others: where they were succeeded by women, those women are there yet. Of the five women who were there then, three remain, one having quit on account of ill health, the other for what cause I do not know. What does this record show of the "transitory nature" of woman's work as compared with man's? Mrs. Morgan might pleasantly spend her leisure time in gathering statistics on this subject in her own city; it would probably give her subject for thought, and would beyond doubt dispel her illusion that "woman is an anomaly in a business office among business men," or show her that the anomaly occurs so often that it has grown to be the rule.
| Respectfully, |
| Lucy S. V. King. |
| 25 First Street, Chattanooga, Tenn. |
POPULATION AND THE FOOD-SUPPLY.
Editor Popular Science Monthly:
In Prof. Huxley's article, "The Struggle for Existence," he states the obvious fact that "so long as the natural man increases and multiplies without restraint, so long will peace and industry . . . necessitate a struggle for existence as sharp as any that ever went on under the regime of war." But this promptly suggests the important modification that all classes of men do not increase equally. "Punch's" humorous statistics a quarter of a century ago gave to the well-to-do quarters of the town an average of only half a baby to each house! More serious observation shows, from the yeast-plant up, a steadily diminishing rate of increase, pyramid-like, until the cap-stone is reached—an average human family consisting of five persons, the three children replacing the parents, with only one to spare. But the cap-stone itself diminishes to a point. The human race differs in fecundity—the worst nourished and most emotional being the most prolific, and the best fed and the best poised intellectually producing not enough to maintain their own numbers. The Dutch numbered about two millions. They created their country largely out of the ocean, and survived a mud avalanche of cruelty and brute force. In South Africa, Java, New York, and elsewhere, they have been a permanent force, as well as in science, literature, arts, and arms. But their numbers have not greatly increased. On the other hand, the natives of the south of Ireland have been decimated by famines and chronic insufficiency of food They have founded no distinctly Irish colonies anywhere, but contented themselves with adhering closely to Anglo-Saxon communities in all parts of the world, which contact they declare to be injurious to them. It is claimed that their numbers have increased in recent times from about six millions to thirty millions, more or less. Eminent men, like George Washington, leave few or no descendants. Napoleon, as the fruit of two marriages, had one child. Hardly any of the peerages in the House of Lords, consisting of some four hundred members, are more than two hundred years old, and if, as proposed, no new peerages should be created, the hereditary legislators would become extinct—the object aimed at by the proposal. The present tendency of civilization referred to by Huxley, to sacrifice the best to the worst perpetually, would seem at first sight to reduce the whole to a dead level of the worst possible. But further reflection shows the effect to be to raise the whole mass from the bottom. If the mass can be well fed, refined, and intelligent. Nature will no longer throw off such frightful numbers of rudimentary men, but will be as niggardly of human beings as she now is chary of perpetuating great intelligences. In this direction there is hope that the problem may be solved.
The possible food-supply is encouraging. The census of 1860 showed that the maize-crop of the Mississippi Valley, if turned into its equivalents of beef and bread, would feed sixty millions of people. The food-resources of the sea have hardly been touched. All the fish known to have been caught by man's device would not make one school of the most numerous kinds. The position of the human race in regard to the visible but unavailable food-supply resembles that of hungry young children surrounded by square miles of ripe, waving grain and countless herds of beef-cattle.
|
S. H. Mead. |
| Eustis, Fla. |
THE EARNED DECREASE.
Editor Popular Science Monthly:
The argument of Mr. Joel Benton, in his article in the June number of the "Monthly," on "Earned Decrease vs. Unearned Increment," seems to be in several places quite defective. It scarcely touches the weakest points of Mr. George's theory at all.
It is argued by Mr. Benton: "If society has a claim upon this profit" (the "unearned increment") "in the socialistic way, which George and his followers claim it has, then, to make the equities right and even, it ought to shoulder, without a whimper, the losses which have befallen the land-owners who have suffered from the 'earned decrease.'" Really, however, if the matter is looked at in the proper light, it seems that the "earned decrease" offers, so far as land in the economic sense is concerned, no complication at all. Suppose that society asserts its claim to all the land, and becomes the owner de facto. Then, as to subsequent gains or losses in land-values, it is plain that society must enjoy the one and suffer the other, for, wherever social aggregation should bring increased value to land, society, under the George plan, would experience the benefit through greater rents; and wherever social dispersion should lower the value of land, society would sustain the loss through decreased rents. As to pre-
