132 



THE TREND OF THE RACE 



proportion of these girls drift into immoral lives. They fre-i 

 quently return to the workhouse to have their children who, after; 

 being raised at public expense, are then liberated to repeat much ^ 

 the same performance. i 



The relation between fertiUty and social status has been studied ■] 



j 



by a number of investigators. Heron found in London that the i 

 districts which afford evidence of prosperity have a low birth rate, i 

 while districts in which indications of poverty are common have a j 

 high birth rate. It was estimated that while the death rates in the | 

 latter districts were higher than in the former, the difference was i 

 not great enough to counteract the greater fecundity of the poorer ; 

 classes. Moreover, Heron showed that sixty years ago the! 

 relative fecundity of the classes dealt with was the reverse of what , 

 it is at the present time. Bertillon ^ gives the following tabulation ! 

 of the birth rates per thousand women between 15 and 50 years of ; 

 age in various sections of four European cities : j 



Fertility of Women in Different Districts of Large Cities 



While the figures given may not exactly represent the birth; 

 rates of these districts, they doubtless form a fairly close approxi- ; 

 mation of them. The birth rate of Paris and Berlin measured | 

 by the number of annual births per thousand married women is i 

 shown in the following table: 



* Bull. Inst. Internat. Stat., 11, 163-176, 1899. 





f\ 



