We have seen in this chapter that just as preventive medicines and the luxuries and comforts of modern civilisation have so far tended towards race deterioration, so in like manner our law-framers have done their best to perpetuate some of the worst strains that society possesses, strains that in a community without poor-laws would many of them have long ago ceased to exist. While, therefore, it is quite clear that the end that we should have in view is the non-perpetuation of the criminals and incapables, any proposal to segregate these would in the meanwhile probably be unfavourably received. In the case of the unhealthy we may hope by force of public opinion soon to prevent such marriages as are to-day of too common an occurrence, but in the case of the criminals and incapables the case is different. They are not to be touched by a sense of public duty, for they only obey the preponderating influences of the moment. Their lives will have to be ordered for them, and the responsibility of action must fall upon other shoulders. One cannot help thinking that a great step could be taken in the meanwhile by purging the poorhouses of all unworthy occupants. The criminal classes would then stand by themselves, and the public, learning gradually to regard them in their true light, would probably very soon grudge to support them, generation after generation, and would come to see that their segregation under circumstances involving no personal hardship would diminish and in time remove the evil. _Incapables to be Treated like Chronic Hospital Patients._ The incapables seen side by side with the distressed and aged would then be viewed with that commiseration they truly merit. Their lives might be made better worth the living than they are at present, and the poorhouse might come to be regarded as a hospital and shelter for the unfortunate, rather than as a refuge for drunkenness and vice. The denizens of these dreary buildings might then partake in their share of kindly attention, and feel some warmth of human sympathy now denied to them. FOOTNOTES [23] “A History of Crime in England,” vol. ii., pp. 579, 580. [24] 2 Thessalonians iii. 10. [25] 1st Epistle to Timothy v. 8. CHAPTER VI. COMPETITION. _Competition of Brain against Brain._