INCREASE OF THE UNFIT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 311, 30 December 1908, Page 3

INCREASE OF THE UNFIT.

Ul.SllOl' OF IUIWS TRIBUTE TO THE RUSTIC.

Two subjects of vital importance at. tiie present time—physical degeneracy and rural depopulation—were dealt with by the liisliop of Ripon at tile annual diocesan festival, held at iiiciiiiniml.

Bishop lioyd Carpenter laid stress on the alarming increase of the untie, "lou are allowing the proletariat, the hooligan, the tramp, and the feebleminded to increase ill numbers," lie declared. "Intelligent people, people of the middle class, and artisans have a tendency to grow less quickly in numbers,- and the result is an increase in tile morally and intellectually unlit." What was wanted was a strong,vigorous, virile, intellectual clergy to deal with the question and try to put before those capable of doing it the necessity of a strong vigorous population, and the restraining of the increase in the unfit, they wanted to keep the men in the country, and prevent- the exodus of the best blood, lie Wlls not sure that previous speakers had stated the matter correctly when they said that, generation after generation of the brightest lads were going into the towns, and each successive generation of countrymen deteriorated.

If it was true that the sharpest lads went into tiie towns, it did not always follow that it was those with the best physique, lie was not always sure that the little sharp man in the town was a ! better man than the apparently dull dweller in the country, who knew a little bit of farming, how to hcd"e and ditch, was familiar with the quality of the soil, knew something of the rotation of crops, " whose large fund of intellectual brightness you don't discover till you see the man at work." " Compare the little man who knows his alphabet «iid reads sensational novels with the man in the country, who has little book learning, but is uncommonly good when face to face with God's earth, and capable of making two ears of wheat grow where one grew formerly-

' I think lie is a better man than the sharp little prowler at the street comers," concluded the Bishop, amid hearty applause.