The problem of practical eugenics / by Karl Pearson.

  • Karl Pearson
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The problem of practical eugenics / by Karl Pearson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    marked effect in 1887 and accelerative effect in or about 1892. I did this without any bias as to those particular years and without having the factory legis- lation before me. Let us look at the districts in succession : RuraAL ~ DISTRICTs. Cornwall (Plate 1). Some effect in 1867—the birthrate drops after this below what it had been for 20 years. The decrease is not very marked, but it is there. In 1887 it takes a value lower than it had been for 40 years, and then drops rapidly, till we find each family having a child once in eight years. This must mean a drop from an average family of about six to one of less than four children. Norfolk (Plate I). Another outlying district is Norfolk, practically solely agricultural. There is no sensible change in the birthrate until 1887 and then down it goes with a run, just as the population of wives, which had been stationary for nearly fifty years, begins to rise. Wives become more numerous, but mothers fewer. North Riding of Yorkshire (Plate I). I can find no significant and certain change till about 1887 when the birthrate falls below 20, which it had not been for 40 years, since then it has de- clined but not nearly so markedly as in other cases. The average family may have dropped from six to five children’. 1 The diagram shows how the mushroom growth of Middles- borough has affected the birthrate of the North Riding. Like a new colony Middlesborough has drawn the younger married people, and without Middlesborough the North Riding birthrate has declined far more sensibly than appears if we include that town.
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