A. O. POWYS 
251 
tion produce one half of the next generation*." This additional corroboration 
affords strong evidence of its universal application. 
Next taking the marriages, the duration of which is 15 years and upwards, 
the distribution of fertility is as shown in Table XV. 
A comparison of these statistics with the similar statistics of Messrs Rubin 
and Westergaard's quoted by Prof Pearson will show an immense superioiity 
of fertility in favour of the New South Wales woman, but it must he borne 
in mind that the Danish statistics refer only to the professional and middle classes 
of the city of Copenhagen, and which necessarily exclude the most prolific sections 
(at least it is so in New South Wales, as will be subsequently shown in the 
section " Reproductive Selection ") of the community, viz. the arti.san and the 
agricultural and pastoral. Here we find 5'5G of the marriages are childless, and 
as this appears unduly high I have, in calculating the fertility curve, altered the 
value to 2 per cent., and the computed curve justified the alteration. The 
following were found to be the constants : 
^l^= 11-32501 Mean Family = 6-95103 
/i,3 = 4-88272 Modal Family = 5-68098 
/x,= 350-82375 Median Family = 8-03020 (Observed) 
A = -016414 Range = 2951447 
2-735343 Standard Deviation = 3-3653 
e= 77-7792 y, = 109-9507 
and the equation to the curve of fertility 
X 
2/ = 109-9507 1 + -™ (1 
6-622.5 / 
12-3500/ V 17-1645. 
In this series it is found that 31-16 of the women produce one half of the children. 
The statistics and curve will be found plotted on Fig. 6. 
On comparing the constants of this curve with those of the Danish or Anglo- 
Saxon curves, it is seen that we are dealing either witli a naturally more prolific 
community or one in which there is little resort to Malthusian restraint; for although 
the artisan section of the community is not included in the former statistics, yet 
the mean family of the New South Wales woman married 15 years and upwards, 
viz. 6-951, is far in excess of the mean Danish artisan family for marriages of 
25 years and upwards duration, viz. 5-26 f. As the Scandinavian race is un- 
questionably a very prolific race, and the Australian mothers are, as shown in 
Section A, of essentially British stock — which, as Prof Pear.-^on remarks |, is 
markedly less fertile than the Danish — it must be concluded that but little 
Malthusian restraint is practised in New South Wales : yet, as previously stated, 
the Government of that State deemed it necessary to appoint a Royal Commission 
to enquire into the causes of the so-called decline in the birthrate. That Com- 
* Chances of Death, p. 92. 
t Loc. cit. p. 98. + Loc. cit. p. 89. 
■62—2 
