The knowledge of prudential checks immensely increases the possibility of happiness for every man and woman whose means are "limited." Marriage ceases to be a hazardous enterprise, which may bring in its train liabilities terribly out of proportion to the power of meeting them. The husband is relieved from anxiety lest his children may increase whilst his ability to provide suitably for them remains a fixed, or even diminishing, quantity. The wife need no longer dread the burden of continual child-bearing and the incessant servitude of domestic drudgery. How much of the drunkenness that exists amongst the working-class is due to the discomfort of a crowded and cheerless home! The husband, wearied with his day's toil, returns to his narrow lodgings to find his wife, harassed and soured by the petty cares of a large family, sharp in temper and tongue. The tender romance of courtship is dispelled by the never-ending round of household slavery, with the constant need of "making both ends meet," of contriving that every sixpence shall do the work of a shilling. And over all there hangs the haunting fear that sickness or loss of employment may disable the bread-winner, and that the wolf of hunger, ever waiting outside, may show his fangs within the door. Little cause is there for wonder that in many cases the sweetheart of happier days becomes a shrew and slattern, or that the toil-worn husband flies to the ruinous joys of the tap-room in a vain attempt to escape from the vexations that surround him in his "home." And what of the children? They are at once the innocent cause and the helpless victims of the misery that encompasses them. The wage that would amply provide for two or three is inadequate for the proper support of seven or eight, and their little frames suffer from insufficient nourishment. The overburdened mother cannot bestow upon so large a flock the loving care and attention that children need for their proper physical and mental development. Thus they grow up (if haply they survive), enfeebled in mind and constitution, transmitting to the next generation their own defects in an aggravated form. It is amongst the very poorest of our fellow-creatures that we see the horrors of over-population in their most heartrending aspect. In the squalid courts and alleys of our great cities the dismal stream of child-life is constantly at high-water mark. The parents, ignorant and hopeless, callous by reason of their daily contact with misery, "increase and multiply" instinctively, as do the beasts of the field. Amongst the poor the birth-rate is (broadly speaking) double as high as that of the richer classes. A few years ago the birth-rate in wealthy Kensington was 20 per 1,000; in the poor district of Bethnal Green it was 40 per 1,000. This deplorable state of things is not peculiar to Great Britain: it prevails, with slight variations as to details, in all so-called civilised countries.