epulsive picture this which grows before our eyes; but there
are blacker shades still--so black that one can only indicate them and
pass on. So far we have only considered the restricted birthrate as
the result of the teaching of Neo-Malthusianism; but there is a further
restriction which even the Neo-Malthusian condemns--the destruction of
the unborn life.

The best way to indicate this, the blackest of all the signs of moral
decay, is to quote here and there from the Report.

_Witness_--The LORD BISHOP OF SOUTHWARK.

_Question_--It is your general experience, my lord, that there is among
the working-classes, so far as you can judge, a larger amount of
abortion than the use of anti-conceptions?

_Answer_.--That is what I should say.

_Dr. Scharlieb_.--They say that there are five abortions to every one
live birth.

{42}

The Lord Bishop of Southwark did not hesitate to declare that the
destruction of unborn life in South London 'betrays instincts which are
worse than the savage.'

_Witness_--Sir THOMAS OLIVER, M.D., LL.D., B.Sc., of
Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

_Witness_.--The waste of infant life was enormous owing to the
expectant mother miscarrying.... For twopence a woman might purchase
sufficient ... to cause her to miscarry, while she at the same time
might imperil her own life....

_Witness_--Dr. AMAND ROUTH, M.D.

_Witness_.--My main contention was in regard to the enormous antenatal
mortality.... The number of abortions is about four times as great as
the still-birth.... Assuming that the still-births are 3 per cent.,
and the abortions 12 per cent., the two together are 15 per cent.

Of the mass of evidence regarding this terrible aspect of the national
life, these quotations must suffice. The public conscience has, in
this last generation, become so deadened on the part of masses of the
{43} people that life is no longer sacred. 'It is always a great
comfort to me,' says Dr. Amand Routh, 'that it is criminal as well as
wrong--that one can show that the law considers it to be murder.' To
escape from inconvenience, to secure freedom from responsibility, to
attain untrammelled devotion to pleasure--the weapon of murder is
freely used. One of the witnesses, Mrs. Burgwin, told the Commission
an experience. 'When I went to Moscow,' says Mrs. Burgwin, 'I went to
see the great Foundling Hospital ... and I felt very ashamed when I
came away, because I said to a Russian doctor there, "You know