* * * * *

THE UNWELCOME CHILD.[Footnote:  This is the title of a pamphlet written by Henry C. Wright.  We have taken some extracts from it.]

1.  TOO OFTEN THE HUSBAND thinks only of his personal gratification; he insists upon what he calls his rights(?); forces on his wife an unwelcome child, and thereby often alienates her affections, if he does not drive her to abortion.

Dr Stockham reports the following case:  “A woman once consulted me who was the mother of five children, all born within ten years.  These were puny, scrofulous, nervous and irritable.  She herself was a fit subject for doctors and drugs.  Every organ in her body seemed diseased, and every function perverted.  She was dragging out a miserable existence.  Like other physicians, I had prescribed in vain for her many maladies.  One day she chanced to inquire how she could safely prevent conception.  This led me to ask how great was the danger.  She said:  ’Unless my husband is absent from home, few nights have been exempt since we were married, except it may be three or four immediately after confinement.’

“‘And yet your husband loves you?’

“’O, yes, he is kind and provides for his family.  Perhaps I might love him but for this.  While now—­(will God forgive me?)—­I detest, I loathe him, and if I knew how to support myself and children, I would leave him.’

“‘Can you talk with him upon this subject?’

“‘I think I can.’

“’Then there is hope, for many women cannot do that.  Tell him I will give you treatment to improve your health and if he will wait until you can respond, take time for the act, have it entirely mutual from first to last, the demand will not come so frequent.’

“‘Do you think so?’

“‘The experience of many proves the truth of this statement.’

“Hopefully she went home, and in six months I had the satisfaction of knowing my patient was restored to health, and a single coition in a month gave the husband more satisfaction than the many had done previously, that the creative power was under control, and that my lady could proudly say ‘I love,’ where previously she said ‘I hate.’

“If husbands will listen, a few simple instructions will appeal to their common sense, and none can imagine the gain to themselves, to their wives and children, and their children’s children.  Then it may not be said of the babes that the ’Death borders on their birth, and their cradle stands in the grave.’”

2.  WIVES!  BE FRANK AND TRUE to your husbands on the subject of maternity, and the relation that leads to it.  Interchange thoughts and feelings with them as to what nature allows or demands in regard to these.  Can maternity be natural when it is undesigned by the father or undesired by the mother?  Can a maternity be natural, healthful, ennobling to the mother, to the child, to the father, and to the