Other articles coming under the head of population are Infanticide, Illegitimacy, Legitimacy and Legitimation.
Social Legislation
In the chapter in this Guide on Questions of the Day attention is called to the increasing tendency of the state to control and regulate matters which a generation or so ago were considered outside the sphere of government. Two particular economic questions—“social evils” we sometimes call them—are foremost in this category and on these the student of economics should read in the Britannica:
The article Prostitution (Vol. 22, p. 457), by Dr. Arthur Shadwell, member of the Council of the Epidemiological Society and author of Industrial Efficiency and Drink, Temperance and Legislation, and the articles Liquor Laws (Vol. 16, p. 759) and Temperance (Vol. 26, p. 578), also by Dr. Shadwell. These should be supplemented by accounts of local legislation against liquor, as for example in the articles Maine, Kansas, South Carolina, etc. On the Gothenburg system of Sweden and Norway see Vol. 16, pp. 769 and 780, and Vol. 26, p. 587, where, we learn that the essence of this method of conducting the retail traffic is that the element of private gain is eliminated. See besides biographies of temperance reformers—e.g., Theobald Mathew, Neal Dow, John B. Gough, etc.
Another great problem which the state and the municipality are attempting to solve, or to help solve, by means of legislation is that of housing. See the article Housing (Vol. 13, p. 814), which comprises not only the topic of city housing and its faults due to overcrowding, excessive value of land in great cities, etc., but the subject of rural housing, and the experiments in garden cities, model towns, etc. See also the article Octavia Hill (Vol. 13, p. 465), and for American model towns, Hopedale, Pullman, etc.
Social Welfare
Many movements for social welfare are of a very different character and are based on an entirely different principle from that of repressive or controlling legislation. Charities, education, care of insane, training of defectives, prison reform—such are a few of these topics, and the student will quickly learn that these burdens have been borne quite as much by the individual as by the State, and that in many instances individual initiative has by long and laborious effort succeeded in reforming in this field abuses which had flourished under government care.
Charity
Of prime importance to the student is the elaborate article on Charity and Charities (Vol. 5, p. 860), by Dr. Charles Stewart Loch, secretary to the council of the London Charity Organization Society and author of Charity Organization, Methods of Social Advance, etc. This article, equivalent in contents to 100 pages of this Guide, is made up of an introduction and six parts, as follows:
Introduction: “Charity,” as used in New Testament, means love and mercy—an ideal social state.