172 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



cially, in the whole city of Warsaw in fact, can not produce an aver- 

 age stature equal to that of the very poorest Poles; and this, too, 

 in the most miserable section of the capital city of one of the most 

 stunted countries in Europe. 



We may assume it as proved, therefore, that the Jew is to-day a 

 very defective type in stature. He seems to be susceptible to favor- 

 able influences, however; for in London, the West End prosperous 



AVEKMiEJSTATOKE 

 °F <JEW3- 



WARSAW 



lssspI.630~I.637M 



-1.629 =5 ft 3.7 ins. 

 1 1 . 6 O - 1. 6 1 M. Aftfp ZAnuewskt 95 



I5.R. 



6S9 Observations. 



Jews almost equal the English in height, while they at the same time 

 surpass their East End brethren by more than three inches.* In Rus- 

 sia also they become taller as a class wherever the life conditions 

 become less rigorously oppressive. They are taller in the fertile 

 Ukraine than in sterile Lithuania; they sometimes boast of a few 

 relatively tall men.f These facts all go to show that the Jew is 

 short, not by heredity, but by force of circumstances; and that 

 where he is given an even chance, he speedily recovers a part at least 

 of the ground lost during many ages of social persecution. Jacobs 

 mentions an interesting fact in this connection about his upper-class 

 English Jews. Close analysis of the data seems to show that, for 

 the present at least, their physical development has been stretched 

 nearly to the upper limit ; for even in individual cases the West End 

 Jews of London manifest an inability to surpass the height of five 

 feet nine inches. So many have been blessed by prosperity that 

 the average has nearly reached that of the English; but it is a mean 

 stature of which the very tall form no component part. Thus per- 



* Jacobs, 1889, p. 81. 



f Talko-Hryncewicz, 1892, pp. 7 and 58. 



