there is such a thing as
_over-production_--having _too many_ children. Unquestionably there is.
Its disastrous effects on both mother and children are known to every
intelligent physician. Two-thirds of all cases of womb disease, says Dr.
Tilt, are traceable to child-bearing in feeble women. Hardly a day
passes that a physician in large practice does not see instances of
debility and disease resulting from over-much child-bearing. Even the
lower animals illustrate this. Every farmer is aware of the necessity of
limiting the offspring of his mares and cows. How much more severe are
the injuries inflicted on the delicate organization of woman! A very
great mortality, says Dr. Duncan of Edinburgh, attends upon
confinements when they become too frequent.

The evils of a too rapid succession of pregnancies are likewise
conspicuous in the children. There is no more frequent cause, says Dr.
Hillier,--whose authority in such matters none will dispute,--of rickets
than this. Puny, sickly, short-lived offspring follows over-production.
Worse than this, the carefully compiled statistics of Scotland show that
such children are peculiarly liable to idiocy. Adding to an already
excessive number, they come to over-burden a mother already overwhelmed
with progeny. They cannot receive at her hands the attention they
require. Weakly herself, she brings forth weakly infants. 'Thus,'
concludes Dr. Duncan, 'are the accumulated evils of an excessive family
manifest.'

Apart from these considerations, there are certain social relations
which have been thought by some to advise small families. When either
parent suffers from a disease which is transmissible, and wishes to
avoid inflicting misery on an unborn generation, it has been urged that
they should avoid children. Such diseases not unfrequently manifest
themselves after marriage, which is answer enough to the objection that
if they did not wish children they should not marry. There are also
women to whom pregnancy is a nine months' torture, and others to whom it
is nearly certain to prove fatal. Such a condition cannot be discovered
before marriage, and therefore cannot be provided against by a single
life. Can such women be asked to immolate themselves?

It is strange, says that distinguished writer, John Stuart Mill, that
intemperance in drink, or in any other appetite, should be condemned so
readily, but that incontinence in this respect should always meet not
only with indulgenc