CURSE OF THE LARGE TOWNS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 80, 21 August 1912, Page 4

CURSE OF THE LARGE TOWNS.

Dr. Nordau goes on to say.—"To-day degeneration attacks not only the pinnacle of the social building, but also ita broad base; not a privileged class, but the whole stratum of the large-town population, that is to say, a verv important part of the people, in 'some lands even the majority of the nation. There is no doubt that degeneration has its chief home, in the large town, and that the population of the large towns is condemned, as a whole, to degeneracy. The large town gives the highest percentage of crime, insanity aud constitutional diseases; the large town is the focus of all the frenzies of fashion, all hysterical aberrations of public opinion, all anarchial movements in politics, social customs, morality. It ig the large town that celibacy and childlessness are most to be found. Jn the large towns the tall races aro dwarfed; not, indeed, among the patrician class, which has country houses and only spends a part of the year in the town, but among the multitude that is born in the town lives there, and dies there. For the present, the country population is still capable of feeding the large towns. But the day will come when the depopulated country will have no more reinforcements to 'bestow on the great city, and then the danger of national degeneration will have come very near to us. This danger will be European in its scope, since one people after another is adopting the large-town civilisation, anad the white race has no more barbarians in reserve to step into the weakened ranks and fill up their gaps. -Anthropologically the large town is ruinous. For progress it is indispensable. The large town is the focus of civilisation. In the large town new thoughts flash into being, not merely bad and perverse thoughts, but also such as arc good and fruitful. The inventors that take out patents, the investigators that discover new scientific truths, the artists and poets that endow the world with new beauty, arc almost all dwellers in the large town, and by its air their genius is first kindled. But for this intensification of mental activity a dear price must be paid: the swift drying up of the organic powers. The large town is a far-shining lighthouse, whose lamp consumes a mighty deal of fuel. The problem then takes this form: in the stress of intensive modern culture the peoples that take the lead mupt needs wear themselves out. Only if they had the courage to retard the rhythm of their economic progress, only then could they retain their health and their full powers. They cannot at the

same time be rich and able, shine and endure, but only the one or the other. One thing is certain: in the great historic contest of the nations the advantage will rest with those that know how to maintain a strong and intolerably prosperous and contented peasantry, and the lirst to go under will be those that most thoroughly transform themselves into peoples of large towns."