62 Human Physiology. 



much larger proportion of the men of the middle and upper 

 classes are worse more selfish, more reckless and cruel, more 

 abandoned to debauchery. Women have more excuse. They 

 are ignorant; bad conditions and associations deprave them 

 almost from their infancy; they are the victims of want, of 

 loneliness, of love. Men have seldom any of these excuses. 

 They simply seek a sensual gratification, regardless of conse- 

 quences. Multiply the number of women in England who 

 .abandon themselves to promiscuous intercourse by the 

 average number of *men with whom each one associates, 

 and you have the number of men who are in like manner 

 abandoned. 



The inequality of the sexes may have some influence on the 

 demoralisation of women. There are in England and Wales 

 between 300,000 and 400,000 women more than men of 

 marriageable age. Of women between 20 and 40, 58 in 100 

 are married; 3 in 100 widows; 39 in 100 live in celibacy; and 

 to a large portion of these to 27 in 100 celibacy is a 

 necessity, from which nothing but emigration or polygamy can 

 save them. The young men of England go to America, 

 Australia, the army or navy; the women are left in a condition 

 which many consider very dangerous and deplorable. When 

 two-fifths of the women of a country are single and must so 

 remain, a certain number must be expected to find some sub- 

 stitute for a condition sought and envied, but which fate has 

 denied them. 



The selfish disregard of the moral condition of the lower 

 classes by those in a higher position is curiously shown in the 

 custom of ladies advertising for single women as wet nurses for 

 their children. The Pall Mall Gazette copied some time ago, 

 I think from the Times, two advertisements like this "Wet 

 Nurse, Single, aged 25. Baby a month old." The fact of 

 being single was paraded as a special qualification. Ladies 

 prefer unencumbered nurses, but what becomes of the nurse's 



