PHYSICAL DEGENERATION OF THE PEOPLE 245 



are far below any European nation in these test stan- 

 dards of national physique, and, indeed, actually below 

 the standard of alien races in our midst: — the Jewish 

 children, for example. There is also equally indisputable 

 evidence that, among the children of the poor, over 80 

 per cent, of them suffer from imperfect and rotten teeth : 

 an infallible sign of physical deterioration. 



Here, again, we have to ask : — why? 



Why should the British people, of all people in the J[ere t'^e^^uch 

 civilised world, be singled out for this fearful yet un- Misery and 



J ,. ^ Degradation? 



deserved degradation? 



What have they done that their rulers should take 

 upon themselves the awful responsibility of pauperising 

 a people, and reducing them to a state of misery, the 

 like of which can find no parallel in any State of Europe, 

 or in any civilised country in the world? 



Why should our people be driven from healthy, life- 

 giving occupations in the wholesome open country and 

 herded together, like sheep in a pen, in the crowded and 

 unhealthy purlieus of great cities, where it is known they 

 live in hard, grinding poverty, and in a foul atmosphere 

 of moral and physical degradation? 



Why is it that millions of our fellow countrymen and 

 women and children should be reduced to a condition 

 that excites the pity of the more fortunate of the 

 British people, as well as the wonder of all foreigners, 

 and which demands the outpouring of copious and ever- 

 flowing streams of charity from State and Public? — why? 



Let the Governments, past and present, answer. 



Let those political parties, which have been using the 

 people's interests to serve their own needs, answer. 



