678 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



There are wealthy families which are in a position to contribute 

 most liberally to the perpetuity of the nation, and yet, strangely, 

 they are the most abstemious. It would not be fair to tax them 

 according to the number of servants they have, for this must in- 

 crease as children multiply; but the tax might be adjusted to the 

 excess of servants over children. 



As an objection to our plan, it may be asked if we really believe 

 that those " neo-Malthusian " families who have only one or two 

 children will decide to have four in order to save themselves from 

 some taxes? We do not cherish this illusion; but the sordidness of 

 the family customs of the country should not be exaggerated. 

 Most of the families sin through selfishness, while they do not re- 

 alize that their selfishness is culpable, harmful, and ignoble. This 

 must be made clear to them, and no method of publishing the fact 

 is as imposing and effective as the tax-collector's schedule. The 

 reform in direct taxes which we propose will therefore have an edu- 

 cational influence. 



The same principle might be applied in the military service by 

 expediting the discharge of soldiers who are married. A bill to 

 this effect has been introduced in the French Senate, and an amend- 

 ment has been proposed extending the favor to the eldest son of a 

 family of five children. 



The inheritance tax is a particularly fitting form of impost in 

 which insufficiently fruitful families might pay the indemnity 

 which they justly owe the state on account of their sterility; for 

 the prime object of the neo-Malthusians is to forestall the neces- 

 sity of dividing their fortunes among too many children. The 

 laws of succession are so framed now that only sons pay less than 

 others; not only are the expenses of notarial acts less for them 

 than for families with several children, but the latter are liable to 

 pay the tax several times, for when one of the heirs dies his broth- 

 ers and sisters will have to pay new succession taxes. In all cases 

 of this order the treasury burdens numerous families, and spares 

 neo-Malthusian ones. The institution of heritage stimulates in- 

 dustry, and is one of the chief reasons for it. A great many men, 

 we are sure, would work less and would certainly save less except 

 for the prospect of leaving the fruit of their labor and economy 

 to their children or, too often, to their only child. But as the 

 institution of heritage becomes under these conditions one of the 

 prime factors of depopulation, it will have to be modified. 



The state is as much interested in the fecundity of families as 

 it is in their industry and thrift. To stimulate the latter virtues 

 it guarantees them the right of inheritance. It might withdraw 

 it or diminish it to its own profit, if their fertility was not judged 



