The significance of such figures in natural selection must be evident.
Pittsburgh, like probably all large cities in civilized countries,
breeds from the bottom. The lower a class is in the scale of
intelligence, the greater is its reproductive contribution. Recalling
that intelligence is inherited, that like begets like in this respect,
one can hardly feel encouraged over the quality of the population of
Pittsburgh, a few generations hence.
Of course these illiterate foreign laborers are, from a eugenic point of
view, not wholly bad. The picture should not be painted any blacker than
the original. Some of these ignorant stocks, in another generation and
with decent surroundings, will furnish excellent citizens.
But taken as a whole, it can hardly be supposed that the fecund stocks
of Pittsburgh, with their illiteracy, squalor and tuberculosis, their
high death-rates, their economic straits, are as good eugenic material
as the families that are dying out in the more substantial residence
section which their fathers created in the eastern part of the city.
And it can hardly be supposed that the city, and the nation, of the
future, would not benefit by a change in the distribution of births,
whereby more would come from the seventh ward and its like, and fewer
from the sixth and its like.
Evidently, there is no difficulty about seeing this form of natural
selection at work, and at work in such a way as greatly to change the
character of one section of the species. For comparison, some figures
are presented from European sources. In the French war budget of 1911 it
appears that from 1,000 women between the ages of 15 and 50, in
different districts of Paris, the number of yearly births was as
follows:
Very poor 108
Poor 99
Well-to-do 72
Very prosperous 65
Rich 53
Very rich 35
Disregarding the last class altogether, it is yet evident that while the
mother in a wealthy home bears two children, the mother in the slums
bears four. It is evident then that in Paris at the present time
reproductive selection is changing the mental and moral composition of
the population at a rapid rate, which can not be very materially reduced
even if it is found that the death-rate in the poorer districts is
considerably greater than it is on the more fashionable boulevards.
J. Bertillon has brought together[67] in a similar way data from a
number of cities, showing the following birth-rates:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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