CORRESP ONDENCE. 



843 



others : mhere they were succeeded by icomen, 

 those women are there yet. Of the five women 

 who were there then, three remain, one hav- 

 ing quit on account of ill health, the other 

 for what cause I do not know. What does 

 this record show of the "transitory nature" 

 of woman's work as compared with man's ? 

 Mrs. Morgan might pleasantly spend her 

 leisure time in gathering statistics on this 

 subject in her own city ; it would probably 

 give her subject for thought, and would 

 beyond doubt dispel her illusion that " wom- 

 an is an anomaly in a business office among 

 business men," or show her that the anomaly 

 occurs so often that it has grown to be the 

 rule Respectfully, 



Lucy S. V. King. 

 25 FiEBT Street, Chattanooga, Tbnk. 



POPULATION AND THE FOOD-SUPPLY. 

 Editor Popular Science Monthly : 



In Prof. Huxley's article, " The Struggle 

 for Existence," he states the obvious fact 

 that " so long as the natural man increases 

 and multiplies without restraint, so long will 

 peace and industry . . . necessitate a struggle 

 for existence as sharp as any that ever went 

 on under the regime of war." But this 

 promptly suggests the important modifica- 

 . tion that all classes of men do not increase 

 equally. " Punch's " humorous statistics a 

 quarter of a century ago gave to the well-to- 

 do quarters of the town an average of only 

 half a baby to each house ! More serious 

 observation shows, from the yeast-plant up, 

 a steadily diminishing rate of increase, pyra- 

 mid-like, until the cap-stone is reached — an 

 average human family consisting of five per- 

 sons, the three children replacing the parents, 

 with only one to spare. But the cap-stone 

 itself diminishes to a point. The human race 

 differs in fecundity — the worst nourished and 

 most emotional being the most prolific, and 

 the best fed and the best poised intellectually 

 producing not enough to maintain their own 

 numbers. The Dutch numbered about two 

 millions. They created their country largely 

 out of the ocean, and survived a mud ava- 

 lanche of cruelty and brute force. In South 

 Africa, Java, New York, and elsewhere, they 

 have been a permanent force, as well as in 

 science, literature, arts, and arms. But their 

 numbers have not greatly increased. On the 

 other hand, the natives of the south of Ire- 

 land have been decimated by famines and 

 chronic insufficiency of food They have 

 founded no distinctly Irish colonies anywhere, 

 but contented themselves with adhering close- 

 ly to Anglo-Saxon communities in all parts of 

 the world, which contact they declare to be 

 mjurious to them. It is claimed that their 

 numbers have increased in recent times from 

 about six millions to thirty millions, more 

 or less. Eminent men, like George Wash- 

 ington, leave few or no descendants. Napo- 

 leon, as the fruit of two marriages, had one 



child. Hardly any of the peerages in the 

 House of Lords, consisting of some four hun- 

 dred members, are more than two hundred 

 years old, and if, as proposed, no new peer- 

 ages should be created, the hereditary legis- 

 lators would become extinct — the object 

 aimed at by the proposal. The present tend- 

 ency of civilization referred to by Huxley, 

 to sacrifice the best to the worst perpetual- 

 ly, would seem at first sight to reduce the 

 whole to a dead level of the worst possible. 

 But further reflection shows the effect to be 

 to raise the whole mass from the bottom. 

 If the mass can be well fed, refined, and 

 intelligent. Nature will no longer throw off 

 such frightful numbers of rudimentary men, 

 but will be as niggardly of human beings as 

 she now is chary of perpetuating great intel- 

 ligences. In this direction there is hope that 

 the problem may be solved. 



The possible food-supply is encouraging. 

 The census of 1860 showed that the maize- 

 crop of the Mississippi Valley, if turned into 

 its equivalents of beef and bread, would feed 

 sixty millions of people. The food-resources 

 of the sea have hardly been touched. All 

 the fish known to have been caught by man's 

 device would not make one school of the 

 most numerous kinds. The position of the 

 human race in regard to the visible but un- 

 available food-supply resembles that of hun- 

 gry young children surrounded by square 

 miles of ripe, waving grain and countless 

 herds of beef-cattle. S. H. Mead. 



EusTis, Fla. 



THE EAENED DECREASE. 

 Editor Popular Science Monthly : 



The argument of Mr. Joel Benton, in his 

 article in the June number of the " Monthly," 

 on " Earned Decrease vs. Unearned Incre- 

 ment," seems to be in several places quite 

 defective. It scarcely touches the weakest 

 points of Mr. George's theory at all. 



It is argued by Mr. Benton : " If society 

 has a claim upon this profit" (the "unearned 

 increment") "in the socialistic way, which 

 George and his followers claim it has, then, 

 to make the equities right and even, it ought 

 to shoulder, without a whimper, the losses 

 which have befallen the land-owners who have 

 suffered from the ' earned decrease.' " Ptcal- 

 ly, however, if the matter is looked at in the 

 proper light, it seems that the " earned de- 

 crease" offers, so far as land in the economic 

 sense is concerned, no complication at all. 

 Suppose that society asserts its claim to all 

 the land, and becomes the owner de facto. 

 Then, as to subsequent gains or losses in 

 land-values, it is plain that society must enjoy 

 the one and suffer the other, for, wherever 

 social aggregation should bring increased 

 value to land, society, under the George plan, 

 would experience the benefit through greater 

 rents ; and wherever social dispersion should 

 lower the value of land, society would sustain 

 the loss through decreased rents. As to pre- 



