Note 271 — Chapter XV · CONDITIONS AFFECTING THE COUNTRY. WAGES. PAUPERISM. CRIME. INSANITY

Professor Taussig says that there is evidence that “a standard of living so tenaciously held as to affect natural increase” is a force which acts on the numbers of the well-to-do in modern countries and is coming into operation in the upper tier of manual workmen. Prin. of Econ., Vol. II, p. 152. In these upper groups it operates mainly upon the birth rate. In the lower groups, where there is less conscious control of the rate of reproduction, a decrease in the means of subsistence must almost inevitably result in an increase of the death rate, particularly of infants.