of independence, and what some deem an excessive love of comfort, are loath to lose their freedom and sacrifice their ease for the supposed duty of preserving the species and giving citizens to the nation ; and they either abstain from having any offspring or restrict it within such limits as will permit them to preserve their station in society and the comforts to which they have grown accustomed. In corroboration of this view of the matter attention has been called to the great prolificness of the French population of Canada, which by far exceeds the prolificness of the English. Another fact that may, perhaps, be quoted as pointing in the same direction is that public opinion, far from lamenting the growing infecundity, as if it were a national misfortune, rather considers it the result and expression of wisdom, while for prolificness it has nothing but reproach and derision. "A family of five or six children," says Dr. J. Rochard,"[1] "was once a normal thing; today it is considered a real calamity. The unfortunate parents are not only blamed, but pitied, which is worse ; and, what is the worst of all, they are laughed at." To the same effect is M. de Vogue's ironic remark : "We have children sometimes; that still happens."[2]
A more significant feature of this acquiescence of the French nation in the voluntary restrictions on multiplication is to be found in the indifference with which, according to some high authorities, abortion and infanticide are regarded. M. Levasseur states that the chances of death are twice as great among illegitimate as among legitimate children, and accepts in part the explanation, given by Bertillon, that illegitimates are purposely killed by parents, especially mothers, either by depriving them
- ↑ Hygiène sociale, p. 322.
- ↑ "Les enfants, on en a quelquefois; cela arrive encore" (Revue des Deux Mondes, 1er nov. 1889, p. 189). Both this and the preceding quotation are taken from Van Der Smissen, La population, p. 392.
en France n'ont pas beaucoup d'enfants parce qu'elles ne veulent pas en avoir beaucoup," and adds that, " were it necessary to produce testimony, there would be no lack of physicians, trusted with the secrets of the higher classes, to attest the fact." Bertillon, himself a physician, is of opinion that "on peut aujourd'hui en France faire des enfants tout aussi bien qu'en 1856, seulement on en fait moins."
