A FAMILY OF DEGENERATES 125 



tion to accentuate their social misdeeds. Everyone 

 who has a first-hand knowledge ol" the conditions of 

 dysgeny that exist in the ranks of the thriftless and 

 degenerate is aware of the wholesale disregard 

 shown by such for the marriage bond and the rife- 

 ness of illegitimacy even under existing conditions. 

 To debar legal marriage to these, to impose extra 

 formalities, especially if they tended to be either 

 of an irksome or of an expensive nature, would only 

 serve to place a premium on promiscuity and on 

 illegitimacy, not to promote eugenics, or to hinder 

 the perpetuation of what the nation can well be 

 without. 



Other alternatives there are, of which perhaps 

 the most widely advocated at the present time is 

 wholesale segregation. To round up the hopelessly 

 debased, the insane, and all the other representa- 

 tives of undesirable stocks, and then to allow 

 them to lead happy, useless lives, sheltered and 

 comforted till a long-deferred period is at last put 

 to their protracted senilit}^ by the slow decay of 

 Nature, would, if attempted on any but that scale 

 at present available to amiable and amateur private 

 philanthropy (as is already attempted in some parts 

 of the country) lead to the imposition of such an 

 intolerable biirden of taxation upon the remaining 

 portion of the community as would speedily 

 render the attempt unworkable. Any attempt 

 to enforce the adoption of segregation on a scale 

 such as would alone be of practical utility could 

 otherwise only end in an intolerable national burden. 



