602 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



magnitude that we hesitate to predict its possible effects, is at once 

 suggested. 



Let us now for a moment take up the consideration of a second 

 physical characteristic of city populations — viz., stature. Some 

 interesting points are concerned herein. The apparently contradic- 

 tory testimony in this respect becomes in itself highly suggestive, 

 I think, for the student of social problems. A few of the older 

 observers found that city populations sometimes surpassed those of 

 the country in the average of bodily height. Thus Quetelet * 

 and Villerme (1829) discovered such a superiority of stature in 

 the Belgian cities, amounting to several centimetres. From this 

 coincidence Quetelet derived a law to the effect that the superior 

 advantages of urban residence were directly reflected in the physical 

 development of the people. This hypothesis is now definitely dis- 

 proved by all the data available. If there be a law at all in respect 

 of average statures, it demonstrates rather the depressing effects of 

 city life than the reverse. For example, Hamburg is far below 

 the average for Germany; f Dunant (1867) finds it true in Geneva; 

 Pagliani observed it in Turin. The city of Madrid contains almost 

 the shortest male population in all Spain; only one province, Valla- 

 dolid, standing slightly below it. Residents of its poorer quarters 

 are absolutely the shortest in the entire peninsula. :£ All over Britain 

 there are indications of the same law, that town populations are on 

 the average comparatively short of stature. The townsmen of Glas- 

 gow and Edinburgh are four inches or more shorter than the 

 country folk roundabout, and thirty-six pounds on the average 

 lighter in weight. 4 * Dr. Beddoe, the great authority upon this sub- 

 ject, concludes his investigation of the population of Great Britain 

 thus : " It may therefore be taken as proved that the stature of men 

 in the large towns of Britain is lowered considerably below the 

 standard of the nation, and as probable that such degradation is 

 hereditary and progressive. 1 1 Not all authorities are able to find 

 such differences, especially in the less industrially developed por- 

 tions of Europe ; as in Hungary, where Scheiber A could detect no 

 variation between city and country at all. Ammon, in Baden, alone 

 among modern observers, finds a higher average stature in the cities. 

 He ascribes it to greater frequency of the tall Teutonic type.O 

 Nevertheless, the trend of testimony is in favor of Beddoe's view, as 

 a rule; especially when applied to the great modern factory towns, 



* 1869, p. 33. 



. \ Meisner, 1889, p. 116. Reischel, 1889, pp. 139-142, notes it of smaller cities, as in 

 Erfurt. \ Oloriz, 1896, pp. 42 and 60. 



* British Association, Anthropometric Committee Report, 1883, pp. 273 circa. 



I 1867, p. 180. A 1881, p. 254. Q 1893 . P- 116 - 



