Why, European visitors tell us, we don't know what poverty is." "Neither do we," answered Zava.

"Won't you tell us ?" Terry put it up to me, saying I was the sociologist, and I explained that the laws of nature require a struggle for existence, and that in the struggle the fittest survive, and the unfit perish.

In our economic struggle, I continued, there was always plenty of opportunity for the fittest to reach the top, which they did, in great numbers, particularly in our country; that where there was severe economic pressure the lowest classes of course felt it the worst, and that among the poorest of all the women were driven into the labor market by necessity.
They listened closely, with the usual note-taking.
"About one-third, then, belong to the poorest class," observed Moadine gravely.

"And two-thirds are the ones who are--how was it you so beautifully put it?
--'loved, honored, kept in the home to care for the children.' This inferior one-third have no children, I suppose ?" Jeff--he was getting as bad as they were--solemnly replied that, on the contrary, the poorer they were, the more children they had.

That too, he explained, was a law of nature: "Reproduction is in inverse proportion to individuation." "These 'laws of nature,'" Zava gently asked, "are they all the laws you have ?" "I should say not!" protested Terry.