INHERITANCE. 663 



injurious results upon them. Thus, soap-boilers and chandlers are 

 known to enjoy excellent health, and not to be subject to fevers or 

 epidemic affections, notwithstanding they often use fat in a very ad- 

 vanced stage of putrefaction (Tardieu). Tanners and curriers are 

 neither more frequently nor more seriously ill than other men, aside 

 from the occasional carbuncular affections they may acquire by real 

 and direct inoculation, although they are often obliged, especially in 

 summer, to work upon hides that are green with putrefaction. The 

 same may be said for scavengers. The gases which, confined in pits, 

 cause asphyxia, bring no diseases upon the men when a sufficient quan- 

 tity of atmospheric air is present with them. Grave-diggers, instead 

 of being more subject than other men to febrile, contagious, or epi- 

 demic diseases, have always been supposed to enjoy a certain immu- 

 nity against them. Examples illustrating this principle are not want- 

 ing. A long catalogue of them might be cited without any trouble, 

 except to the reader, to whom the reiteration would be tedious. 



In conclusion, it may be affirmed that, to the present day, not a sin- 

 gle instance of positive noxious infection has been laid to the charge 

 of the cemeteries of Paris. We are in a situation, therefore, to reas- 

 sure the public on this point, and to deplore with the illustrious Four- 

 croy " the abuses which certain persons have made of the discoveries 

 in physics and chemistry, taking advantage of them to magnify and 

 multiply complaints against the air of cemeteries and against its ef- 

 fects on the neighboring residences." 



Let us say, if we have not courage to support it, that the spectacle 

 of death ought to be hidden from our sight, that in our life of fever- 

 ish industrialism we have no time to spare for the dead ; let us even 

 acknowledge that we have speculative reasons for desiring to remove 

 the burial-grounds from Paris ; but let us stop invoking science, let us 

 stop invoking hygiene ; let us stop asserting that cemeteries are real 

 centers of infection, that they are susceptible of developing the germs 

 of the gravest maladies ; let us stop frightening the ignorant public 

 with sonorous words and phrases. It is easy enough to say and repeat 

 that cemeteries are a source of dangerous emanations, but assertions 

 are not proofs. Revue Scientijique. 



^*^ 



mHEPJTAKCE. 



By CHAELES DARWIN, F. E. S. 



THE tendency in any new character or modification to reappear in 

 the offspring at the same age at which it first appeared in the 

 parents, or in one of the parents, is of so much importance, in reference 

 to the diversified characters proper to the larvse of many animals at 

 successive ages, that almost any fresh instance is worth putting on 



