land into the sea. Now he reaches one of the ships which lie, packed like pilchards, in the channel. Poor fellow! Perhaps he may never more behold the happy land of his childhood, where the birth-rate is so high!"
"There is another meeting," said William. They are lamenting the increasing tendency of young men to remain bachelors, instead of marrying and bringing up large families. This state of things is deplored as very serious and regrettable, and as a very unfortunate omen for the future of the population; and they proceed to suggest and consider means for inducing young men to marry at as early an age as possible. It is a very sad meeting!"
"Yes," said James; "you see they are beginning to fear that the race is dying out. That person speaking is a celebrated statistician, who has made a calculation, showing that, should the birth-rate continue on the same meagre lines, in the course of one hundred years everyone would find space to sit down; in two hundred years folks would be obliged to stick out their elbows in order to touch one another continuously over the whole island.
"Jones."
"What a terrible picture! Tears come into the eyes of the orator as he draws it: 'Where,' he asks, would be that compactness and unity which are the only safeguards of a nation? How could man keep touch with man? Think of that cold, hopeless, terrible void between one beating human heart and another!
"See—they are presenting a testimonial to an extremely deserving citizen, one Jones, a person of the lower middle classes, who is possessed of a family of no less than thirty-seven. That man is certain of a career; he has only to express a wish for any public office, to receive it at once; and see, even now the meeting suggests the creation of a new office in the Ministry on purpose for Jones—the office of 'Encourager of the Birth-rate,' at a salary of five thousand a year."
"Dear me, that is very unfortunate!" exclaimed William.
"What's the matter?" asked James.
"That meeting, just when about to hit upon a practical plan for arresting the decline of the birth-rate, have been all smothered by the pressure of numbers! Ha! What is that? Surely the sound of a trumpet! See—look! That nation which is so filled with envy of the insular nation is about to make war upon it."
"Ha!" cried James, triumphantly. "Now we shall see how the birth-rate tells! Now we shall see how the nation with the largest population has the incalculable advantage over the one which— What is the matter now?"
"Why, the envious nation with the low birth-rate has completely conquered the insular one, and is jumping on its flag!"
"Pooh! All a mistake!" screamed James. "Impossible. How about its vast population, ready at the call of its native land to rise against the foe?"
"Why," replied William, "the vast population ready at the call of its native land somehow smothered and crushed itself to death in the attempt to get to the foe; and, as it was a dense mass, the foe's cannon had greater effect upon it; and then the foe, having a lower birth-rate, and consequently more elbow-room—"
