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The gentlemen of France are distressed about the birthrate. It appears that the men of that country do not bear enough children to keep up the population as they desire. Therefore serious measures are proposed "to stimulate the birthrate." They are these:
Additional military service to be imposed on bachelors over twenty-nine.
Marriage to be made obligatory to gentlemen employed by the state, at the age of twenty-five, with supplementary salaries and pension allowances for more than three children.
The law requiring equal distribution of estates among children to be repealed. The dislike of Frenchmen to dividing their property is a frequent cause of restricted families, we are told.
We trust that the gentlemen of France, spurred and encouraged by these incentives, will now produce more children than they have hitherto.
The New York Times, of Friday, June 24, gives an editorial to this news from France,—and no wonder. But it is perfectly serious in its treatment, and offers no criticism of the measures proposed. The writer has apparently small know]edge of biology, for he expresses astonishment that the miserably poor "increase prodigiously" in Russia and elsewhere. "Who shall solve these mysteries or dogmatize upon them?" he says, and speculates further, in a vaguely awe-stricken manner, on the subject, quoting from the vigorous Mr. Roosevelt and the gloomy Dr. Koch.
Do any of our readers, belonging to the negligible side of this race problem see anything to smile at? Let us parallel it:
There is dismay in the poultry yard over a grave falling off in the supply of eggs. A convocation of roosters is called to discuss it, and to take measures to remedy the condition. They propose (a) To make all roosters over six months old do extra scratching for food. (b) To enforce matrimony—or its gallinaceous equivalent—on all roosters employed by the flock. (c) To alter the custom of dividing the worms equally among the chicks.
The simile is strained, we admit: try to apply it to some other case, as a shortage in the milk supply—considered by a convocation of bulls. That seems rather absurd too. Can not some one suggest a parallel which could be taken as seriously as the Times takes this effort on the part of Frenchmen?