Mr. Wattal then describes the cruel items in India's death-rate; the tremendous female mortality, due largely to too early childbirth, and the equally terrible infant mortality, nearly 50 per cent. of infant deaths being due to premature birth or debility at birth. These are the inevitable penalties of early and universal marriage. For, in India, "everybody marries, fit or unfit, and is a parent at the earliest possible age permitted by nature." This process is highly disgenic; it is plainly lowering the quality and sapping the vigour of the race. It is the lower elements of the population, the negroid aboriginal tribes and the Pariahs or Outcastes, who are gaining the fastest. Also the vitality of the whole population seems to be lowering. The census figures show that the number of elderly persons is decreasing, and that the average statistical expectation of life is falling. "The coming generation is severely handicapped at start in life. And the chances of living to a good old age are considerably smaller than they were, say thirty or forty years ago. Have we ever paused to consider what it means to us in the life of the nation as a whole? It means that the people who alone by weight of experience and wisdom are fitted for the posts of command in the various public activities of the country are snatched away by death; and that the guidance and leadership which belongs to age and mature judgment in the countries of the West fall in India to younger and consequently to less trustworthy persons."[269] After warning his fellow-countrymen that neither improved methods of agriculture, the growth of industry, nor emigration can afford any real relief to the growing pressure of population on means of subsistence, he notes a few hopeful signs that, despite the hold of religion and custom, the people are beginning to realize the situation and that in certain parts of India there are foreshadowings of birth-control. For example, he quotes from the census report for 1901 this official explanation of a slight drop in the birth-rate of Bengal: "The postponement of the age of marriage cannot wholly account for the diminished rate of reproduction. The deliberate avoidance of child-bearing must also be partly responsible.... It is a matter of common belief that among the tea-garden coolies of Assam means are frequently taken to prevent conception, or to procure abortion." And the report of the Sanitary Commissioner of Assam for 1913 states: "An important factor in producing the defective birth-rate appears to be due to voluntary limitation of birth."[270]