To take first the question of early marriages, a point upon which the better off are apt to judge with singular unfairness of their poorer brethren. The market value of the middle class man is probably highest after 40, certainly after 30. The market value of the average workman, on the other hand, decreases after 40, if not earlier, and, in a vast number of cases, is as high at 22 as it will ever be. Therefore, while the middle class man is in a financial sense, prudent in deferring marriage till 30 or thereabouts, the workman would be foolish indeed to delay the birth of his eldest children until within ten years or so of his own decline in market value. The workman who desires, like the middle class man, that the infancy and schooltime of his children shall coincide with his own period of greatest prosperity should marry—as in fact he does—between the ages of 20 and 24. Then, by the time that the father begins to experience increasing difficulty in getting well paid employment—or perhaps employment at all—the elder children will at least be of an age to earn for themselves. It should be remembered, too, that workpeople as a class die younger than people who are better off, so that a bricklayer, married at 20, and a barrister, married at 30, have about even chances of seeing the manhood of their elder sons—another reason why the former is wise to marry early, if at all. Early marriages, then, whether improvident or no in the case of middle class brides and bridegrooms, are not improvident in the case of working people—unless indeed it be contended that it is improvident for working people to marry at all—a contention fraught with rather alarming possibilities to the future of the race.