The 

 Human 

 Harvest 



[64] 



been placed on imbecility and disease. The 

 cretin has mated with the cretin^ the goitre 

 with the goitre, and charity and religion 

 have presided over the union. The result is 

 that idiocy is multiplied and intensified. The 

 cretin of Aosta has been developed as a new 

 type of man. In fair weather the roads about 

 the city are lined with these awful paupers 

 — human beings with less intelligence than 

 the goose, with less decency than the pig. 

 The asylum for cretins in Aosta is a veri- 

 table chamber of horrors. The sharp words 

 of Whymper are fully justified: — 



" A large proportion of the cretins who will 

 be born in the next generation will undoubt- 

 edly be offsprings of cretin parents. It is 

 strange that self-interest does not lead the 

 natives of Aosta to place their cretins under 

 such restrictions as would prevent their il- 

 licit intercourse; and it is still more surpris- 

 ing to find the Catholic Church actually 

 legalizing their marriage. There is some- 

 thing horribly grotesque in the idea of sol- 

 emnizing the union of a brace of idiots, and, 

 since it is well known that the disease is 

 hereditary and develops in successive gen- 



