THE EEGULATION OF NUMBERS 273 



the more primitive peoples of India, who in many respects are 

 comparable to the races of the second group but who have been 

 to some extent influenced by Eur-Asiatic culture and the chief 

 races of India and China. Those races which fall under the 

 second and third headings are predominantly agricultural ; 75 per 

 cent, of the population of Bengal, for instance, is supported directly 

 or indirectly by agriculture. Whether, as in many parts of India, 

 the village community system obtains,^ or whether, as in China, 

 there is family or individual ownership of the land,^ what was 

 said above regarding the possibility of the desirable number 

 making itself felt also applies here. So also does what was there 

 said about the position of the artisan and wage-earner. As 

 a typical example of the manner in which the pressure is felt 

 where the family system obtains in an agricultural community, 

 we may take the conditions in China as described by two Chinese 

 authors. ' In a village the well-to-do family is a rare exception, 

 and the typical family is the working-class family. The father is, 

 as a rule, a husbandman, and the sons follow his footsteps. If 

 they do not possess a piece of land of their own they cultivate 

 either the land of the ancestral hall, of the village temple, or that 

 of any private owner. The mother, daughter, and daughter-in-law 

 do the household work together, and also add considerably to the 

 family income by such employment as may be carried on in the 

 home. The earnings of all the members of a family are given 

 to the mother in a hotch-potch for the maintenance of the corpor- 

 ate whole. The family from our point of view is a living organism 

 which possesses a spirit quite apart from the individuals who 

 form it. Each member does not live and work for himself, but 

 for the family to which he belongs. Every other member has 

 a claim on his earnings.' ^ Another author, after describing this 

 system, tells us that ' any member of the family who should 

 disgrace himself in any way, as by becoming an inveterate gambler 

 and permanently neglecting his work, or by developing the opium 

 vice to great excess, would be formally cast out, his name being 

 struck off the ancestral register. Men of this stamp generally 

 sink lower and lower, until they swell the ranks of the professional 

 beggars, to die perhaps in a ditch.' * 



With regard to the nomadic peoples we always find that they 



» There are often a limited number of families in each village (Bamett, Anti- 

 quities of India, p. 105). " For particulars see Gray, China, vol. ii, p. 108. 

 ' Leong and Tao, loc. cit., p. 10. * Giles, loc. cit., p. 189. 



2498 g 



