HEREDITARY INEFFICIENCY. 305 
number of stillborn children found in sinks, etc., would 
not be less than six per week. Deaths are frequent, and 
chiefly among children. The suffering of the children 
must be great. The people have no occupation. They 
gather swill or ashes; the women beg, and send the 
children around to beg; they make their eyes sore with 
vitriol. In my own experience I have seen three gen- 
erations of beggars among them.. I have not time here 
to go into details, some loathsome, all pitiable. One 
evening I was called to marry a couple. I found them 
in one small room with two beds. In all eleven people 
lived init. The bride was dressing, the groom washing. 
Another member of the family filled a coal-oil lamp 
while burning. The groom offered to haul ashes for the 
fee. I made a present to the bride. Soon after I asked 
one of the family how they were getting on. ‘Oh, 
Elisha don’t live with her any more.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Her 
husband came back, and she went to him. That made 
Elisha mad, and he left her.’ 
“All these are grim facts, but they are facts and can 
be verified. More, they are but thirty families out of a 
possible two hundred and fifty. The individuals already 
traced are over five thousand, interwoven by descent 
and marriage. They underrun society like devil grass. 
Pick up one, and the whole five thousand will be drawn 
up. Over seven thousand pages of history are now on 
file in the Charity Organization Society. 
“A few deductions from these data are offered for 
your consideration. First, this is a study into social 
degeneration, or degradation, which is similar to that 
sketched by Mr. Lankester. Asin the lower orders so 
in society, we have parasitism, or social degradation. 
There is reason to believe that some of this comes from 
old convict stock which England threw into this coun- 
try in the seventeenth century. We find the wandering 
