If M. Zola's surroundings had altered, the routine of his life remained the same as formerly. With regard to his novel 'Fecondite' he had, as the saying goes, 'warmed to his work,' which he pursued at the Queen's Hotel with unflagging energy.
Knowing his habits I never (unless under exceptional circumstances) visited him till he had finished his daily quantum of 'copy,' that was about the luncheon hour. Then we would talk business, communicate to one another such news as might be necessary, and at times exchange impressions with regard to the incidents of the day.
Among other matters often discussed were the English birth-rate and the rearing of English children, points which deeply interested M. Zola, as they were germane to the subject of 'Fecondite.' I could at first only give him general information, but the Rev. R. Ussher, vicar of Westbury, Bucks, the able author of 'Neo-Malthusianism,' very kindly sent me a copy of his exhaustive work, which contained many particulars on the points that principally interested M. Zola. Moreover, Mr. George P. Brett, the President of the Macmillan Company of New York (M. Zola's American publishers), supplied him with some interesting information respecting the United States.
With regard to England, M. Zola had been much struck by certain proceedings instituted during his exile against medical men, midwives, and others, proceedings which seemed to point to the existence in this country of a state of affairs much akin to that prevailing in France. The affair of the brothers Chrimes, who first sold bogus medicines and then proceeded to blackmail the women who had purchased them, was, in Zola's estimation, particularly significant, for here were hundreds and hundreds of Englishwomen applying to those men for the means of accomplishing the greatest crime against Nature there could be.
On that point M. Zola spoke in no uncertain language. He understood well enough that the authorities could not justly single out a few of those hundreds of women for prosecution and punishment: but he censured the women quite as much as he censured the convicted men, who were, after all, but common scoundrels.
And he was amazed to find that so few English newspapers ventured to speak out on the matter. There were plenty of leaderettes on the cunning shown by the men, but the alacrity of the women to purchase the bogus medicines was, as a rule, lightly passed over; and great as is M. Zola's admiration for the English Press in many respects, he could but regard its attitude towards the Chrimes case as lamentably inadequate and lacking in moral courage.
'A great responsibility,' said he, 'rests with those who, possessing commanding influence, refrain from requisite action, and who, instead of seeking to cure proved and acknowledged evils, connive at driving them beneath the surface, where, in secret, they steadily grow and expand.' And all this for the sake of the 'young person,' to whose mythical innocence the welfare of a whole nation is often sacrificed. M. Zola's views are summed up in the words: 'Let all be exposed and discussed, in order that all may be cured!'
He regards Neo-Malthusianism and its practices as abominable, and when he had learnt more of the actual situation in England he was emphatically of opinion that his book 'Fecondite,' though applied to France alone, might well, with little alteration, be applied to this country also.
The fluctuations in the English birth-rate from 1872 to 1897 were to him full of meaning. At a certain period, for instance, they showed all the harm wrought by the abominable Bradlaugh-Besant campaign. But what he dwelt on still more was the absolute physical incapacity of so many English mothers to suckle their own offspring. Circumstances are much the same both in France and the United States, at least among the older Colonial families. In three or four generations the women of a family in which the practice of suckling has ceased, are altogether unable to give the breast; and the 'bottle' ensues, with its thousand evils and a gradual deterioration of the race.
On the last occasion when James Russell Lowell came to England he was asked what change, if any, he remarked since his last visit, among the people he met, and he replied that he was most struck by the falling off in height, and breadth of shoulders, of the average man in the London streets.