LARGE FAMILIES

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LVI, 29 December 1924, Page 8

LARGE FAMILIES

“When people say there are too many children horn, I reply that the joy and the hope of life lie at the feet of the children,” says Mrs Asquitli in the London Magazine. “If the population of countries depended 'on the rich, every country would be clamouring—like France is—for security, and I think it safe to say the selfishness of the rich can be depended upon not to produce tlie large families of past generations. It is through children, and children alone, that men and women are enabled to; fight every inch of the way to despair. If, instead of birth-control, everyone would preach drink-control, you would have little poverty, less crime, and fewer illegitimate children. It is not crimes of .fraud so much as crimes of violence that fill the prisons. I speak feelingly, for, as my brother, Harold John Tennant,'and I were the last of twelve children, it is more than probablp we should never have existed liad tlie fashion of birth-control been prevalent In tliei ‘eighties.’ Sickly children bring out the best qualities in love and science, and, if it is a question of poverty, let anyone out of kindness of heart (and belief in birth-control) offer to take a child from an overburdened mother, and see what the mother will say. It may be hard for many reasons to have too many children, hut it is worse to have too few, and only children' have nothing like the same chance in lifb as those’ who have brothers and sisters.”