I have little heart to speak of the parents who are
answerable for such horrors of crass neglect and cruelty. By laying a
set of dry police reports before any sensitive person I could make
that person shudder without adding a word of rhetoric; for it would be
seen that the popular picture of a fiend represents rather a mild and
harmless entity if we compare it with the foul-souled human beings who
dwell in our benighted places. What is to be done? It is best to
grapple swiftly with an ugly question; and I do not hesitate to attack
deliberately one of the most delicate puzzles that ever came before
the world. Wise emotionless men may say, and do say, "Are you going to
relieve male and female idlers and drunkards of all anxiety regarding
their offspring? Do you mean to discourage the honest but
poverty-stricken parents who do their best for their children? What
kind of world will you make for us all if you give your aid to the
worst and neglect the good folk?" Those are very awkward questions,
and I can answer them only by a sort of expedient which must not be
mistaken for intellectual conjuring; I drop ordinary logic and
theories of probability and go at once to facts.
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