the Algernon Swinburnes—would never dream of
touching the mess of Secularistic pottage into which the
“ fighting President ” has dropped his syringe, in order that
no respectable person may put a spoon in it. Popular Freethought can never reach the Ai of success while Achan,
the son of Carmi, is in its ranks, treasuring “ the accursed
thing”—the shekels of silver and the goodly Babylonish
*
garment —in the shape of profits from the sales of works
that contend that man should be a sensualist and the world
a numero.
We have, more than once, been assured that “The
Elements ” and kindred works are issued with the best
intentions. Even if we take this apologetic allegation as
genuine, we cannot forget that a certain mythical locality is
paved with good intentions ; and surely this advocacy of
unbridled lust is the largest and most prominent paving
stone in all hell. I am free to admit that the author of
the book is evidently a man with more than average ability,
and there is a certain Machiavelian insidiousness in his
pages which greatly enhances their danger to the morals of
the young and inexperienced, and they make up a very large
component part of the public.
* See Joshua vii., passim.
�SEXUAL ECONOMY.
True, the Divorce Court and the existence of such social
hideousness as was only too distinctly indicated by the
Mary Jeffries exposure may afford a pretext for a desperate
*
measure to counteract a desperate malady; but surely, in
the name of common sanity, to abolish the Divorce Court
by abolishing marriage, and to suppress houses of evil fame
by making all women courtesans, is a measure drastic even
to madness. Monogamic marriage may set up a standard
which is too high to be generally attainable; but all social
standards should be high, and public teachers should ever
be urging on the public conscience to an attempt to reach
the highest moral level. This, with its thousand faults,
Christianity, through its ministers, has not failed to do; and
we must not censure it too harshly because it has not
always succeeded. As long as Christianity insists on sexual
purity and restraint, and debars the transgressor from her
sacraments, she does the world a service which goes some
way to compensate for many crimes and errors of which
she has been guilty. As long as Freethought gives counte
nance and encouragement to sensuality, she perpetrates
against society an error and a crime for which all the good
she has done the world can hardly compensate. As long as
the Christian teaching as to sexual morals obtains and has
Society’s endorsement, the most pronounced evil-liver is
constrained to be remorseful that he has fallen short of the
standard; and that very feeling of remorse acts as a restraint
to still further excesses. But he who adopts the teachings
of “ The Elements ” has no high ideal up to which he
tries to bring the measure of his conduct; with him
there need be no remorse and no regrets; there is no
standard of purity after which to struggle and to strive;
there is only the inexpressible Malebolg£ of unbounded
sensuality and shameless lust: no woman you love that it is
not proper for another to love to-morrow; no maid such as
See the Sentinel for June, 1885.
�ADDENDUM.
59
has heretofore blessed the bridegroom’s arms, but only a
shameless and deflowered harlot who has responded to the
desires of others as she responds to yours; a social con
venience, like a drinking fountain or a chalet; a creature
liable to be called into use anywhere, at any time, and by
anybody, and who constantly carries a syringe in her muff,
in the name of Bradlaugh and “Freethought!”
Saladin.
��
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Sexual economy, as taught by Charles Bradlaugh, M.P. : with addendum by Saladin
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Agate, Peter
Ross, William Stewart
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 59 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Appears to have taken from a bound volume. Top edge gilded. Date of publication from KVK. Stamp on verso of t.p.: Bishopsgate Institute Reference Library. Part of another Bishopsgate stamp on p. 59. From the NSS pamphlet collection.
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W. Stewart & Co.
Date
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[1885?]
Identifier
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N041
Subject
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Sexuality
Birth control
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (Sexual economy, as taught by Charles Bradlaugh, M.P. : with addendum by Saladin), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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Text
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English
Birth Control
Charles Bradlaugh
Contraception
Joseph Barker
NSS
Sexual Behaviour
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Text
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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The population question according to T.R. Malthus and J.S. Mill giving the Malthusian theory of over-population
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Drysdale, Charles Robert
Description
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 94 p. ; 18 cm.
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Geo. Standring
Date
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1892
Identifier
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G4997
Subject
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Birth control
Malthusianism
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The population question according to T.R. Malthus and J.S. Mill giving the Malthusian theory of over-population), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Birth Control
John Stuart Mill
Malthusianism
Population Increase
T.R. (Thomas Robert) Malthus
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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The life and writings of Thomas R. Malthus
Creator
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Drysdale, Charles Robert [1874-1961.]
Malthus, T. R. (Thomas Robert) [1766-1834.]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 120 p. ; 18 cm.
Publisher
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Geo. Standring
Date
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1892
Identifier
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G4996
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Malthusianism
Birth control
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The life and writings of Thomas R. Malthus), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
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Text
Language
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English
Birth Control
Population
Population Increase
Thomas R Malthus
-
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PDF Text
Text
6.-2.S + 7
M -"S 0
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
Social Control of the Birth-rate
and
Endowment of Mothers.
BY
G. A. GASKELL.
“ The population question is the real riddle of the Sphinx, to which no politica
CEdipus has as yet found the answer. In view of the ravages of the terrible
monster, over-multiplication, all other riddles sink into insignificance.”—
Professor Huxley, “Nineteenth Century," J-an., 1890.
LONDON:
FREETHOUGHT
63
PUBLISHING
FLEET
STREET,
1890.
PRICE
COMPANY,
E.C.
TWOPENCE.
�LONDON :
PRINTED BY A. BONNER,
34 BOUVERIE STREET, FLEET STREET, E.C.
�Social Control of the Birth-rate and
Endowment of Mothers.
Dr. William Ogle, an experienced statistician and
official of the Registrar-General’s office, read a paper
before the Statistical Society on March 18th, 1890.
In it he says : “ the population of England and Wales
is, as we all know, growing in a most formidable
manner; and though persons may differ in their
estimates of the time when that growth will have
reached its permissible limits, no one can doubt that, if
the present rate of increase be maintained the date of
that event cannot possibly be very remote.”
On the subject of emigration as a remedy, Dr. Ogle
states: “the facilities for successful emigration are
yearly diminishing, and the time must inevitably come
—sooner or later—when this means of reducing our
population will altogether fail us.” What is needed,
and what we must come to eventually, is an equal
isation of the birth-rate and death-rate, producing
a stationary state of population. “ This equalisation”,
he says, “ can clearly only be effected either by increase
of mortality or by diminution of the birth-rate ; and as
no one will advocate the former, the problem of problems
which even now is vexing the souls of those who can
�( 4 )
look beyond the immediate future is how the birth-rate
is to be reduced.”
Fresh light is thrown by Dr. Ogle on the subject of
conditions affecting the marriage-rate in England and
Wales. He conclusively proves the usual opinion of
economists — that the marriage-rate varies inversely
with the price of wheat—to be erroneous. No such
relation exists, indeed the opposite is more nearly the
case. “ The marriage-rate varies not inversely, but
directly, with the price of wheat.” Tables are given to
show the facts of this relation for the years between
1820 and 1888. It is not an invariable rule, but usually
when the price of wheat is high, the marriage-rate is
high ; when wheat is low, marriages are fewer in number*
Now exceptions indicate that other important causes
exist to affect the marriage-rate and Dr. Ogle asks if
changes in the cost of food will not explain the fluctua
tions in the marriage-rate, what better explanation can
we find ? He carefully examines the tables of annual
variations in British exports and there he discovers a
certain ruling relation with fewer exceptions. He says :
“ The marriage-rate goes up and down synchronously
with the value of exports. This can clearly only be
because the changes in these values are an indirect
indication of corresponding changes in the employment
and the wages of the labouring classes; and it would be
desirable to obtain if possible some more direct measure
of these latter changes. Hunting about for such a
measure, I lighted, in the labour statistics of the Board
of Trade, upon the annual returns made by certain
trade unions in which were given for a series of years
the number of members on the books at the end of each
year, and also the average monthly number of such
�( 5 )
members who were in receipt of benefit as being out of
employ.” Dr. Ogle finds that a very close relation
exists between the number of unemployed in these trade
unions and the marriage-rate, which shows conclusively
that the marriage-rate fluctuations follow the fluctua
tions in the amount of industrial employment. Respect
ing “ the apparent paradox of increased marriages with
dearer food, and diminished marriages with cheaper
food ” he offers this explanation : “ Men marry, as we
have seen, in greater numbers when trade is brisk and
when the value of exports increases, but when the
exports increase so also do freights, and this rise in
freights causes a corresponding rise in wheat, the largest
part of our wheat being imported from abroad.”
He then goes on to adduce arguments which show
that for some time past there has been a slight retarda
tion of marriage in consequence of “ the ever-increasing
standard of comfort among all classes which makes men
and women unwilling to burden themselves with a
family until they are assured of a much higher income
than they would in former days have held to be suffi
cient.”
Again, in considering marriage-rate variations in the
different English counties, it appears that wherever
young women easily earn money in industrial occupa
tions, there marriages are earlier and also more
numerous.
The age at which marriage takes place is next under
consideration, and this is “a subject of scarcely less
importance than the rate in its bearing upon the growth
of the population.” Dr. Ogle finds here that the lowest
average age at marriage for both bachelors and spinsters
viz : 25-6 and 24-2 respectively, was in 1873, the year in
�( 6 )
which the marriage-rate was highest; and from that
date to the present time the ages have gone up gradually
but progressively in harmony with the general decline
in the marriage-rate.
In 1888 the average age of bachelors at marriage was
26'3 years and of spinsters was 24-7.
The reduction for spinsters has therefore only been
about six months for the whole period of fifteen years.
Now it is the ages of women at marriage which are all
important in regard to increase of population. “ There
is no reason to believe that a man who marries at thirty
will have a smaller family than a man who marries at
twenty as long as the wives are of one and the same
age.” Dr. Ogle refers to the work of Dr. Duncan on
“Fecundity, Fertility, and Sterility” and concludes
that “ the average duration of fertile marriage life for
women within child-bearing ages is, with the present
ages at marriage, 7-53 years, and that if all these women
delayed their marriages for five years the average dura
tion of fertility would be reduced to 5-53 years or by
26-6 per cent. He allows for the illegitimate birth-rate,
and finally reaches this summary : 11 in the very improb
able event of all women retarding their marriages for
five years, we should have a birth-rate of 23-3 per 1,000
doubtlessly a very great diminution of the present rate,
but still far too small a diminution to produce anything
like an equalisation of births and deaths.”
Dr. Ogle has no hope of such an increase of celibacy
among women as would effect the desired result in
combination with a five years’ retardation of marriage,
and he concludes his paper thus : “ It is manifest that
if the growth of population is hereafter to be arrested,
and a stationary condition produced, either by emigra-
�( 7 )
tion, or by increase of permanent celibacy, or by
retardation of marriage, these remedies will have to be
applied on a scale so enormously in excess of any
experience, as to amount to a social revolution.”
We are now in a position to realise the gravity of the
population question and to form some conception of the
great self-control that would be necessary throughout
the nation in order to effectually reduce the ominously
high birth-rate. A social revolution is indeed required,
though Dr. Ogle gives no hint as to the nature of it.
The vast section of degraded populace at the base of
our society renders hopeless any thought of this
necessary self-control arising among the mass of the
people under actual social conditions. Mr. G. Bernard
Shaw has admirably put the case in words addressed to
the propertied and employing classes. “ Your slaves ,
he says, 11 are beyond caring for your cries (of over
population), they breed like rabbits; and their poverty
breeds filth, ugliness, dishonesty, disease, obscenity,
drunkenness, and murder. In the midst of the riches
which their labour piles up for you, their misery rises
up too and stifles you. You withdraw in disgust to the
other end of the town from them ; you appoint special
carriages upon your railways and special seats in your
churches and theatres for them; you set your life apart
from theirs by every class barrier you can devise; and
yet they swarm about you still; your face gets stamped
with your habitual loathing and suspicion of them ....
they poison your life as remorselessly as you have
sacrificed theirs heartlessly.”1
Under an industrial system requiring the existence of
1 “ Fabian Essays in Socialism ”, page 21.
�( 8 )
the two classes—propertied employers and dependent
employed, there is no possibility of an effective redudtion
of the birth-rate. The warning of Malthus has been
prominently before all thoughtful persons for nearly a
century, nevertheless, to the mass of the people, it re
mains unknown or unheeded. Moreover an intimate
knowledge of the working class gives conviction that
the vast majority will put no curb on their procreative
power out of regard to the welfare of society, and very
little out of regard to their own future domestic comfort.
I am personally acquainted with working men who not
only agree to the principle of Malthus, but know also
the easy neo-Malthusian restraints; yet the families of
these men have quickly increased to the number of six
or more children. Obviously so long as the wage-earn
ing system seems always to give a chance for each
individual to be employed, and a promise to parents
that any number of children may also be remunera
tively employed, there is literally no force bearing upon
ordinary humanity to induce it to prudential limitation
of offspring by celibacy or any other means whatever.
You may point to France for some evidence to the
contrary ; and I do not deny that certain conditions—
such as peasant proprietorship—lead to some degree of
parental prudence; but France offers nothing towards
a complete solution of the great question. The degree
of prudence there practised does not accomplish the
desired end. The wage-workers of France are in as
miserable a condition as the same class in this and
other civilised countries. We may rest assured that
whatever be the degree of reduction of the birth-rate
arrived at under the present economic system, it will
fall far short of the reduction necessary for the pre-
�( 9 )
vention of the pressure on available subsistence. It
represents merely a recoil from that pressure already
existing and privately felt.
If we ask what it is that prevents the average majority
from adopting restraints that are necessary to the well
being of the entire nation, we must remember that at
present the moral relation between society and its indi
vidual members is a pious opinion rather than a tangible
unmistakeable faffi. To the non-criminal the solidarity
of society and his relation to the whole are principally,
almost solely, felt through the payment of rates and
taxes and by his exercise of the political and municipal
votes. Society is to the worker, from his industrial
position, scarcely existent. It recognises no duty to
cherish its members and help them to an honourable and
sufficient livelihood. Its posture is that of neutrality,
of absolute indifference. It leaves them to sink or swim
as fortune or ability may determine, and in this irre
sponsible attitude it has no demand for and no right to
claim reponsibility on the part of its members towards
itself. But the absence of this relation is disastrous in
the sphere of domestic and parental life. The having
or not having a family is looked on as purely a personal
matter. The State offers no assistance and imposes no
restraints. The cares of a family devolve on parents
alone, and all considerations of prudence begin and end
with the individuals directly concerned. It follows in
natural course that the ordinary man resents the inter
ference with his liberty of having as many children as
he pleases. If he feels any restraints to parentage,
these lie within himself and his immediate circle. The
gain or loss following from prudence or imprudence
falls upon himself; consequently his choice is ample
�( IO )
justification of his conduit, whatever that may be.
Prudent men may limit their families, but these are
not the majority; and so long as the imprudent populate
recklessly, it does not promote the welfare of general
society that the prudent should diminish the rate of
increase of their superior stock. Legislative restrictions
would be of no avail under present social conditions.
As long as each man fights for his own hand and
against his fellows in the struggle for existence, so long
will each feel himself free from responsibility to that
society which disclaims all important duties to him, and
whose attitude is always threatening and unsympa
thetic.
Premising that enough has been said to make clear
the fact that no effective reduction of the birth-rate
will take place in society as at present constituted, I
pass on to indicate the nature of the evolution neces
sary to accomplish that end. The evolution must be
primarily one of industrial and family conditions.
First, the State or Community must become respon
sible for the welfare of each of its adult members in so
far as to provide opportunities of work for all and
equalised remuneration to all. Second, the State must
endow legitimate motherhood and take upon itself the
expense1 of the rearing and educating of children, thus
bringing parents into direct relation with the State and
causing them to become responsible to it in the matter
of procreation.
This revolution could not be other than gradual,
whether the time were long or short. When completed
the whole aspect of the case in relation to restriction of
the birth-rate is altered. The entire community will
1 This does not imply interference with family life. Individuals
would be free to retain the isolated home or form groups in unitary
homes, precisely as they wished.
�have brought home to it the knowledge of the amount
of available food resources for all, since the State1 is
compelled to keep exact account of supplies in view of
its responsibility for the remuneration of universal
labour. But with food forthcoming useful work is
limitless, and every able worker is a source of wealth
to the community.
Poverty, however, is not the only cause of degrada
tion ; another fruitful source is sex-inequality, and that
must be rendered socially innocuous. State supported
motherhood is essential to the emancipation of women
from dependence on individual men. In the bearing of
a child a woman suffers more or less incapacity for
work during eleven months or one year. If the Com
munity does not support her at that period she falls
into the hands of a man for sustenance, or depends on
her diminished powers for earning a living. In either
case she bears a penalty for maternity beyond its
natural pains and obligations. On the other hand,
there goes with paternity no natural penalty; therefore,
clearly, to bring about social equality between the sexes
society must make up to the woman her social maternal
loss. Evolutionists are agreed in tracing the subjection
of woman to her reproductive disabilities; it follows
that her subjection can only be put an end to by those
reproductive disabilities being counterbalanced by the
State. That this logical outcome is the inevitable end
of the modern 11 woman movement ” must, I think,
become more and more evident to thoughtful minds
aware of the principal social tendencies of the age.
I need say nothing here in reference to the exact
form of communal support of mothers and children.
1 It is convenient to use the terms “ State” and “ Community ”,
but no opinion is expressed about the amount of centralisation
necessary for organisation of labour.
�( 12 )
It suffices to establish the principle of social equality,
which must originate and guide the coming revolution.
. Dr. Ogle’s paper powerfully forces upon an unpreju
diced mind the existence of a vital relation between
child-birth and the State. In “ Scientific Meliorism ”x
also the author points to this vital relation. “ The
marriage union”, she says, “is essentially a private
matter, with which society has no call and no right to
interfere. Child-birth, on the contrary, is a public
event. It touches the interests of the whole nation.”
Nor is the production of new members of a com
munity important only in respect of quantity, but .also
in respect of quality. Weak constitutions are a burden
to society ; inferior types are less useful than strong,
healthy, superior types.
No sooner does the State begin to exercise control
over parentage than maternity becomes a social as well
as an individual function. But true social relations
imply reciprocal duties, and prominently before the
public mind there stand out the duties of prospective
mothers to society and the duties of society to all
mothers who rightly fulfil the healthful conditions of
maternity. Legitimate motherhood is invested with
attributes of public respect, and moral forces obtain in
the momentous, vital sphere of reproduction.
I have said it is legitimate motherhood that must be
State supported ; by legitimate I mean marked by con
ditions of well-being and sanctioned beforehand by the
community. Illegitimate—that is ill-conditioned mater
nity—will carry the penalty of unassisted parental
support, for individuals who fail in their duties to the
1 “ Scientific Meliorism.” J. H. Clapperton. Page 320. See
also to the same effect, “ The Law of Population : its Meaning and
its Menace
A lecture, by J. M. Robertson. Published by R.
Forder, 28 Stonecutter Street, E.C. Price twopence.
�( i3 )
community are rightly considered to forfeit the help of
the community. This negative penalty would assuredly
act as a powerful deterrent in the direction required;
moreover it could not involve the difficulties of applica
tion attaching to any direct penalties under the present
system.
What is impossible in an unorganised,
degraded society, becomes easy when all members of a
community are educated, well-housed, and well-cared
for, and where communal protection of the individual
demands, and has to be met by, a strict regard on the
part of individuals to communal well-being. We must
glance now shortly at the difficulties of transition.
I have said that the social revolution will be gradual.
A sudden abolition of poverty and establishment of ease
of life would eventuate in what ? The death-rate would
quickly be lessened, the birth-rate vastly accelerated.
Young people would marry more heedlessly than they
do now. Artificial checks to conception would be
ordinarily neglected and the general result would inevit
ably prove a letting out of the flood-gates of increase.
Later the reappearance of general poverty followed by
famine, pestilence, and appalling mortality would
culminate in reduction of population to the limits of
available subsistence. But that this irrational round of
social license, disaster, suffering, death, will be played
out in a scientific age is inconceivable.
Let us look at the social forces resting upon human
intelligence, supported by the scientific knowledge and
material wealth of the age, on which we may depend
for the counteracting and overcoming of the danger.
Already we have a widespread educated opinion in
favour of the necessity for a diminished birth-rate,
which, being a true opinion will increase year by year
and be powerful during the coming revolution. We
have also, what never existed before, a scientific
�( 14 )
knowledge of natural laws, of social conditions, and of
Humanity’s powers and limitations, with a philosophic
conception of the varied relations that interpenetrate
and control the whole. The accelerated birth-rate will
be foreseen and steps taken to meet its requirements
by increased production of food. It is well-known that
by better cultivation of the land the produce of this
country may be easily doubled. This then will be done,
and time gained for the generation which is degraded
by present evil social conditions to die out. Meanwhile,
education for the new generation will be generously,
lavishly, provided. The momentous issues of education
are no longer ignored. It is seen that to spend on our
Board Schools four times the amount we now do, to
give free breakfasts and dinners to the children, no
matter at what cost, is a policy incalculably beneficial
in the long run. The essential points to be gained are
that the young should revolt from surroundings that
degrade and should be morally and intellectually
quickened to such impressions as will render them
social and useful as members of a society rapidly
advancing to better and happier conditions of life.
In the earlier stages of transition, state support of
motherhood can only be broached, not enacted. When
enacted it cannot be general, because it would only
apply to authorised parentage. But all prospective
parents would seek for similar advantages if possible,
unauthorised maternity would be discountenanced, and
an intelligent adoption of checks preventive of conception
would become universal. From this must follow in
natural sequence the steady reduction of illegitimate
parentage, and the birth-rate.
In this connection, too, let it be remembered that
women, free from men’s domination and able to earn
their living as readily and easily as men, will assuredly
�( i5 )
refuse to be constantly bearing children, to the injury
of their health and the crippling of their lives by ex
cessive gestation and nursing. Parentage is mainly a
woman’s question.
The community would thus gradually obtain control
over the production of its own all-important social
material, without which control it is simply impossible
to get rid of the evils of over-population and racial
deterioration.
How the individualist who abjures the organisation
of society implied by Socialism can have any reasonable
hope of the painless equalisation of the birth-rate and
death-rate I am at a loss to conceive. Effective Social
ism will but establish conditions rendering possible that
thorough moral control over the individual which is
necessary in order to curb his liberty of evil aCtion. In
an improved society we seek socialised freedom—less
liberty for bad conduct, more liberty for good conduit
and harmless personal action. This is the ideal of
Socialism on its ethical side.
Now so far I have taken the measures proposed for
restriction of population to include the neo-Malthusian
method, viz., artificial checks to conception. It cannot
be denied that these checks must make limitation of
births much easier for the majority of people. I have
shown the futility of the application of even these
checks in our present degraded and unorganised society.
How much more futile, then, is the suggestion of ultra
moralists who enjoin sexual abstinence both within and
without marriage! It is difficult to understand their
conception of the strength of average human passion.
They appear to think it so weak that the widespread
illicit intercourse of the sexes and sexual crime must be
to their minds without any adequate motive. Such a
misconception of human nature renders valueless the
�(
)
opinions on social reform set forth by these moralists.
Professor Geddes and Mr. J. A. Thomson have lately
published a generally excellent treatise on “ The Evolution
of Sex ”, In it, however, at page 297, this passage occurs:
“We would urge, in fadt, the necessity of an ethical
rather than of a mechanical prudence after marriage,
of a temperance recognised to be as binding on husband
and wife as chastity on the unmarried.” What is
meant by the temperance here recommended ? Surely
it is well-known that the birth of a large family is quite
consistent with an extremely sparing and temperate
exercise of the procreative function. Temperance has
no bearing here. As to consistent celibacy and its
counterpart within marriage, these states do not imply
“temperance” but total abstinence which is a wholly
different matter. But this appeal to people generally
for total» abstinence from a natural function during all
but a very short period of adult life can be regarded
only as an ill-considered attempt to mould humanity to
an arbitrary pattern of morality which either disregards
the essentials of human nature or stigmatises an
inalienable function as in some degree unworthy and
personally injurious.
We live in an age of artificial methods both in the
matter of wresting from nature our sustenance and much
that conduces to such comfort as we enjoy, and in the
matter of protecting ourselves from the evils that nature
may bring upon us. It is true that self-control is
necessary to restriction of the birth-rate but this does
not involve an intolerable repression of one of the
strongest and most social impulses of our nature.
Artificial method has already come to our help, and in
this scientific age we are not likely to refuse that help,
on the contrary, we are sure to use artificial method
and make it as effective as possible.
�
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Social control of the birth-rate and endowment of mothers
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Gaskell, G.A.
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references. Printed by A. Bonner, Fleet Street. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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1890
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Birth control
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Birth Control
Motherhood-England
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Population Increase
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■ 7'7,
•'■fu
LARGE OR SMALL FAMILIES?
ON WHICH SIDE LIES
THE BALANCE OF COMFORT?
BY AUSTIN HOLYOAKE.
To be publicly known as a Freethinker is not respectable, to be suspected
of Atheism is monstrous, and to be an avowed Malthusian is detestable!
These are weighty reasons why a man who wishes to- be “ thought well of
by his neighbours,” and who is “quite sure the world will go on well
enough without his interference,” should hold his peace, make money, and
die in the odour of respectable sanctity “universally regretted by a large
circle of acquaintances.*’ But to some men conscience is higher than
consequence. This may be their misfortune, but they are afflicted with the
infirmity of speaking out what they think, because they are infatuated
enough to imagine that what they have to say may benefit others. There
are the names of many men in history who have done this thing, generally
to their own loss, but to the world’s great advantage.
Without the vanity of insinuating that what I may say will ever be
recorded in history, and knowing that the force of the argument of the
present paper can only apply to certain states of society in certain coun
tries, I wish to record for the first time convictions which I have enter
tained for many years, believing and hoping sincerely that they will be
productive of benefit and not of evil to others.
That most delicate of all subjects, the Population Question, the news
papers generally shun lest they should lose caste, and the medical periodi
cals are dead against it. But then it is a question which presses for
solution more and more every day, and which underlies the happiness of
the great mass of the population in all old and over-populated countries;
it therefore becomes imperative that some one should endeavour to point
out a remedy, or at least a palliative for the widespread misery, suffering,
and disease which are kept up and perpetuated from generation to genera
tion. This topic has been dilated upon by men whose names will
be remembered in history, and all honour to them for their courage. The
Rev. Mr. Malthus, though his views in some respects I believe to have
been radically defective, did more good by the attention he called to this
question, than by all the dogmatic sermons he ever preached. Robert
Dale Owen, the worthy son of a worthy sire, wrote his invaluable tract
entitled “Moral Physiology;” Dr. Knowlton published his pamphlet
“ Fruits of Philosophyand later has appeared a work—to which is due
the honour of having revivified Subject which had become dormant from
the close of the Socialist agitation in 1844, till the time of its appearance
— “The Elements of Social Science.” Other works treat upon population,
from Mr. John Stuart Mill’s great treatise on “ Political Economy,”
down to a penny tract entitled “ Poverty: its Cause and Cure. ” This
question is the political problem of to-day, and he who solves it will be the
most useful man of his age.
�.Large or Small Families ?
Various schemes are propounded for the amelioration of the growing
want and misery of this country, such as Home Colonisation, Emigration,
Co-operation, Trades’ Unions, and the like. All writers and statesmen
admit the fact of an increasing population, and consequently an increasing
poverty, pauperism, and starvation. But this may be taken as an absolute
truth, that no one scheme could supply an universal remedy, the causes of
poverty and suffering in our civilised mode of life being so multifarious.
I do not intend to travel over the whole field of politics, or out of this
small country of ours. I wish to narrow the question to a very small
compass, and to individualise it; here is the root of the evil, and when
the root is diseased, neither branches nor leaves can be healthy.
England is a small island, and, in proportion to the land under cultiva
tion for human food, it is over-populated No one disputes that fact
The over-population produces disease, suffering, starvation, and death.
If instead of thirty, we had twenty millions of human beings, would there
not be a better chance of health and food for all ? Home colonists say that
as long as there is land in this country, it ought to be cultivated, and then
double the present number could be maintained. This is not to be disputed.
But supposing that by some grand act of legislation, the whole land of this
country were to be suddenly distributed to the people, and made to main
tain double the present population, how long would society be in a better
state than it is now? Just twenty-five years! But supposing it took
longer, still the inevitable result would ultimately come, unless some sys
tem of regulating the population were adopted. This island is limited,
and unless the people on it consent to limit their numbers, the evils from
which we now suffer, will not only not diminish, but will go on increasing.
I am not unmindful of the disproportions and inequalities which abound,
and which must be considerably modified before anything approaching to a
rational state of society can obtain. I have always warred against the
injustice of our societary arrangements, and I believe the efforts of the
social reformers of this century have been productive of lasting good to
our race. But in the present day, in spite of all the teaching and
preaching we have had during the last half century, we find ourselves in
the midst of a more widespread misery and starvation than perhaps
England has ever known before. We talk of the sacredness of human life,
but human life shares the fate of every other “ article ” which gluts the
market—it becomes depreciated in value; and it will, as amatter of course,
never rise in value so long as the supply is abundant. England’s weak
ness at this moment is her oyerwhelming population. We devise schemes
of emigration to get rid of those who are compelled to abandon the place
of their birth, and sever the ties of kindred and home, and seek for a sub
sistence in the uncultivated wilds of a foreign land thousands of miles
away from the associates of their youth and the friends of their maturity.
Let those who think it is a good thing that the Anglo-Saxon race should
people the world, watch the poor emigrants as the ships leave our shores,
and also look into the faces of the relatives and friends whom the expa
triated are parting with for ever, and t^n say if it would not be more
humane to prevent so much agony in the world. Granted there may be
plenty of beautiful spots on this globe which are suitable for new colonies,
still it is the last duty I should consider incumbent upon me to send my
children to inhabit them. It is no concern of mine, or any man’s in
particular, whether these places are populated or not. The aborigines of
every sparsely peopled country that the Anglo-Saxon race have seized
upon to which to carry the “ blessings of rum and true religion
�Large or Small Families ?
whether it be Africa, America, Australia, New Zealand, or elsewhere—
have never had reason to believe in the righteousness of the “ pale faces ”
over-running their land; for wherever Englishmen go, there they spread
vice, disease, and death among the “ untutored savages,” and never rest
till they have exterminated the ancient possessors of the soil.
More than nine-tenths of the natives of England would prefer to
remain in the land of their birth, if they could be ensured a moderate
return for their industry. The “ roving Englishman ” is generally a
person of means, who travels about the world for his own amusement,
knowing he can return at any moment he feels “ home sick.” The great
majority of people object to leave even the town in which they have been
reared, hence the crowding of large cities, London especially. And if
this question were confined to the town-life aspect of it alone, there would
be much to be said in favour of limitation. In fact, it is here that it
presses with such peculiar force upon the thoughtful artisan, the small
tradesman, and the professional man,
A working man in London, with a large family, if he be reflective, and
a person of some refinement, cannot have a happy home. The conditions
of happiness to him do not exist. He has no privacy, and the proper de
cencies of domestic life are not at his command. His children are not
surrounded by the necessary conditions to ensure their healthy training,
either physically or mentally. His eldest boy may be his pride, and he
thinks he would make a bright man if he could be sent to a good school for
a number of years; but then there are five or six others to be considered,
and in justice to them he cannot spend money in the education of one, which
is required for the food and clothing of the others. And so that wish of his
heart is thrust down, and the boy, instead of becoming a brilliant man in
some profession, is made a carpenter, a shoemaker, or blacksmith, and is
known in after years as “ Harry Despond, who would have been a clever
fellow if he had been educated when young?” And in times of trade
disputes, when the toiler is impelled to resist some reduction in his wages,
trifling though it may seem, but which will make the difference to him
between subsistence and semi-starvation—who is it who holds out longest
in “strikes” (those battles of the poor swarms against the rich few), he
who has one or two children, or the man who “ has a large number depend
ing upon him?” The thoughtless working man supplies the weapons for
his own defeat.
The small tradesmen—that large section of the population of England
who form what is called “ the lower middle-class”—are influenced in the
same degree, though in a different way. At periods of public excitement
—it may be a municipal election, or a general election, or when some dar
ing attempt of a retrograde Government is made to wrest from the people
one of their dearly-bought liberties—if you appeal to the small tradesman
for his active co-operation in the popular cause, you are constantly met by
the reply,I would if I dared, but then you know I have a large family
dependent up me; I would not care for myself, but I am bound to think of
them. My sympathies are entirely with you, but I am obliged to keep
quiet, for it is as much as I can do to pay rent and taxes, and keep the
wolf from the door.” And so the ever-present obstacle in this island, “ a
large family,” stands in the way of education, reform, social comfort, and
a thousand necessary and desirable changes. But to what do we mainly
owe this state of things ? Why, to that pestilential doctrine derived from
the Bible, “ Increase and multiply,” which is taught in our churches
as an “ ordinance of God, ” and which has been the cause of more crime
�4
Large or Small Families ?
and anguish in England than any other false doctrine that ever cursed the
land. No one is bound to increase and multiply, excepting it be perfectly
agreeable to him and suitable to his circumstances in life. No man is
master of his fate so long as he keeps on multiplying “ circumstances”
which control him at every turn.
The class of clerks in London are numbered by the thousand. They
may be in Government departments, in laweyrs’ offices, in banks, in mer
chants’ warehouses, and other places. They have to sustain the external
appearance of gentlemen, and their incomes are fixed, or if they increase,
it is only by slow degrees, providing they remain in one establishment for
a number of years. But as domestic matters are usually managed, their
responsibilities multiply yearly, and there is no corresponding increase of
means. And all know what a misery genteel poverty is. During the first
three or four years of the married life of a poor professional man, he can
manage to live in a decent neighbourhood in town ; but as time goes on,
he must either remove into an inferior locality, or move out of town into
the suburbs, as, having a number of children, he is “ objected to on
account of his family ” in every desirable house where he wishes to occupy
apartments only. And let every man reflect hew much he loses of rest, of
time, of money, and of opportunities of instruction, of amusement, or of
friendly intercourse, by being obliged to “catch a train” or an omnibus
every night of his life; and the same anxiety and excitement have to be
repeated every morning, when he who has to pursue a daily occupation
in town is compelled, by economical considerations, to live out of it. A
physician some time ago gave it as his experience, that the mortality
among city men whs lived out of town, was greatly in excess of that among
those who lived only a walking distance from their places of business,
owing to the excitement induced by anxiety to catch the train or omnibns
night and morning.
Hitherto I have viewed this question almost entirely ffom the man’s
point of view. But that is not the whole aspect of the case. There is the
woman’s, which is quite as important, as the happiness of the world may
be said to be in her keeping. The marriage state is the only rational and
moral state for the vast majority of adult human beings, and anything that
prevents or even hinders that, injures the individual and society. But
then the advocates of unlimited families do not hesitate to praise the pru
dence of the young man who says “ he cannot marry until he has made a
position in the world.” They surely cannot reflect upon the many evils
arising from delay. Look at the state of our streets, and read the pro
ceedings of the coroners’ courts. We are taught to regard with horror the
custom in China of regulating their population by killing a certain propor
tion of the female children; but what is the condition of London, where,
Dr. Lancaster says, the hands of thousands of mothers are imbrued in the
blood of their infants, and where specimens of “ God’s image ” done to
‘death may be picked up in the squares, on door steps, and fished out of
the river between the rising and setting of every sun ? Is this a state of
things to be pleaded for, and is there no remedy to be devised to put an
end to so much brutalising demoralisation ? If persons understood tha1 it
was possible to have early marriages and small families, a marked change
would be visible in society in a few years. In the present state of the
population in England, if every adult male were to take a wife, there
would then remain an enormous number of women without husbands.
Some persons think they see in the plan of Dale Owen and others, the door
opened to wide-spread immorality. This fear would be entitled to respect
�La/rge or Small Families ?
5
if the present state of society were perfect. There is no plan on 3ny sub
ject that may not be abused. In spite of the deadly consequences arising
from immorality now, thousands upon thousands of reckless and vicious
people abound who dare all consequences. Everybody agrees that the social
problem wants solving, and that “ some remedy ought to be devised," but
very few have the courage to broach this population question, owing to the
sneers and odium they have to encounce. The remedy now proposed can
be adopted by every individual as soon as its expediency is seen.
All men, generally speaking, not only admire their own wives, but are
gratified when other people speak approvingly of their healthy and
pleasing looks after years of married life. But those men who admire their
wives most, are too often reckless of the charms which win admiration.
Constantly do we hear it said by persons when speaking of married women
—“ Ah, I knew Mrs.------ before she was married. She was one of the
prettiest girls in our neighbourhood a few years ago; but she has had
children so fast, that she is a complete wreck of her former self.” This is
of so common occurrence, that almost every adult person knows a case in
point. But how cruel all this is to the woman. No man, however philoso
phical he may be, or however “ high ” his moral principles, feels the same
interest in a faded wife, as he does in a bright and healthy one. There
are exceptions, of course, but in the overwhelming majority of cases, the
deterioration of the wife arises from the selfishness of the husband. Man first
destroys the greatest charm of his life, and then has the “ consolation" of
knowing that he is the author of his own misery. He who is blessed with
a wife who retains the bloom of youth through a number of years, glides
into the vale of life unconscious of a thousand troubles which rack the
souls of men not so fortunately circumstanced. There is much talk about
conservatism in politics; but if there were a little more thought devoted to
conservatism in domestic life, it would be better for the human race. In
married life, the domestic affections may be more perfectly realised by a
small family than a large one, and the truest love and the most generous
consideration go hand in hand.
It has been frequently maintained, that the children of large families
make better men and women than those of small ones, because, having to
go out into the world from the earliest age, they learn to “ rough it, ”
whereas the children of small families are brought up more tenderly, and
are apt to be a little pampered. It is undeniable that two children only
in a family are more likely to be better nurtured than four or six, but that
they are always spoiled thereby, is no more true than that the roughly
“dragged up” always make industrious and useful citizens. If there be
any truth in the alleged refining influence of education and good surround
ings, the balance of probabilities is against the roughly trained being so
useful in the world as the cultivated. And at what a cost is this “ rough
and vigorous ” member of society produced. The mother of a numerous
progeny risks her life eight or ten times, besides passing the best portion
of her existence in continual suffering. A grave charge made by oppo
nentsis, that to check the population is an “ abnormality,” and must im
pairs the health of both man and woman. This is not true; but if it were,
it would be easy to show that the ailments forced upon women in a
“natural” way, far exceed any possible to arise from an exercise of
prudence. In hundreds, nay thousands of families in this country, the
doctor and the undertaker are constantly in attendance; and where such
is the case, who can say that there is a “home,” in the true sense of
that term, for either the father or r >ther? With a large family, the
�6
La/rge or Small Families ?
father is never free from the harassing care of providing the means for
their bare subsistence. A working man who has to support six or eight
besides himself, has little leisure and small desire to cultivate his own mind,
and this is a fact worthy of consideration by all who wish well to the
present generation. The most delightful impulses of our mature years are
excited and called forth by the love of children, but the impulses are
always checked, and sometimes almost obliterated, when anxiety and de
privation enter the house. To preserve the happy medium is a wise
economy of the small share of happiness which falls to the lot of man.
(It must not be forgotten, that the whole of my arguments have
special reference to the working classes, of whatever degree.)
Duggan, the man who recently murdered his wife and six children,
and then committed suicide, might have been alive and compara
tively happy, and the world have been saved the remembrance of an
appalling crime, if he had had two children instead of six. He was a
journeyman silversmith with a moderate wage, and for eight persons to
be sustained out of so limited an income, meant semi-starvation, with no
education for the children, and perpetual drudgery for the mother, for how
was she to maintain a servant out of her scanty weekly allowance ? Dug
gan was a man of weakly body, and possibly weakly mind, and had he
been relieved of sixty-six per cent, of his “ responsibilities,” in all
probability he would have been able to have borne his burden through
life.
Children who are well cared for and gently reared, experience in their
early days the purest and most unalloyed happiness that life can give.
But how few members of large and poor families ever wish to pass their
childhood over again. And if one or both parents should die early, how
rarely is it that more than two or three out of a family of six or eight
ever “do well.” Their number is a bar to their prospects, and their
relatives being totally unable to provide for such a “ swarm,” they are
left to the tender mercies of an already over-stocked society, and their
destiny becomes impossible of calculation.
It is urged, that to interfere with the domestic relations, will be to press
with peculiar hardship upon the poor. I think this is a mistaken notion.
I have been endeavouring to show that the tradesman and professional
man, as well as the artisan, would be more independent with fewer “ en
cumbrances,” as the supposed child-loving population designate children;
but the poor man, in consequence of his poverty, has most to gain by pru
dence. The real objection underlying the opposition, though it is not openly
expressed, is the idea of the deprivation of pleasure supposed to be involved.
But this by no means follows. And if it were so, I think I have shown
that it would be but tbe substitution of one advantage for a greater. Earl
Russell, in a non-Parliamentary address, said, a few years ago, that life
was a “compromise.” He was certainly right, look at life as we may.
The same passion or desire, though felt by all, does not operate in all with
the same intensity. Some require more sleep than others, but they can
not indulge in it if their position in life does not admit of it. One man has
an inordinate craving for drink, but when he gratifies it at tbe expense of
his means and his sobriety, all “ society ” condemn him. Another has a
dainty appetite, and must have expensive dishes and plenty of them—he
is an epicure, A sluggard who is selfish, will only work half a day, when
he ought, to keep his family in decent circumstances, t© labour a whole
one—him we shun as lazy. But the man who has ten children, when he
can only keep two, we pity, and subscribe for, and regard as unfortunate.
�Large or Small Families ?
1
But where is the difference? Why should one passion or desire have
more immunity than the others?
Some opponents of the practice of limiting the population, urge that the
future state of society should be considered, and profess to dread the pros
pect of the world being without inhabitants. I confess that this consider
ation does not disturb me. In fact, I do not consider it incumbent upon
me to provide for a “ possible ” future. I am interested in the improve
ment of the present state of society, and I feel perfectly assured the future
populations of this globe will be more likely to know how to regulate
their own affairs than we are. The present generation being anxious to
control the future, is like a miser wishing to dispose of his wealth even
after his death. The great difficulty in politics is how to get rid of the
laws and restrictions bequeathed to us by our ancestors, who were no
doubt very solicitous that people in after ages should be “ well governed,”
forgetting that every new generation has fresh ideas and fresh require
ments.
I never heard but one argument, from a national point of view, against
limiting the population, which struck me as possessing any force, and it is
this. It is said, and said justly, that the thoughtful people who are
capable of self-control, are the best citizens; and if they reduce their own
numbers, by limiting their families, they are virtually abandoning society
to the vicious and improvident classes—the swarms who generate and
overspread the land like some of the prolific lower animals. This is a
little startling to the man who is desirous, not only of improving present
society, but that which is to follow. But hitherto the competition between
the two classes has not been very encouraging, for while “ every day a
wise man dies, every minute a fool is bom.” Of course it will be urged,
why seek to lessen the chances of the inferior classes being counter-balanced
by the superior? I think the prudence inculcated by the system of early
marriages and small families will not have that effect, for it is not exclu
sively from the lower, or even the lowest class that all criminals spring.
The younger sons and daughters of middle and upper class parents, having
the notions of “gentility ” without the means, frequently have recourse to
questionable practices to keep up “appearances.”
This question, viewed physiologically, to the student of human nature
is a most interesting one. Our present system of haphazard marriages
is productive of a great deterioration of the human race. Unions
are daily contracted between people who ought never to come to
gether, and if the evil could be limited to the contracting parties,
it would be of inestimable advantage to society. There are also others
who are attracted to each other by the strongest feelings of love,
and to prevent their marriage would be a real hardship; but for such
people to become parents is a crime. Robert Owen was a firm believer in
the influence of circumstances in the formation of character, and advocated
the surrounding of every individual at birth with superior associations, in
order to develop the good, and suppress the evil, tendencies of their natures.
This is sound and rational. But a vast amount of disease and vice would
oe prevented if the “ education ” commenced earlier—namely, if parents
Were only to have children when they themselves were perfectly healthy,
and when their means would allow of their properly nurturing and educat
ing all their offspring alike. The late Pierrepont Greaves was a strong
advocate of this system of regenerating the world, and was somewhat op
posed to Robert Owen’s doctrine of circumstances. Robert Owen’s cele
brated saying was this—“ Man’s character is formed for him and not by
�8
Large or Small Families ?
him." Mr. Greaves formulated his thesis thus—" As being is before
knowing, so education can never remedy the defects ef birth." There is a
world of truth in both sayings, and if Greaves were acted upon first,
and Robert Owen afterwards, a few generations hence would be the
heritors of sound bodies and sound minds; and the enormous sums now
spent in doctors to cure diseases which need never exist, in parsons who
flourish out of the superstition engendered by ignorance, and the policemen
and jailors who are employed to punish the vice and crime arising from
defective organisations and immoral training—might be devoted to schools
where real knowledge would be taught, and in the purchase of necessaries'
for domestic happiness, without which no family is free to develop to the
full its mental and moral attributes.
There is no possibility of gainsaying the fact, that this country is overpopulated, that at our usual rate of increase it must always remain so, and
not only not improve, but gradually grow worse. There is only one of two
ways of relieving the over-stocked labour market, and that is by death or
emigration, and either one is a calamity from which we all instinctively
shrink. I have not considered the state of any other country than Eng
land, and I have not directed my remarks to any other, whether continen
tal or American. The social problem at home presses for solution, and in
adducing this as a remedy for much of the evil which threatens to over
whelm us, 1 do not pretend that it is free from objection, but I do submit
that it is worthy of serious consideration.
In this tract I have endeavoured to show, that persons of a ** philoso
phical ’’ turn of mind may marry early and avoid the evils of delay; may
cultivate the domestic affections at a moderate cost of health and anxiety;
may conserve the charms which yield the keenest joy in wedded life; may
ensure to their offspring sound bodies and sound minds; may train those
minds to the fullest extent and under the happiest circumstances; may keep
their children around them and get them well placed; may control their
own fate and maintain their independence; and if my conclusions be sound,
there can be little doubt on which side lies the balance of comfort.
[Those who are not acquainted with the practical remedies, will find all
necessary information in the little tract “ Poverty: its Cause and Cure,”
price one penny. J
PRICE ONE PENNY.
London: Printed and Published by Austin & Co., 17, Johnson’s Court,
Fleet Street, E.C.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Large or small families? On which side lies the balance of comfort?
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Holyoake, Austin
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 8 p. ; 18 cm.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
[Austin & Co.]
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[n.d.]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G4952
Subject
The topic of the resource
Birth control
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Large or small families? On which side lies the balance of comfort?), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Birth Control
Marriage
Population Increase
Poverty
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Fruits of Philosophy: or, The Private Companion of Young Married Couples
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 40 p.
Notes: Pre-1877 copy of 'Fruits of Philosophy: or, The Private Companion of Young Married Couples', by Charles Knowlton, MD, printed by Austin & Co., (c.1832).
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Knowlton, Charles, 1800-1850
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1832
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Austin & Co.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Birth control
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Fruits of Philosophy: or, The Private Companion of Young Married Couples), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
NSS/7/6
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
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A language of the resource
English
Birth Control
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NSS
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Fruits of Philosophy: or, The Private Companion of Young Married Couples
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 40 p.
Notes: Pre 1877 copy of 'Fruits of Philosophy: or, The Private Companion of Young Married Couples', by Charles Knowlton, MD, printed by James Watson, (c.1832).
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Knowlton, Charles, 1800-1850
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1832
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
James Watson
Subject
The topic of the resource
Birth control
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<div class="field two columns alpha"><a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a> </div>
<div class="element-text five columns omega">
<p><span>This work (Fruits of Philosophy: or, The Private Companion of Young Married Couples), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span></p>
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Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
NSS/7/7
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The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
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English
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Fruits of Philosophy: or, The Private Companion of Young Married Couples
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 40 p.
Notes: Pre 1877 copy of 'Fruits of Philosophy: or, The Private Companion of Young Married Couples', by Charles Knowlton, MD, printed by James Watson, (c.1832). Includes a preface by the publisher.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Knowlton, Charles, 1800-1850
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1832
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
James Watson
Subject
The topic of the resource
Birth control
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<div class="field two columns alpha"><a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a> </div>
<div class="element-text five columns omega">
<p><span>This work (Fruits of Philosophy: or, The Private Companion of Young Married Couples), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span></p>
</div>
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
NSS/7/8
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Birth Control
Health
NSS
Women