was encountered.”  But this choice, he considered, would be further strengthened by the fact that, with the ever-increasing approach to equality of opportunity for every child born in our country, that terrible excess of male deaths, in boyhood and early manhood especially, due to various preventable causes, would disappear, and change the present majority of women to a majority of men.  This would lead to a greater rivalry for wives, and give to women the power of rejecting all the lower types of character among their suitors.

“It will be their special duty so to mould public opinion, through home training and social influence, as to render the women of the future the regenerators of the entire human race.”  He fully hoped and believed that they would prove equal to the high and responsible position which, in accordance with natural laws, they will be called upon to fulfil.

* * * * *

Mr. D.A.  Wilson, who visited him in 1912, writes: 

He surprised me by saying he was a Socialist—­one does not expect a man like him to label himself in any way.  It appeared to be unconscious modesty, like a school-boy’s, which made him willing to be labelled; but no label could describe him, and his mental sweep was unlimited.  Although in his ninetieth year, he seemed to be in his prime.  There was no sign of age but physical weakness, and you had to make an effort at times to remember even that.  His eye kindled as he spoke, and more than once he walked about and chuckled, like a schoolboy pleased.

An earnest expression like Carlyle’s came over his countenance as he reprobated the selfish, wild-cat competition which made life harder and more horrible to-day for a well-doing poor man in England than among the Malays or Burmese before they had any modern inventions.  Co-operation was the upward road for humanity.  Men grew out of beasthood by it, and by it civilisation began.  Forgetting it, men retrograded, subsiding swiftly, so that there were many individuals among us to-day who were in body, mind, and character below the level of our barbarian ancestors or contemporary “savages,” to say nothing of civilised Burmese or Malays.  What he meant by Socialism can be seen from his books.  Nothing in them surprised me after our talk.  His appreciation of Confucius, when I quoted some things of the Chinese sage’s which confirmed what he was saying, was emphatic, and that and many other things showed that Socialism to him implied the upward evolution of humanity.  It was because of the degradation of men involved that he objected to letting individuals grab the public property—­earth, air and water.  Monopolies, he thought, should at once revert to the public, and we had an argument which showed that he had no objection to even artificial monopolies if they were public property.  He defended the old Dutch Government monopolies of spices, and declared them better than to-day’s free trade, when cultivation is exploited