horizons. Malthus' spirit of reform stopped at the threshold of marriage. He was radical enough in interposing difficulties between the desire to marry and actual marriage; but once persons were married he left them to the undisturbed guidance of the ethical sanctions which religion and custom had provided. However inharmonious and illogical some elements of the traditional idea of the marriage relation might have seemed if tested by his criterion of utility, he did not call them into question. The advocates of the radical check see in this a failure to carry his principle to its logical and serviceable conclusion. This, in the words of Meyerhof, was the mythological cuckoo's egg in the nest of exact science.2 But it may well be that Malthus was wiser than the unconsidering fanatics among the prophets of population reform who fling their upstart logic in the face of established social customs.

From other quarters the proposal of more direct checks on population was not long in forthcoming. Guardedly it found a way into the Encyclopedia Britannica Supplement, in James Mill's article "Colony", published in 1818. There Mill wrote, in an often-cited passage concerning "the best means of checking the progress of population":

And yet, if the superstitions of the nursery were discarded, and the principle of utility kept steadily in view, a solution might not be very difficult to be found; and the means of drying up one of the most copious sources of human evil might be seen to be nei

ther doubtful nor difficult to be applied.

Three years later, in the first edition of his "Elements of Political Economy", Mill, treating of population, speaks of

prudence; by which, either marriages are sparingly contracted, or care is taken that children, beyond a certain number, shall not be the fruit."

And in the same work he concludes:

The grand practical problem, therefore, is, to find the means of limiting the number of births.*

The Edinburgh Review ventured more than a hint in the same direction. Thompson, in 1824,6 advocated some sort of preventive artifice. But a more outspoken declaration had in the meantime "Hans Ferdy”, Sittliche Selbstbeschränkung, p. 10.

2

In a review of Cobbett's Cottage Economy [by Jeffrey], vol. xxxviii, 'An Inquiry into the Distribution of Wealth, pp. 547-50.

p. 125.

come from Francis Place. In his "Illustrations and Proofs of the Principle of Population", published in 1822, reviewing various ways in which the evils of excessive population might be mitigated, he delivers this noteworthy pronouncement:

If, above all, it were once clearly understood, that it was not disreputable for married persons to avail themselves of such precautionary means as would, without being injurious to health, or destructive of female delicacy, prevent conception, a sufficient check might at once be given to the increase of population beyond the means of subsistence; vice and misery, to a prodigious extent, might be removed from society, and the object of Mr. Malthus, Mr. Godwin, and of every philanthropic person, be promoted, by the increase of comfort, of intelligence, and of moral conduct, in the mass of the population. And Place adds prophetically:

The course recommended will, I am fully persuaded, at some period be pursued by the people, even if left to themselves."

But the people were not left to themselves. By the following year an active propaganda had already begun.

One evening in July, 1823, a mysterious parcel was handed to Mr. Taylor, editor of the Manchester Guardian, with a note asking that he be so kind as to see that it was delivered to Mrs. Mary Fildes-known for her interest in the welfare of the working classes. With this request Mr. Taylor complied. When Mrs. Fildes opened the package she found a number of copies of what was subsequently called "the diabolical handbill”: a small leaflet, unobtrusively and almost elegantly printed, addressed “To the Married of Both Sexes", setting forth the economic burden of an excessively large family, and describing with frank simplicity means of preventing conception. With the leaflets was an anonymous note which ran as follows:

To Mrs. Fildes

Madam

London July 8th 1823

The Bills enclosed with this note are sent to you, as to an experienced, sensible, discreet woman, having much influence in her neighbourhood, to one, who has shewn herself the ardent friend of the working people. You Madam must be well aware, that numberless evils are produced by too large a family, not only as it makes the working man & his wife poor, but breaks their spirits, & qualifies them to be ill used & trampled upon by those who are richer.-If you will give one of the Bills to each of such married women as in your opinion may be usefull you will confer on them a great benefit. The 'Page 165.

method recommended is getting fast into use amongst the working people in London, & will in a very few years produce the happiest consequences Mr. Carliles people know nothing of the contents of the parcel, but should you be pleased to notice it, have the goodness to direct to Mr. James at Mr. Carliles No. 5 Water Lane Fleet Street London the letter will be called for, any number of bills you may desire to have shall be sent to you

by a sincere well wisher

to the working Classes.

9

It is stated that Mrs. Fildes ultimately became an advocate of the practice thus suddenly brought to her notice. At first however, outraged and indignant, and unable to fix the responsibility on Mr. Taylor,1o she reported the happening to the Attorney General. Six weeks later, having received no answer, she addressed herself to Richard Carlile, who, for his zealous efforts to establish the freedom of the press, was at that time in Dorchester Gaol, in his characteristic state of imprisonment. Her letter, which begins with a brief narrative of the episode of the handbills, and an outcry against the indignity she had suffered, concludes thus:

I feel indignant at the insult which has been offered me; Is it possible that this infamous hand Bill has issued from the encouragers of the doctrines of the cold blooded Malthus or [his] servile supporter the detestable Lawyer Scarlett?

I have no redress but what is afforded me through the medium of a free press; I submit this infamous transaction to you under a hope that you will give it that consideration which (I think) so flagrant an attack upon the morals of the community demands; hoping that you will expose the propagators of this infamous hand Bill

I am Sir

The story of the handbills was given publicity through Wooler's paper The Black Dwarf. Wooler did not approve the principle of the handbill; but inasmuch as he conceived that it was his function to insure the open discussion of topics which were in

Letter from Mary Fildes to "Mr. Richard Carlile, Dorchester Gaol..." Place Papers, British Museum (Hendon), vol. 68. [Place's "guard-books,” containing for the most part newspaper clippings, are kept at the Hendon storage building of the British Museum newspaper room. Reference to these volumes in subsequent notes of this article will be made in abbreviated form: e. g. “vol. 68, Hendon."]

'G. J. Holyoake, Sixty Years of an Agitator's Life, vol. i, p. 130; and The Republican, xi, p. 561.

10 Cf. Black Dwarf, xi, 461-464; J. E. Taylor, To the Public (1823). "Letter to Carlile, as cited above.

danger of being suppressed, he published Mrs. Fildes' letter and also reprinted the contents of the handbill itself, with the anonymous note which Mrs. Fildes had found in the package.12

The authorship of these strange leaflets naturally became a matter of curious speculation. A pamphlet on "The History of the Diabolical Hand Bill" was issued in Manchester, championing the cause of Mrs. Fildes, 18 and presenting a circumstantiul narrative of the facts in the case with more or less obvious bias of hostility to Mr. Taylor. He, however, had succeeded in disclaiming responsibility in a letter to the Black Dwarf,14 which he subsequently republished, together with other correspondence, in a leaflet addressed "To The Public."15 Far more important, therefore, were allegations which ascribed the handbill to Robert Owen, the philanthropist-reformer of New Lanark.

The first public reference to Owen in this connection occurs in the Black Dwarf of October 1, 1823, to which one James Macphail communicated the following extract from an anonymous letter which had been received by the editor of the Labourer's Friend:

You, I am sure, will give that truly benevolent man, Mr. Robert Owen, credit for good intentions, whatever opinion you may entertain of me, as an unknown correspondent. I will therefore relate an anecdote respecting him. It was objected to his plan that the number of children which would be produced in his communities would be so great, and the deaths from vices, misery, and bad management, so few, that the period of doubling the number of people would be very short, and that consequently in no very long period his whole plan would become abortive. Mr. Owen felt the force of this objection, and sought the means of averting the consequences. He heard of the small number of children in French families compared with English families. He knew from authentic sources that the peasantry in the South of France limited the number of their progeny. He knew that while our unfortunate countrymen were reduced to pauperism, and to six shillings a week wages, the peasants in the South of France received 2s. 6d. a day, "Black Dwarf, vol. xi, pp. 404-411; Sept. 17, 1823. For Wooler's attitude, cf. Taylor, To the Public.

13 The History of the Diabolical Hand Bill, for checking Population; With the various Correspondence which has taken place, on this subject with Mrs. Fildes, Mr. J. E. Taylor, The Attorney General, Mr. Wooler, and Mr. Carlile, With an interesting Statement from the latter respecting Mr. R. Owen, the Lanark philanthropist!! With observations by A. Clark.

Manchester: Published and sold by T. Crabtree. 1823.

14 Vol. xi, pp. 461-464.

15 "Printed at the Guardian Office, Manchester," and dated Oct. 8, 1823.

which in their fine climate, and with their abstemious habits, enabled them to live in the most comfortable manner. He knew that these people were cleanly, simple and well provided with everything desirable in abundance, and he knew also that they married young. Mr. Owen resolved to ascertain the means by which this desirable state was produced and maintained. He went to France, discovered the means which prevents too rapid a population, and he brought back with him several [specimens of the contrivance there in use], two of which he gave to his friend who had been the cause of this inquiry. Mr. Owen no longer feared a too rapid increase of the people in his communities; he saw at once what to him was most desirable, the means of marrying all his people at an early age, and limiting their progeny to any desirable extent. Ask him, and he will acknowledge what is here asserted. Do not then condemn this virtuous man to punishment here and hereafter, because he entertains opinions which you call abominable. What Mr. Owen saw would be the greatest of all evils in his communities, is the greatest of all evils in the great community of this nation; and is tenfold increased in the community which composes the Irish people.

The source of this surprising statement is hardly less interesting than its unequivocal character. Almost certainly it emanated from no less an authority than Francis Place. For among Place's manuscript copies of correspondence are to be found drafts or transcripts of the letters to the editor of the Labourer's Friend, from one of which Macphail had extracted the Owen anecdote. With them is the manuscript of an anonymous letter to the Black Dwarf, explaining, as Macphail had not deigned to explain, the purpose of the anecdote in its original context.16 The details of the anecdote are essentially repeated, if not confirmed, in Carlile's letter to Mrs. Fildes, printed in "The History of the Diabolical Hand Bill." Impliedly, the story had come to Carlile's knowledge some time before. But the strongest testimony to its authenticity comes from the reflection that Place was through his friendship with Owen and through his position in the propaganda preeminently likely to know the facts of which he spoke.

16 A portion of Place's anonymous letter was printed in the Black Dwarf, of October 8 (vol. xi, pp. 505-8).

It is true of course that copies of unsigned letters are not in themselves absolutely conclusive of the authorship. Every indication, however, marks these letters as the work of Place. The omission or modification of certain passages makes it clear that the Place copies were not taken from the printed version. There is no reason to regard them as the work of any person but Place.