THE MALTHUSIAN MOVEMENT IN ENGLAND.
For many years after the publication of Mr. Malthus's great essay,
the principle which he had formulated did not pass beyond the region
of more or less academic controversy. The "theory of population" was
denounced from countless pulpits and assailed by the pens of ready
writers; but, being based upon a patient and accurate observation
of the facts of nature, it remained unshaken when the preachers and
critics were forgotten.
It would be absurd to doubt that so important a contribution to
social science influenced the minds and helped to shape the conduct of
thoughtful men; but it is beyond question that no organised attempt to
popularise and propagate the teachings of Malthus, and to make known
the nature of preventive checks amongst the people of this country, was
undertaken until the year 1877. In the first quarter of the century,
Richard Carlile published a small pamphlet on the subject; but there
is no reason to suppose that its effect was appreciable. Mr. Francis
Place and Mr. Robert Dale Owen in later years wrote essays embodying
practically the modern Malthusian view.
In 1833, Dr. Charles Knowlton, of Boston (U.S.A.), issued a small work
on the subject of population, entitled The Fruits of Philosophy. For
over forty years the book was sold in England, but its sale was so
small that very few people were even acquainted with its title, and
it remained in its native obscurity until it was dragged into the
light of day by the fortunate folly of persons who imagined that it
was possible to check the spread of moral enlightenment by means of
legal "repression."
In 1876 a police prosecution was instituted against a man in
Bristol for selling The Fruits of Philosophy, and a conviction was
obtained. In the following year the publisher of the pamphlet was also
indicted and committed for trial; but he was liberated on promising
that he would no longer issue the work. Mr. Charles Bradlaugh and
Mrs. Annie Besant thereupon undertook the task of defending the right
of publication. They reprinted and published the pamphlet, formally
inviting the authorities to prosecute them. "It was for the sake of
free discussion that we published the assailed pamphlet when its
former seller yielded to the pressure put upon him by the police;
it was not so much in defence of this pamphlet, as to make the way
possible for others dealing with the same topic that we risked the
penalty which has fallen upon us." [2]
The police authorities accepted the challenge, and a prosecution was
immediately commenced. The trial, which lasted four days, took place
in the Court of Queen's Bench, before Lord Chief Justice Cockburn
and a special jury. Sir Hardinge Gifford (then Solicitor-General),
Mr. Douglas Straight and Mr. Mead appeared for the prosecution;
Mr. Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant appeared in person.
The indictment charged the defendants with having published and
sold an obscene book, with intent to contaminate and corrupt
public morals. The author of The Fruits of Philosophy advocated
early marriage with limitation of families, and referred in the
course of his work to such preventive checks as were known at that
time. The Solicitor-General, in opening the case, sought to persuade
the jury that Dr. Knowlton speciously used that line of argument as
a disguise and pretext for suggesting illicit intercourse without
risk of pregnancy ensuing. An indignant rebuke from Sir Alexander
Cockburn caused the Solicitor-General to abandon that line of false
suggestion, and to fall back upon the contention that it was illegal
to issue a work containing "a chapter on restriction, not written
in any learned language, but in plain English, in a facile form,
and sold ... at sixpence." He therefore asked the jury to declare
that the book was an "obscene publication."
The speech of the Solicitor-General and his general conduct of the case
are matters of trivial importance; the notable features of the trial
were the addresses of the two defendants and the summing-up by the Lord
Chief Justice. Mrs. Besant's speech to the jury was a remarkable and
memorable effort. She examined and discussed the population question
in every aspect, contending that, in view of the evils arising from
excessive increase, the advocacy of prudential methods was a sacred
duty to humanity. In the opening passages of her speech she pointed
out, in the most impressive manner, that she pleaded for the welfare
of others:
It is not as defendant that I plead to you to-day--not simply
as defending myself do I stand here--but I speak as counsel
for hundreds of the poor, and it is they for whom I defend this
case. My clients are scattered up and down through the length
and breadth of the land; I find them amongst the poor, amongst
whom I have been so much; I find my clients amongst the fathers,
who see their wage ever reducing, and prices ever rising; I
find my clients amongst the mothers worn out with over-frequent
child-bearing, and with two or three little ones around too young
to guard themselves, while they have no time to guard them. It
is enough for a woman at home to have the care, the clothing,
the training of a large family of young children to look to;
but it is a harder task when oftentimes the mother, who should
be at home with her little ones, has to go out and work in the
fields for wage to feed them when her presence is needed in the
house. I find my clients among the little children. Gentlemen,
do you know the fate of so many of these children?--the little
ones half-starved because there is food enough for two but not
enough for twelve; half-clothed because the mother, no matter what
her skill and care, cannot clothe them with the money brought
home by the breadwinner of the family; brought up in ignorance,
and ignorance means pauperism and crime--gentlemen, your happier
circumstances have raised you above this suffering, but on you
also this question presses; for these over-large families mean
also increased poor-rates, which are growing heavier year by
year. These poor are my clients, and if I weary you by length
of speech, as I fear I may, I do so because I must think of them
more even than I think of your time or trouble.
With righteous indignation Mrs. Besant repelled the accusation that
The Fruits of Philosophy was an "obscene" publication. She showed
by a quotation from Lord Campbell's Act (upon which the prosecution
was based) that the statutory definition of obscenity could not
possibly be applied to a book containing "dry physiological details
put forward in dry, technical language." She next proceeded to urge
that the right of free discussion upon matters of public welfare was
really attacked by the prosecution:
Do you, gentlemen, think for one moment that myself and my
co-defendant are fighting the simple question of the sale or
publication of this sixpenny volume of Dr. Knowlton's? Do you
think that we would have placed ourselves in the position in
which we are at the present moment for the mere profit to be
derived from a sixpenny pamphlet of forty-seven pages? No, it
is nothing of the sort; we have a much larger interest at stake,
and one of vital interest to the public, one which we shall spend
our whole lives in trying to uphold. The question really is one of
the right to public discussion by means of publication, and that
question is bound up in the right to sell this sixpenny pamphlet
which the Solicitor-General despises on account of its price.
It would, however, be impossible to give, by extracts of reasonable
length, an adequate idea of the striking and eloquent speech which
Mrs. Besant addressed to the jury in her defence. The whole question
of over-population and its consequences was examined with the greatest
care and completeness. Profoundly convinced of the justice of her
cause, Mrs. Besant pleaded that the teachings of New-Malthusianism,
by making early marriage possible, promoted happiness and morality. She
said:
I think, therefore, I may fairly put it that every young man
naturally desires to make a home and enter upon married life
when first he comes out into the world. I do not believe that
any young man sets out with the intention of rushing into fast
life and dissipation, but men are frequently drawn into habits
of that kind because they fear the results that follow from
early marriage. Since I am told that our object is to increase
immorality, and that we only use the word "marriage" to conceal
the foulest designs upon the purity of society, I may say freely
that I hold early marriages to be the very salvation of young men,
and especially of young men in our large cities. I hold the belief
with a depth of conviction which I cannot put to you in words,
that for one man and one woman to help, comfort, and support
one another, which they are by nature adapted to do, is a state
which is to be reached, which is to be perpetuated, by marriage
and in no other way. It is only by companionship, and the union
between a man and a woman, that this is possible. Shut a man out
from the loving influence of home, the golden institutions of
the fireside, his wife's society, and the happiness of becoming
a father, and you induce a life of profligacy. Gentlemen, do not
be deceived. There is no talk in this book of preventing men and
women from becoming parents; all that is sought here is to limit
the number of their family. And we do not aim at that because
we do not love children, but, on the contrary, because we do
love them, and because we wish to prevent them from coming into
the world in greater numbers than there is the means of properly
providing for. Children, I believe, have an influence upon parents
purifying in the highest degree, because they teach the parents
self-restraint, self-denial, thoughtfulness, and tenderness to an
extent that cannot possibly be over-estimated; and it is because
I wish to have it made possible for young men and for young women
to have these influences brought to bear upon them in their youth,
that I advocate the circulation of a book that will put within
their reach the knowledge of how to limit the extent of their
families within their capabilities of providing for them; for
no man can look with pride and happiness upon his home if he has
more children than he can clothe and educate. It is because I wish
them to marry in the springtime of their youth that I ask you by
your verdict in this action to make discussion on these subjects
possible, and that men should not be driven to find a substitute
for true and pure womanhood and wifehood in other directions. If
you render this possible you will make your streets purer and
your families happier than they are at present.
Having in the course of a prolonged speech explained and vindicated the
New-Malthusian doctrine from misrepresentations inspired by ignorance,
prejudice, and bigotry, Mrs. Besant concluded her memorable address
in the following words:
I fairly put it that unless you honestly believe that my whole
speech to you has been one mass of falsehoods; unless you
believe my intent to be a bad intent; unless you believe I have
been deliberately deceiving you throughout, and stand here before
you in the very worst character a woman could take upon herself,
namely, that of striving to corrupt the morals of the young under
the false pretence of purity here put forward, and unless you think
that, for the after-part of my life, I deserve to pass through it
with the brand upon me that twelve gentlemen, after all patience,
thought not only that the book was a mistake, the opinions wrong,
and the arguments unconvincing, but, in the terrible language
of the indictment, that I am guilty of "wickedly devising and
contriving as much as in me lay to vitiate and corrupt the morals
of youth" as well as of others,--unless, I say, you believe that
that has been my object and purpose, on this indictment, I shall
call upon you, gentlemen, to return a verdict of "Not Guilty,"
and to send me home free, believing from my heart and conscience
that I have been guilty only of doing that which I ought to do in
grappling honestly with a matter I consider myself justified in
grappling with--that terrible poverty and misery which is around
us on every hand. Unless you are prepared, gentlemen, to brand
me with malicious meaning, I ask you, as an English woman, for
that justice which it is not impossible to expect at the hands
of Englishmen--I ask you to give me a verdict of "Not Guilty,"
and to send me home unstained.
Mr. Bradlaugh, in his speech, dealt more fully than his co-defendant
had been able to do with the legal and physiological aspects of
the case. In the clearest fashion he maintained the lawfulness of
disseminating the knowledge of innocent prudential checks:
I submit to you, gentlemen of the jury, that it is moral to teach
poor people to marry early, and that this teaching avoids and will
diminish illicit intercourse. I will not weary you with reading
the whole of the report on the "Employment of Women and Children
in Agriculture," from which my co-defendant quoted that terrible
extract from the report of Bishop Fraser. You will there find
that the illicit intercourse which we are charged with trying to
produce is an illicit intercourse which is going on and bringing
with it the birth of the child, and bringing with it the murder of
the child by the mother, because there is the pang of starvation
and misery and shame to contend with. I say that it is amongst the
poor married people that the evils of over-population are chiefly
felt, and that it cannot tend to deprave their morals to teach
them how to intelligently check this over-population.... I submit
that the advocacy of all checks is lawful except such as advocate
the destruction of the foetus after conception or of the child
after birth. I say that the advocacy of every birth-restricting
check is lawful which is not the advocacy of the destruction of
human life in any form after that life has been created.
Assuming the legality of such advocacy, it is useless unless conveyed
in plain and simple language:
I say that the advocacy of any check amongst the masses to be
useful must of necessity be put in the plainest language and in
the cheapest form, and be widely spread; and I press that upon
you because I understand that the learned Solicitor-General in
his argument put it that one of the faults of this pamphlet was
that it was not obscured in learned language. If we possessed the
facility of expressing ourselves in French, or Italian, or Greek,
or Latin, or Hebrew, or Arabic, what earthly use would that be
to the poor unfortunate wretches whose misery we want to address?
After traversing with his accustomed skill and acumen the charges
formulated by the prosecution, Mr. Bradlaugh concluded his address
with a peroration full of passionate eloquence:
We want (he said) to make the poor more comfortable; and you
tell us we are immoral. We want to prevent them bringing into
the world little children to suck death, instead of life, at
the breasts of their mother; and you tell us we are immoral. I
should not say that, perhaps, for you, gentlemen, may judge things
differently from myself; but I know the poor. I belong to them. I
was born amongst them. Among them are the early associations of my
life. Such little ability as I possess to-day has come to me in
the hard struggle of life. I have had no University to polish my
tongue; no Alma Mater to give to me any eloquence by which to move
you. I plead here simply for the class to which I belong, and for
the right to tell them what may redeem their poverty and alleviate
their misery. And I ask you to believe in your heart of hearts,
even if you deliver a verdict against us here--I ask you, at least,
to try and believe both for myself and the lady who sits besides
me (I hope it for myself, and I earnestly wish it for her), that
all through we have meant to do right, even if you think that we
have done wrong.... My co-defendant referred, in earnest language,
to the letters which she had received from women, and clergymen,
and others throughout the country. I, too, have received many warm
words of sympathy from those who think that I am right. It is true
many of them may be ignorant people, and therefore may be wrong;
but they have written to encourage me with their kindly sympathy
in my pleading before you. If we are branded with the offence of
circulating an obscene book, many of these poor people will still
think "No." They think such knowledge would prevent misery in
their families, would check hunger in their families, and would
hinder disease in their families. Do you know what poverty means
in a poor man's house? It means that when you are reproaching a
poor and ignorant man with brutality, you forget that he is merely
struggling against that hardship of life which drives all chivalry
and courtesy out of his existence. Do not blame poor men too much
that they are rough and brutal. Think mercifully of a man such as
a brick-maker, who, going home after his day's toil, finds six
or seven little ones crying for bread, and clinging around his
wife for the food which they cannot get. Think you such a scene
as that is not sufficient to make both himself and her hungry and
angry too? Gentlemen, it is for you, in your deliverance of guilty
or not guilty, to say how we are to go from this court--whether,
when we leave this place, if you mark us guilty, his lordship
may feel it to be his duty to sentence us, and put upon us the
brand of a doom such as your verdict may warrant; or whether, by
your verdict of not guilty--which I hope for myself and desire
for my co-defendant--we may go out of this court absolved from
that shame which this indictment has sought to put upon us.
We must pass over the evidence given by Dr. Alice Vickery,
Dr. C. R. Drysdale, Mr. Bohn and others for the defence; and refer
briefly to the summing-up of the Lord Chief Justice (Sir Alexander
Cockburn). His lordship dwelt upon "the mischievous character and
effect" of the prosecution, and declared that "a more ill-advised and
more injudicious proceeding" had probably never been brought into a
court of justice. He adverted in terms of severity to the secrecy that
had been maintained as to the real originators of the prosecution. In
discussing the questions involved, his lordship referred to the
theory of Malthus as "a theory which astonished the world, though
it is now accepted as an irrefragable truth, and has since been
adopted by economist after economist. That the evils arising from
over-population," he continued, "are evils which, if they could be
prevented, it would be the first business of human charity to prevent,
there cannot be any doubt. That the evils of population are real,
and not imaginary, no one acquainted with the state of society in
the present day can possibly deny." Upon the question whether or not
the advocacy of prudential checks tended to corrupt public morals,
his lordship said to the jury: "You must decide that with a due
regard and reference to the law, and with an honest and determined
desire to maintain the morals of mankind. But, on the other hand, you
must carefully consider what is due to public discussion, and with
an anxious desire not, from any prejudiced view of this subject, to
stifle what may be a subject of legitimate enquiry." The concluding
passages of the charge to the jury are so significant that they are
here reproduced entire:
If you are of opinion that this work of Knowlton's, although well
intended, and although the publication of it by the defendants
may be intended for the benefit of mankind, if you think they
have taken an erroneous view as to the effect of the work, and
that its entire scope is subversive of the morals of society,
if that is your opinion, it is then your bounden duty to find
the defendants liable. But whilst that is the case, it is for
the prosecution to make out the charge they have undertaken to
establish. If you think they have failed--if you think these are
matters which may fairly be discussed--that the proper answer to
them is by refuting them by argument and not by prosecution, the
defendants are entitled to your verdict. Or if you have any doubt
as to the effect of this work you are bound to bring them in not
guilty. I would only say in conclusion, that whatever outrages
decency, whatever tends to corrupt the morals of society, and
especially the morals and purity of women--whatever tends to have
that result is, when published, an offence against the law. But
that offence like every other must be made out. If you think it
is made out, if there is a conviction in your minds that though
they have acted from a desire to do good, yet in your opinion
they have done wrong, they have then brought themselves within
the definition of the statute.
Despite the powerful speeches of the defendants and the obviously
sympathetic charge of the judge, the jury were not equal to their
opportunity to make a clear stand for freedom of discussion. They
returned a halting "special" verdict, declaring that the book was
"calculated to deprave public morals," but at the same time they
entirely exonerated the defendants from any corrupt motives in
publishing it. Upon this the judge reluctantly directed the jury to
return a verdict of guilty.
The remainder of the story is most concisely told in Mrs. Besant's
own words: "Obviously annoyed at the verdict, the Lord Chief Justice
refused to give judgment, and let us go on our own recognisances. When
we came up later for judgment, he urged us to surrender the pamphlet as
the jury had condemned it; said our whole course with regard to it had
been right, but that we ought to yield to the judgment of the jury. We
were obstinate, and I shall never forget the pathetic way in which the
great judge urged us to submit, and how at last when we persisted that
we would continue to sell it till the right to sell it was gained, he
said that he would have let us go free if we would have yielded to the
court, but our persistence compelled him to sentence us. We gave notice
of appeal, promising not to sell till the appeal was decided, and he
let us go on our own recognisances. On appeal we quashed the verdict,
and went free; we recovered all the pamphlets seized, and publicly
sold them; we continued the sale till we received an intimation that
no further prosecution would be attempted against us, and then we
dropped the sale of the pamphlet and never took it up again." [3]
Having given an account of this memorable trial, we proceed to trace
some of its far-reaching effects. In the first place, Dr. Knowlton's
pamphlet gained immediately an enormous circulation. Before the
prosecution the annual sales were very small; within three months from
the time when proceedings were instituted against the publishers,
125,000 copies were sold. But this result, startling as it appears,
was by no means the most important phase of the impetus given to the
public mind upon the question of population by the cause célèbre of
"The Queen versus Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant." During the
trial the newspapers of this country contained lengthy reports of
the proceedings, and the remarkable speeches of the defendants
were thus carried far and wide. Their popular statements of the
Malthusian position, their description of the evils arising from
over-population and the remedies that they proposed were sent
forth into many thousands of homes into which no hint of the truth
would otherwise have penetrated. The press, with its myriad voices,
became, for the time, a mighty organ of New-Malthusian propaganda,
repeating, in tones that echoed round the world, the eloquent words
of two social reformers to whom the miseries of the poor were known,
and who had faced the danger of imprisonment and of social obloquy
in order to proclaim that which they felt to be the only efficient
remedy for poverty.
Amidst the public excitement caused by this famous trial, The
Malthusian League was called into existence, and has since carried
forward the work of propaganda in an organised and systematic
fashion. It was founded to promote the following objects:
I. To agitate for the abolition of all penalties on the public
discussion of the Population Question, and to obtain such a statutory
definition as shall render it impossible, in the future, to bring
such discussions within the scope of the common law as a misdemeanor.
II. To spread among the people, by all practicable means, a knowledge
of the law of population, of its consequences, and of its bearing
upon human conduct and morals.
Dr. Charles R. Drysdale, M.D., F.R.C.S., Eng., has from the first
been the President of the League, and has devoted himself to the
work of explaining and advocating the New-Malthusian principle. The
list of Vice-Presidents has included the names of the late M. Yves
Guyot, a distinguished French deputé and Minister of State, and of
Mr. J. Bryson, President of the Northumberland Miners' Association. A
reference to its present composition will show the reader that the
efforts of the League to spread enlightened views on the population
question have the approval and sympathy of influential persons in
this and in other countries. [4]
The work of the League is chiefly carried on by public lectures and
meetings, the dissemination of literature, and letters addressed
to the editors of newspapers. By these means the public mind is
constantly being influenced in the direction of rational views upon
the population question.
The annual meetings of members and friends of the League have afforded
valuable opportunities of obtaining expressions of opinion upon
the subject of Malthusianism from many influential persons. Letters
expressing hearty approval of the movement have been received from
Mrs. Mona Caird, Lord Derby, Lord Pembroke, the late Lord Bramwell,
Mr. Leonard Courtney, M.P., Mr. W. B. Maclaren, M.P., Professor Bain,
Mr. Arnold White, Mr. G. H. Darwin and others.
Four years after the formation of the League, a "Medical Branch"
was established for the following purposes:
I. To aid the Malthusian League in its crusade against poverty and
the accompanying evils by obtaining the co-operation of qualified
medical practitioners, both British and foreign.
II. To obtain a body of scientific opinion on points of sexual
physiology and pathology involved in the "Population Question," and
which can only be discussed by those possessed of scientific knowledge.
III. To agitate for a free and open discussion of the Population
Question in all its aspects in the medical press, and thus to obtain
a recognition of the scientific oasis and the absolute necessity
of Neo-Malthusianism.
It will be seen that the work of this section is of a special and
scientific character. The names of the officers and members (given
in the appendix) will show that the advocacy of prudential checks
to population is sanctioned by a body of physicians of unquestioned
eminence.
Having given an outline of the permanent organisation of Malthusian
propaganda which grew out of the events of 1877, we proceed to trace
briefly the history of the movement from that period. It is in the main
a story of petty persecutions on the one side, and, upon the other,
of steady persistence in the work of informing the public mind. The
principal obstacle to the progress of the movement, and one which it
is slowly but surely surmounting, is the prejudice born of ignorance
and bigotry. Journalists, statesmen and other leaders of opinion do not
hesitate to avow their adhesion to the principle formulated by Malthus;
but they are, almost without exception, dominated by the fear of
Mrs. Grundy, and shrink from incurring the odium which, they imagine,
would result from a frank recognition of the only logical outcome
of that principle. They join loudly in the chorus on the evils of
over-population; but, as a rule, they will lend no public countenance
to the distinct advocacy of prudential checks. Hence the task of the
pioneers of the movement is rendered excessively difficult; but from
the very inception of the Malthusian League, the work of propaganda has
been carried forward with unfailing devotion and singleness of purpose.
In its earliest days, the League was called upon to support one of
its most respected members under stress of persecution. In February,
1878, Mr. Edward Truelove was prosecuted and tried before Lord Chief
Justice Cockburn for publishing the Hon. Robert Dale Owen's pamphlet
entitled Moral Physiology, and an essay on Individual, Family,
and National Poverty, by an anonymous author. Mr. W. A. Hunter, in
defending the case, made a most powerful speech in support of the
Malthusian position. The jury were unable to agree upon a verdict,
and the proceedings came to an abortive termination. Three months
later, however, Mr. Truelove was a second time placed upon his trial,
the venue meanwhile being changed from the Court of Queen's Bench
to the Old Bailey. A common jury found no difficulty in returning a
verdict of guilty, and Mr. Truelove (then in his sixty-eighth year)
was sentenced to pay a fine of £50 and to be imprisoned for four
months. A great public meeting was held at St. James's Hall on June
6th, when Mr. Bradlaugh, Mrs. Besant, Dr. Drysdale and other friends
of the movement protested against the action of the authorities in
thus interfering with the right of free discussion, and expressed
their admiration of Mr. Truelove's courage and consistency.
Mr. Truelove endured the privations of imprisonment with fortitude and
dignity, sustained by the knowledge that his cause was righteous. He
was taken to Coldbath Fields in a prison-van, handcuffed like a
dangerous criminal; compelled to lie on the "plank-bed," and subjected
to all the rigors of gaol discipline. During the first three months
he was allowed no meat; after that time he was permitted to have six
ounces of Australian tinned meat per week. Happily the confinement
and hardships did not prejudicially affect his health.
On September 12th he was welcomed back to liberty by a large and
enthusiastic gathering of friends at the Hall of Science, London. The
leading members of the Malthusian League were present, and Mr. Moncure
D. Conway, and the Rev. Stewart D. Headlam attended to do honor to
one who had suffered for conscience sake. A purse containing £200
was presented to Mr. Truelove, together with the following testimonial:
To Edward Truelove, on his release from four months' imprisonment
in Coldbath Fields Prison--suffered in defence of the Liberty of
the Press.
The undersigned, on behalf of the National Secular Society and
of the Malthusian League, desire to welcome you on your return to
liberty, and to offer you their heartiest thanks for the courage
and endurance you have displayed, in defending the right of free
publication of opinion.
The battle for the liberty of the press has been steadily waged
ever since the invention of printing, and a long muster-roll of
names might be given of those who, first at the stake, and since in
prison, have in turn paid their share of the penalty-purchase for
the victories already achieved. You have worthily entitled yourself
to an honorable place in this muster-roll, the more so that you
have stood firm in a day when too many temporise and flinch. From
almost every part of England, and from remote districts, as well as
from the great centres of Scotland, many thousands of your fellow
countrymen and countrywomen have pleaded for your release, and from
all parts of the civilised world expressions have been received,
of sympathy with you, and of indignation against your persecutors.
As some slight mark of our gratitude and affectionate esteem,
and in recognition of the honor with which you have crowned a long
life of unwavering courage, we present you this address, and the
accompanying purse of gold, begging you to accept with them our
sincerest wishes for your future welfare. Signed on behalf of
The National Secular Society.
Chas. Bradlaugh, President.
Robert Forder, Secretary.
The Malthusian League.
C. Drysdale, M.D., President.
Annie Besant, Hon. Sec.
Hall of Science, 12th September, 1878.
The case of Mr. Truelove was the last prosecution of importance in
this country for the publication of works dealing with the population
question. The proceedings against Mr. Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant,
after being quashed in the Court of Appeal upon a writ of error, were
never renewed. Dr. Knowlton's pamphlet, The Fruits of Philosophy,
was withdrawn from circulation, and Mrs. Besant wrote a small book,
The Law of Population: its consequences and its bearing upon human
conduct and morals, to take its place. Of this work nearly 200,000
copies were circulated in Great Britain; many pirated editions were
published in America and Australia; and it was translated into several
European languages. It formed the basis of a remarkable judgment by
Mr. Justice Windeyer (delivered in the Supreme Court of New South
Wales), to which further reference will presently be made.
In June, 1887, Dr. H. A. Allbutt, of Leeds, published a sixpenny
pamphlet entitled The Wife's Handbook. The following paragraph,
taken from the introduction to the book, will explain its object:
"To save the lives and preserve the health of thousands of women, to
rescue from death and disease children who may be born, to teach the
young wife how to order her health during the most important period
of her life, to remove from her mind the popular ignorance in which
she may have been reared, and to enable her to learn truths concerning
her duties as wife and mother, I have thought fit to write this little
work." Shortly after its appearance, the spirit of persecution was
again manifested, this time in an obscure and technical aspect. As a
member of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, Dr. Allbutt
was professionally amenable to the Council of that body; and he
was summoned to appear and show cause why he should not be removed
from the rolls for the offence of writing and publishing The Wife's
Handbook. The matter was warmly taken up by the Malthusian League, and
protests were addressed to the College from all parts of Great Britain
and from France, Germany, Holland, Italy, India and Jamaica. Nothing
more was heard of the affair until November, when Dr. Allbutt received
a notice to appear before the General Medical Council, in London,
to show cause why his name should not be struck off the register.
On November 23rd the complaint against Dr. Allbutt was considered
by the General Medical Council, a body composed of twenty-seven
physicians. Dr. Allbutt was represented by Mr. Wallace (barrister),
and the "prosecution" was conducted by Mr. Muir Mackenzie, the
legal adviser of the Council. The following were the points which
the Council proceeded to consider: "(1) Was The Wife's Handbook a
fair medical treatise, or was it an indecent advertisement? (2)
Was it practically an injury to the public and an insult to the
profession?" Mr. Wallace, in a very able speech, traversed the
suggestions made by the Council's solicitor, and challenged the right
of an irresponsible body to determine whether any line of advocacy
was "subversive of public morality." If Dr. Allbutt had violated the
law, he was amenable to legal proceedings, and it was not for the
Medical Council to sit in judgment upon him. Mr. Wallace justified
the course that Dr. Allbutt had taken in publishing his work at a
low price in order that it might be placed within the reach of the
poorest classes. He called the attention of the members to a list of
the petitions which had been presented to the Council on the subject
from all parts of Europe. They amounted to over seventy; many of them
came from medical, scientific, and political societies. He assured
the Council that the members of the medical profession were by no
means unanimous in condemning Mr. Allbutt, and it would run against
the feelings of a very considerable minority if they decided adversely
to his client. The book was written with the express object of saving
poor people from the misery, poverty, and starvation which resulted
from the over-production of children; and he asked the Council, in
conclusion, to arrive at a decision which would relieve his client
from the imputation which had been cast upon him, and which would
restore him to his proper position.
The Council having deliberated in private, the President delivered
the following judgment:
"In the opinion of the Council, Mr. Allbutt has committed the offence
charged against him, that is to say, of having published and publicly
caused to be sold a work entitled The Wife's Handbook, in London and
elsewhere, at so low a price as to bring the work within the reach of
the youth of both sexes, to the detriment of public morals. Secondly,
the offence is, in the opinion of the Council, 'infamous conduct in
a professional respect.' Thirdly, the Registrar is hereby ordered to
erase the name of Mr. H. A. Allbutt from the Medical Register."
Thus ended the futile attempt of the General Medical Council to
put a stop to the publication of Malthusian works "at so low a
price." Nobody was a penny the worse for the ponderous proceedings
of this archaic tribunal. Dr. Allbutt has never ceased to practise
legally as a physician; twenty editions of The Wife's Handbook have
been issued and 180,000 copies sold.
This case aroused much attention in the press. The Pall Mall Gazette
declared that "the decision of the General Medical Council to erase
from its rolls the name of a physician who published 'at a low
price' information as to the best means for preventing the excessive
multiplication of children beyond their parents' means of subsistence
or the possibility of education and control, will before long become
familiar as one of the most glaring illustrations of professional
prejudice and human folly. When such a cool-headed respectable as
Lord Derby feels bound to call attention to the increase of 400,000
per annum in our population as one of the most pressing problems of
our day, it is really too fatuous for the General Medical Council to
brand as 'infamous' a practitioner who, in a work to which no objection
is taken on the score of impropriety or immorality, supplies to the
poor information already possessed by the rich."
We have to record but one later attempt to interfere with the free
discussion of the population question in this country. In October,
1891, Mr. H. S. Young, M.A., was summoned to appear at Bow Street
Police Court on a charge of sending through the post a leaflet
entitled Some Reasons for Advocating the Prudential Limitation of
Families. The proceedings were taken under the Post Office Protection
Act. Mr. Besley, in conducting the prosecution, made the remarkable
statement that the only check against immorality in this country was
the fear of pregnancy! Speaking in his own defence, Mr. Young contended
that there was no "obscenity" involved in pointing out to the poor
how they might limit their families. The magistrate (Mr. Lushington)
admitted that the leaflet was written in very careful language, and
not intended to be at all offensive; but still he held that it was
"obscene," convicted Mr. Young, and ordered him to pay a fine of £20
and costs. The defendant applied to the magistrate to state a case,
as he intended to appeal; but Mr. Lushington refused to do so.
This prosecution led to the formation of a Free Discussion Committee,
and public meetings were held in various parts of the metropolis,
protesting against the infringement of public freedom by legal
proceedings. Repeated attempts were made by Mr. Young and his advisers
to bring the case before a court of law, but technical difficulties
rendered this practically impossible, and the matter was allowed
to drop.
Meantime the propaganda of New-Malthusian views is steadily
continued. The pages of The Malthusian, the monthly organ of the
League, bear constant witness to activity which hastes not and rests
not. Whether its energies are to be again stimulated by persecution,
time alone can show.
A brief statement concerning the position of the Malthusian movement
in foreign countries may be usefully added to this chapter.
Holland.--Several years ago a Dutch Malthusian League was established
by Mr. S. Van Houten (Doctor of Laws, and Deputé), Mr. C. V. Gerritsen,
Dr. C. de Rooy, Dr. Lobry de Bruyn and others. In 1887 the League
numbered amongst its members, in Amsterdam alone, six Doctors
of Medicine, eleven Doctors of Law, and three Professors of the
University. At Amsterdam a dispensary has long been open, where a
lady (Dr. Aletta H. Jacobs) and other medical members attend and
give advice to those seeking practical information upon prudential
checks. Large numbers of poor married women apply at the dispensary
for instruction as to the best methods by which they can restrict
the size of their families. Several pamphlets upon the population
question have been issued by the Dutch Malthusian League. In 1887,
thirty thousand copies of one of its publications had been circulated
in a country with a smaller population than that of London. The most
recent pamphlet on Malthusianism, from the pen of Mr. J. A. Van der
Haven, is entitled The Dark Netherlands, and the way out of it. The
author draws a sad picture of life in some of the poor quarters of
Holland, where, he says, "laughter is seldom heard, and hunger and
early death are constant visitors." There is, however, hope for a
brighter future. Mr. Gerritsen states that in Holland "directors of
large industrial establishments and railway societies make their
workmen acquainted with the means of preventing themselves from
drifting into poverty."
Germany.--The Malthusian question has frequently been the subject
of discussion in Germany. Dr. Stille, of Hanover, Dr. Hans Ferdy,
Dr. Mensinga, Dr. Zacharias, and other physicians have again and
again called public attention to the importance of the subject; but,
until lately, no combined effort to influence public opinion has been
possible. Mr. Max Hausmeister, of Stuttgart, has at length set on foot
an organisation for the propaganda of New-Malthusian views. On February
12th, 1892, a private meeting was held at Stuttgart "to consider
the advisability of forming a Malthusian Society." This led to the
establishment of the Sozial-Harmonische Verein (Social Harmony Union),
and a monthly journal, Die Sozial Harmonie, was founded "to enlighten
the people of Germany upon social, political and economic questions and
the relation of these to sexual matters." (Subscription: 2·50 marks per
annum.) Germany, with its teeming population of impoverished workers,
affords an enormous field for Malthusian propaganda.
In Holland and Germany alone, amongst continental countries, has the
Malthusian view found organised expression. France, whilst extremely
prudent in practice, is strongly anti-Malthusian in theory, at least
so far as the governing class is concerned. Drs. Lutaud, Le Blond,
and Rebanté, of Paris, are prominent amongst the adherents of the
New-Malthusian movement in France.
In India, public attention has lately been called to the population
question by a prosecution instituted by the police authorities
against Messrs. Taraporewalla & Sons, of Bombay, for selling copies
of a pamphlet entitled True Morality; or, the Theory and Practice
of New-Malthusianism, by Mr. J. R. Holmes. The Chief Presidency
Magistrate convicted the defendants and imposed a fine of 201 rupees
(about £12. 10s.). The conviction was not permitted to pass without
public protest. The editor of a Bombay journal wrote: "The battle
has been fought and won in the West, and the subject is more or less
directly treated in the leading reviews, and books and pamphlets
are openly sold in England. Our duty here is clear enough. Are the
Freethinkers in India, whether New-Malthusians or not, to quietly
stand by and see the free discussion of this question denied the
public? We are perfectly aware that although there are many who will
aid in this work, there are few--alas! how few!--who will openly
bear the brunt of the fray. However, there is at least one who will
do it. But will the others stand round and give whatever help they
can, even if silently?" The standard of comfort amongst the teeming
native population of India is deplorably low, the average income
per head in the north-west provinces not exceeding 22 1/2 rupees
(say £1. 8s. 6d.) per year. And yet, forsooth, those who seek to lift
the poor ryots from their abysmal poverty and misery are confronted
with the smug conventionalities of Western Europe, and punished as
distributors of "obscene" literature!
America has no Malthusian organisation, but there are many sympathisers
with the movement in various parts of the country. Dr. E. B. Foote,
jr., of New York, is a most active and earnest advocate of Malthusian
views, and has written several popular works on the subject. The
customs and postal prohibitions are very stringent as to the admission
and transmission of Malthusian literature and appliances. Some years
ago the late Mr. D. M. Bennett underwent a term of imprisonment at
Auburn for sending through the post a pamphlet by Mr. Heywood on
the marriage question. Just after his arrest Mr. Bennett stated: "My
only object in selling this pamphlet is to vindicate the liberty of
thought, of the press, and of the mails. I have always announced that
I did not approve of it; but as long as Mr. Heywood does, I declare
that he has a right to mail it as part of his right to publish it,
and as a necessary part of the freedom of the press. If this means
that I am to go to prison, to prison let it be."
From this necessarily slight and incomplete sketch of the position
of the movement abroad it will be seen that the theory of Malthus is
gradually leavening the thought and helping to shape the destinies
of the civilised world.