[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—Dr. Macphail says : "Fortunately or unfortunately, a diminishing birth-rate is confined only to those societies which we accustomed to think of as highly civilised" (Spectator, October 10th). In the current monthly number of the Magazine of the South American Missionary Society will be found an account of the efforts of the missionaries to put an end to wilful limitation of population among the Indians of the Gran Chaco, a race very low in the scale of civilisation. "Distaste of motherhood" is mentioned as one of the causes operating among the heathen women towards such limitation. Missionary students will remember that John Williams found a similar distaste, with the like consequences, prevailing among the South Sea Islanders a hundred years ago.—I am, Sir, &c.,
S. C. G.
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