National Deterioration 81 



* It has not yet, as far as I know, been 

 dealt with from the standpoint of science. 

 I have already asked for proof that the town 

 population is " exterminated." Death-rates 

 give little information ; many rural denizens 

 retire to towns to pass their old age, or, when 

 ill, to be treated in town hospitals. Accidents 

 are naturally more frequent in towns. And 

 until these factors have been discriminated by 

 modern statistical methods, and the migration 

 problem thoroughly discussed, no answer is 

 possible. And, lastly, as to the vexed question 

 of deterioration, who can safely say anything 

 on this point ? The deterioration must be 

 in the sedentary population of the towns, 

 and the problem must not be obscured by 

 the emigration into the towns of the wastrel 

 population of country districts. Admit a 

 larger proportion of degenerates in certain 

 towns than in certain rural districts, has any- 

 one investigated whether their stock is urban 

 or rural ? In almost every rural village in 

 England mentally defective children will be 

 found, not, of course, segregated as they are 

 in the special schools of big towns. But can 

 anyone yet tell us the proportions of rural 

 mentally defective children, of urban mentally 

 defective children born to sedentary parents, 

 and of the same class born to rural immi- 

 grants largely of the wastrel type ? Sir 

 James Crichton- Browne may be correct in 

 his second source of national deterioration, 

 but his presentment of it bristles with 



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