MANIFESTED IN HUMAN SOCIETY 131 



fertile. Human nature is very adaptable. No one 

 would assert that slaves are less subject to hunger and 

 thirst than free men. Why, then, should the sexual 

 appetite fail ? Nitti attributes this alleged infertility 

 to despair ; but he also attributes the excessive fertility 

 of poor races and classes to the same cause. It is not 

 clear why despair should cause excessive fertility in one 

 case and sterility in another. The evidence all goes to 

 prove that slaves are generally fertile. The serfs of 

 medieval Europe and Russia must have been very fertile, 

 as is evident from the fact that they maintained their 

 numbers in spite of an enormous deathrate. The negroes 

 in America and the Israelites in Egypt were also very 

 fertile. At the period immediately preceding the fall 

 of the Roman Empire it is asserted that nearly one-half 

 of the population of Italy consisted of slaves, and this 

 does not suggest infertility. 



In the case of the negroes of the Northern United Statea 

 the degree of fertility was much greater than among the 

 whites in the days of slavery. After emancipation and 

 with the general improvement in the standard of living 

 the negro birthrate began to show the usual symptoms. 

 " At the beginning of the nineteenth century the southern 

 negroes were increasing much faster than the southern 

 whites. At the end of it they were increasing only about 

 three-fifths as fast." l The civil war and emancipation 

 which brought improvement to the lot of the negro brought 

 financial disaster to his masters. The Southern States 

 are the poorest and most backward, and they contain 

 large numbers of " poor whites " whose condition is little 

 if at all better than that of the negroes. It is significant 

 that there appears to have been as yet no serious decline 

 in the white birthrate in the South. " We have seen 

 1 Races and Immigrants in America, John R. Common. 



