ns of
London, in the concluding volume of his vast survey, sums up the
condition of things in the statement that "the lower the class the
earlier the period of marriage and the greater the number of children
born to each marriage." The same phenomenon is everywhere found, and it
is one of great significance.

The significance becomes clearer when we realize that an urban
population must always be regarded as more "civilized" than a rural
population, and that, in accordance with that fact, an urban population
tends to be less prolific than a rural population. The town birth-rate
is nearly always lower than the country birth-rate. In Germany this is
very marked, and the rapidly growing urbanization of Germany is
accompanied by a great fall of the birth-rate in the large cities, but
not in the rural districts. In England the fall is more widespread, and
though the birth-rate is much higher in the country than in the towns
the decline in the rural birth-rate is now proceeding more rapidly than
that in the urban birth-rate. England, which once contained a largely
rural population, now possesses a mainly urban population. Every year it
becomes more urban; while the town population grows, the rural
population remains stationary; so that, at the present time, for every
inhabitant of the country in England, there are more than three
town-dwellers. As the country-dweller is more prolific than the
town-dweller, this means that the rural population is constantly being
poured into the towns. The larger our great cities grow, the more
irresistible becomes the attraction which they exert on the children of
the country, who are fascinated by them, as the birds are fascinated by
the lighthouse or the moths by the candle. And the results are not
altogether unlike those which this analogy suggests. At the present
time, one-third of the population of London is made up of immigrants
from the country. Yet, notwithstanding this immense and constant stream
of new and vigorous blood, it never suffices to raise the urban
population to the same level of physical and nervous stability which
the rural population possesses. More alert, more vivacious, more
intelligent, even more urbane in the finer sense, as the urban
population becomes,--not perhaps at first, but in the end,--it
inevitably loses its stamina, its reserves of vital energy. Dr. Cantlie
very properly defines a Londoner as a person whose grandparents all
belonged to London--and he coul