[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sm,—The problem of cheeking the increasing number of mental and physical defectives urgently requires solution. At present there are more than 150,000 lunatics in England and Wales ; and a vast number of children, more or less deficient, are maintained at public expense, many of whom will eventually become parents themselves.
A typical instance of such a marriage is mentioned by the author of Memories of Half a Century, who says that a certain Parish Clerk whom he knew, " had a half-witted son, and there was also in the village a half-witted girl, who lived with her married sister. She was so deficient that she could never be sent on an errand, thinking sixpence in copper of more value than a shilling in silver. One morning this half-witted couple disappeared. It turned out that they had walked to Tadeaster, and got married at the Registry Office, for the girl had £20 a year of her own." Can it be maintained that such a marriage is desirable ?
The late Sir. E. Ray Lankester said that he anticipated a time when the production by careful and restricted breeding, of a sound and healthy population, would be recognized as being part of the duty of the makers and administrators of the law in civilized states ; but without, asking for any such drastic change in social habits as the Professor would doubtless recommend, it might perhaps be possible to prevent, without hardship, the marriage of persons who are obviously unfit for the performance of the first purpose for which the Prayer Book tells us matrimony was ordained.—J am, Sir, &c.,
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