526 PLAIN FACTS FOE OLD AND YOUNG 



lar act within a month. One reason why the offspring 

 suffer is that the seminal fluid deteriorates very rap- 

 idly by repeated indulgence. The spermatozoa do not 

 have time to become mature, and progeny resulting 

 from such immature elements will possess the same 

 deficiency; hence the hosts of deformed, scrofulous, 

 weazen, and idiotic children which curse the race, and 

 testify to the sensuality of their progenitors. Another 

 reason is the physical and nervous exhaustion which 

 the parents bring upon themselves, and which totally 

 unfits them to beget sound, healthy offspring. 



Often the effects of this evil may be traced in a 

 large family of children, nearly all of whom show 

 traces of the excesses of their parents. It commonly 

 happens, too, that such large families are on the hands 

 of poor men who cannot earn enough to give them 

 sufficient food and comfortable clothing, with nothing 

 whatever to provide for their education. The over- 

 burdened mother has her strength totally exhausted 

 by the excessive demands upon her system incident to 

 child-bearing, so that she is unable to give her children 

 that culture and training which all children need. 

 More than likely she feels that they were forced upon 

 her, and hence she cannot have for them all that ten- 

 der sympathy and affection a mother should feel. The 

 little ones grow up ignorant, and often vicious; for 

 the want of home care drives them to the street. Thus 

 does one evil create another. 



It is certainly a question which deserves some atten- 

 tion, whether it is not a sin for parents to bring into 

 the world more children than they can properly care 

 for. If they can rear and educate three children i^rop- 

 erly, the same work would be only half done for six; 

 and there are already in the world a sufficiency of half- 



