508 



Gleanings in Bee Culture 



have been better if some of the mayors of 

 some of our great cities had never been born. 

 But since they are alrectcly born, we ought 

 to have enough good men and women to 

 prevent their being ]iut into such important 

 offices for tlie protection of our people. May 

 God be praised that the State of Indiana 

 has made a break, and already declares she 

 is going to stop breeding criminals. Is it 

 not of as much importance to breed good 

 citizens as it is to encourage a better strain 

 of poultry, horses, cattle, and swine? May 

 (iod help us in this new commission that 

 seems to have just recently been placed on 

 our shoulders. 



While dictating the above article a clip- 

 ping from the Cleveland Press of July 22 

 was handed me. The quotation below is 

 from Edward R. .lohnstone, superintendent 

 of the New .Jersey home for the feeble-mind- 

 ed, and from his talk we judge he is author- 

 ity: 



There are 300,000 feeble-minded persons running 

 at lame in the United States, outside of institutions, 

 says Johnstone. 



"Idiocy is a matter of heredity," he says. "We 

 have traced many cases, and have uncovered some 

 terrible proofs. Most of our efforts are being di- 

 rected toward preventing idiocy. 



■■ Over 100 years ago a young man of a proud fami- 

 Iv. with a hxige family tree, wronged a feeble- 

 minded girl in an eastern village. Then he went 

 his way. married a girl of fine family, reared chil- 

 dren, and died, highly reputed, in 1837. 



" But the feeble-minded girl gave birth to a son of 

 feeble mind. And this son became the father of 13 

 children, several of whom were idiots. The busy, 

 changing world didn't pay any attention to the ter- 

 rible thing that was going on. One of tlie feeble- 

 minded sons married a feeble-minded woman. Tliey 

 had 19 children! Civilization paid no heed, not any 

 more than it does to-day to the marriage of incom- 

 petents. 



"One of their feeble-minded sons found a feeble- 

 minded woman. No one stopped them; they 

 brought 11 children into the world! One of their 

 idiot daughters lived\\ith four or five difierent men. 

 and bore 11 children. 



"And the last one in the line of horrors is a little 

 girl, in our institution, who has tlie mind of a child 

 of two! 



" I believe in segregatingor performing operations 

 upon all men and women whose marriage would 

 produce defective children. This one youth who 

 wronged the feeble-minded girl over a century ago 

 was the ancestor, through this girl, of 1146 hviman 

 beings. 01580 of them we couldn't trace the rec- 

 ords. But we found 262 feeble-minded person.s, 

 three epileptics, and only 157 normal persons among 

 his illegitimate offspring." 



So far as we can discover, the above state- 

 ments are too terribly true. Not only the 

 United States but thewhole wide world has 

 been guilty of prolonging this terrible wrong, 

 this fearful curse on humanity, and allow- 

 ing it to go unrebuked. From the above it 

 would seem that medical science at the pres- 

 ent day is equal to the task of rendering 

 women sterile as well as men. May God 

 help us to do our duty. 



As we go to press I have not been able to 

 determine just how far feeble-minded per- 

 sons are permitted to vote. Very likely 

 most of them would not of themselves care 

 to vote or think of voting; but with the pres- 

 ent craze for votes by any "hook or crook," 

 it is not unlikely that many feeble-minded 

 men have been permitted or bribed to help 

 perpetuate crime. I suppose that cruelty will 

 be suggested; but even if this is true, what 



is this little cruelty now compared to curs- 

 ing unborn generations? 



Another point comes in right here. Are 

 there not persons who honestly ivish thcij 

 had " never been born " ? We have proof of 

 this in the number of suicides that are be- 

 coming more and more frequent; and I be- 

 lieve that investigation will show that most 

 of these suicides were persons not fit or com- 

 petent to become fathers and mothers. They 

 consider their lives so worthless that they 

 ruthlessly throw them away. It may be 

 well to remember right here that our sa- 

 loons, as has l>een abundantly demonstrat- 

 ed, are, more thnn any other one thing, re- 

 sponsible for bringing into the world crip- 

 ples, idiots, and imbeciles. The saloons help 

 to keej) up this army of degenerates, and the 

 army of degenerates help to keep up the sa- 

 loons. Shall they any longer be permitted 

 to make our laws and to block the way of 

 enforcing such righteous legislation as has 

 just been, by a narrow majority, a failure in 

 the great State of Texas? 



.Just as I was closing up the above I found 

 in our copy-drawer something along the 

 same line, sent us several weeks ago, as fol- 

 lows: 



Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also 

 reap.— Gal. 6 : 7. 



Mr. Hoot:— In my work, which is preparing work 

 for the bindery in the college library here, I collect- 

 ed a volume of your interesting papers on bee cul- 

 ture. 1 found in them a space devoted to temper- 

 ance. In collecting the October number of "Sur- 

 vey " I fountl a powerful temperance lecture. It is 

 not long, nor is it of the stereotyped edition. It was 

 this: " A man, an alcoholic, married a feeble-mind- 

 ed woman, a daughter of alcoholic parents. The 

 offspring of the union were three miscarriages and 

 eight feeble-minded children — one of whom wa.s 

 deaf. Seven of these children are at large." 



Oberlin, O.. April 20. Kmma .1. Caki.. 



It would not beat all strange that a drink- 

 ing man should take up and marry a feeble- 

 minded woman, the daughter of alcoliolic 

 parents. The brief clipiiing does not tell what 

 the outcome was of turning loose t ight feeble- 

 minded people. It does liot even suggest 

 how far the curse extended down through 

 future generations; nor does it tell how much 

 it cost to keep up asylums and prisons to 

 care for such progeny. May God be praised 

 that there is now a widesjjread movement 

 on foot to fort) id marriage, by i)roper laws. 

 State and national, in cases like the above. 



SELLING GOODS AT A FAIR AND HONEST 

 MARGIN OR PROFIT, ETC. 



After the Home paper for .July 15 had 

 gone to press, another reason occurred to 

 me for selling goods on a small margin. If 

 for any reason your customer wants to re- 

 turn the goods you can, if sold "close," 

 take them back and give him his money, 

 without much loss or inconvenience to your- 

 self. Let me give you an illustration. Fif- 

 ty years ago I put up a sign and started 

 business as a jeweler and watchmaker. As 

 there were two other shops of the same kind 

 already in our little town, I knew I would 

 have to work hard to succeed. After I had 

 been in business perhaps a year or a little 

 more I ventured to put in a stock of watch- 



