16-it would mean that 6500 persons died regularly every month. But we should probably find that in some month or other as few as 5417 persons died. That would be reported "as at the rate of" 13 per thousand per annum; since, if every month gave only 5417 deaths, we should get 65,000 deaths a year, which works out at 13 in the thousand in a population of 5 millions. In other months it might run as high as 19 or 20 (representing over 8000 deaths a month), although, taking all the months together, the deaths are at the rate of 16 in the thousand for the year.

The bald statement of the death-rate, of course, admits of much analysis where proper records are kept. Thus the death-rate from different diseases and groups of diseases can be stated, and the death-rate in each group at different ages and for the two sexes can be given where proper records are kept. In this country the records of population in various areas and for the whole country, and of the deaths from various causes, and at different ages, are collected and tabulated by the Registrar-General and his officials. The annual reports issued by him show what an amazing progress has been made in increasing the security of life in our great cities within the last fifty years. Thus, in London, the death-rate was, fifty years ago, 24 in the thousand. In 1906 it was only 15'1 in the thousand-it has gradually fallen, year by year, so that now it is less than two-thirds of what it was half a century ago. In Manchester and Liverpool it was about 26 twenty years ago, and has fallen to 19 in Manchester and to a little over 20 in Liverpool. In the same period the improvement has been (omitting fractions) from 19 to 14 in Bristol; from 20 to 16 in Birmingham; from 20 to 14 in Leicester. This great diminution in the death-rate has been coincident with the expenditure of public funds on the improvement of the water supply and the sewage

arrangements of those cities, as well as with the enforcement of regulations to prevent overcrowding, and with the demolition of the most insanitary houses. Rules as to the removal of filth from the neighbourhood of dwellinghouses have been obeyed, and sick persons suffering from infectious diseases have been removed from dwellinghouses and conveyed to special hospitals. There is no doubt that the diminished death-rate is due to the action thus taken, and more will be done in the future to the same end. The proper provision of pure milk (at a reasonable price) for the food of the youngest children, of regular meals for older children, and the protection of adults from the too frequent inducement to indulge in the use of distilled spirits, will be taken in hand by the municipalities, and lead to a further diminution in the death-rate.

We may, indeed, soon have to ask whether, in a population which has become so much less subject to diminution by death than was formerly the case, there is not too great an increase by birth-too great, that is to say, for the existing means of employment and foodproduction. A most serious, indeed, an alarming fact, has recently come to light in the study of this question, namely, that the increase of the population is due (as pointed out on p. 279) to the proportionately larger number of births amongst the poorer, and even destitute, sections of the community who have not the means of training and rearing their children satisfactorily, and are themselves likely to transmit incapacity of one kind and another to their offspring; whilst those who have valuable hereditary qualities and are prosperous have-it is clearly established-relatively few children—and, in fact, do not increase the population. Whether this condition of things constitutes a real danger, how it will ultimately work out if left alone, and how the difficulty is to be met, are

problems for statesmen which cannot be solved off-hand, but require knowledge not only of the crude facts of statistics, but also of the causes at work. Scientific knowledge—that is to say, thorough and unassailable knowledge of the laws of heredity, of psychology, and of the natural history of human populations, are among the essential qualifications for those who have to face and deal with this difficult matter. And who is there who has this knowledge or is even trying to obtain it? Not the State in this country or its officials: for in every department of government (however capable some of the subordinates may be) there is a determined opposition to and fear of Science on the part of the political and highly paid chiefs-the jealous fear due to complete and deadly ignorance.

FIN

XXXI

GOSSAMER

INE as gossamer! Town-bred folks never see it, and do not believe in its existence; they think it is a poetical figment, like "honey-dew." That, too, is nevertheless a real thing-a honey-like juice poured out by the little plant-lice or aphides. Gossamer is a very real and a most beautiful thing. You may see it on the hill-sides in fine October weather, when the sun is bright but low enough to illuminate the delicate threads and reveal the "veil of silk and silver thin" spread over Nature's loveliness. The innumerable threads glisten, and are so fine that they shine with iridescent colours, as do the equally delicate soap-bubbles fabricated by men and boys, and from the same cause. When the eye gets accustomed to them and traces them— rippling and glimmering over acres and acres of grassland-one feels disconcerted, almost awestruck, by the revelation of this vast network of threads. Sometimes the gentle currents of air break them loose from the herbage, and they float at a higher level and envelop the puzzled intruder in an almost invisible entanglement of fairy lines. Sometimes they become felted together in flakes and float or rest as incredibly delicate tissue, woven by unseen mysterious agency.

When the slopes of the new golf course at Wimbledon