This issue has a lot of the usual stuff, all the crises are continuing, etc. etc. I'm going to note a couple interesting tidbits, but not do a very thorough review.
As always, I have to mention what Beatrice Hastings is up to. This time, she's explaining why "equal pay for equal work" is ridiculous because menstruation means women can never really do "equal work." More on that line from pages 12-14, if you want to see 1913 antifeminism up close (and have a strong stomach for outdated arguments). It makes me feel badly for BH, though, to constantly run herself down. There's something deeply wrong here, and I have my suspicions about their roots, but I'm no biographer.
"Views and Reviews" this week is a lengthy discussion of Malthusianism. Strange sometimes what people debated so recently: the author explains that a new study proves that large families do not inherently cause disease because rich people with large families are healthy. Perhaps more interestingly, the article confronts the issue of the lowering birthrate in the context of longer life expectancy, explaining that the one will largely balance the other. This, naturally, leads to a discussion of sexual practice and whether masturbation and contraception can make you sick. Answer? "Whatever may be the truth of the matter, I cannot pretend to decide; but it seems wise, when doctors differ, to perform functions naturally" (16).
Lastly, that scoundrel-y Oscar Levy contributes a parable about how removing danger from life allows the lower classes to breed more quickly, which in turn crowds out the aristocrats (and even the more effective working men). Oscar's parable of the fishes (which he derives from art critic C. J. Holmes): if you take the pike out of a pond to help the trout grow, the perch will swarm the trout and smaller perch will drive out bigger perch until you have a pond that's just useless. I wonder what he'll say about the war, when it starts?
That's all for now...
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