An examination of the entries in 'Who's Who' gives about the same proportion for well-to-do families in England. The Catholic birth-rate of the Irish is nearly 40.[21] The French-Canadians are among the most prolific races in the world. On the other hand, their infant mortality is very high, and it is said that French-Canadian parents take these losses philosophically. It is quite a different question whether it is ultimately to the advantage of a nation which desires to increase its numbers to profess the Roman Catholic religion. The high birth-rates are all in unprogressive Catholic populations. When a Catholic people begins to be educated, the priests apparently lose their influence upon the habits of the laity, and a rapid decline in the births at once sets in. The most advanced countries which did not accept the Reformation, France and Belgium, are precisely those in which parental prudence has been carried almost to excess. We must also remember that the Dutch Boers, who are Protestants, but who live under simple conditions not unlike those of the French-Canadians, are equally prolific, as were our own colonists in the United States before that country was industrialised. The advantages in numbers gained by Roman Catholicism are likely to be confined to half-empty countries, where there is really room for more citizens, and where social ambition and the love of comfort are the chief motives for restricting the family. The population of a settled country cannot be increased at will; it depends on the supply of food. The choice is between a high birth-rate combined with a high death-rate, and a low birth-rate with a low death-rate. The great saving of life which has been effected during the last fifty years carries with it the necessity of restricting the births. The next question to be considered is how this restriction is to be brought about. The oldest methods are deliberate neglect and infanticide. In China, where authorities differ as to the extent to which female infants are exposed, the practice certainly prevails of feeding infants whom their mothers are unable to suckle on rice and water, which soon terminates their existence. Such methods would happily find no advocates in Europe. The very ancient art of procuring miscarriage is a criminal act in most civilised countries, but it is practised to an appalling extent. Hirsch, who quotes his authorities, estimates that 2,000,000 births are so prevented annually in the United States, 400,000 in Germany, 50,000 in Paris, and 19,000 in Lyons. In our own country it is exceedingly common in the northern towns, and attempts are now being made to prohibit the sale of certain preparations of lead which are used for this purpose. Alike on grounds of public health and of morality, it is most desirable that this mischievous practice should be checked. Its great prevalence in the United States is to be attributed mainly to the drastic legislation in that country against the