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TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



caped death. Surviving, however, she bore many 

 children, who in turn had large families, inso- 

 much that there are now some eighty direct de- 

 scendants, of whom one-fourth are convicted 

 criminals, while the rest are drunkards, lunatics, 

 paupers, and otherwise undesirable members of 

 the community. 



With facts such as these before us, we can- 

 not doubt that, in whatever degree variability 

 may eliminate after a while peculiar mental or 

 moral tendencies, these are often transmitted for 

 many generations before they die out. If it be 

 unsafe to argue that the responsibility of those 

 inheriting special characteristics is diminished, 

 the duties of others toward them may justly be 

 considered to be modified. Other duties than the 

 mere personal control of tendencies which men 

 may recognize in themselves are also introduced. 

 If a man finds within himself an inherent tenden- 

 cy toward some sin, which yet he utterly detests, 

 insomuch that while the spirit is willing the flesh 

 is weak, or perchance utterly powerless, he must 

 recognize in his own life a struggle too painful 

 and too hopeless to be handed down to others. 

 As regards our relations to families in which 

 criminal tendencies have been developed, either 

 through the negligence of those around (as in 

 certain dens in London, where for centuries crime 

 has swarmed and multiplied), or by unfortunate 

 alliances, we may " perceive here a divided duty." 

 It has been remarked that " we do not set our- 



selves to train tigers and wolves into peaceful 

 domestic animals ; we seek to extirpate them ; " 

 and the question has been asked, " Why should 

 we act otherwise with beings who, if human in 

 form, are worse than wild beasts ? " " To edu- 

 cate the son of a garroter or a ' corner-man ' into 

 an average Englishman " may be " about as prom- 

 ising a task as to train one of the latter into a 

 Newton or a Milton." But we must not too 

 quickly despair of a task which may be regarded 

 as a duty inherited from those who in past gen- 

 erations neglected it. There is no hope of the 

 reversion of tiger or wolf to less savage types, 

 for, far back as we can trace their ancestry, we 

 find them savage of nature. With our criminal 

 families the case is not so utterly hopeless. Ex- 

 tirpation being impossible (though easily talked 

 of) without injustice, which would be the parent 

 of far greater troubles even than our criminal 

 classes bring upon us, we should consider the 

 elements of hope which the problem unquestion- 

 ably affords. By making it the manifest interest 

 of our criminal population to scatter, or, failing 

 that, by leaving them no choice in the matter, the 

 poison in their blood may before many genera- 

 tions be eradicated, not by wide-spreading mere- 

 ly, but because of the circumstance that the 

 better sort among them would have (when scat- 

 tered) the better chance of rearing families, as 

 well as of escaping imprisonment. 



— Cornhill Magazine. 



WIFE-TOKTUKE IN ENGLAND. 



By FRANCES POWER COBBE. 



IT once happened to me to ask an elderly 

 French gentleman of the most exquisite man- 

 ners to pay any attention she might need to a 

 charming young lady who was intending to travel 

 by the same train from London to Paris. M. de 



wrote such a brilliant little note in reply 



that I was tempted to preserve it as an auto- 

 graph ; and I observe that, after a profusion of 

 thanks, he assured me he should be " trop heu- 

 reux de se mettre au service " of my young 

 friend. Practically, as I afterward learned, M. 



de did make himself quite delightful, till, 



unluckily, on arriving at Boulogne, it appeared 



that there was some imbroglio about Miss 's 



luggage, and sho was in a serious difficulty. 

 Needless to say, on such an occasion the inter- 



vention of a French gentleman with a ribbon at 

 his button-hole would have been of the greatest 



possible service ; but to render it M. de 



would have been obliged to miss the train to 

 Paris ; and this was a sacrifice for which his po- 

 liteness was by no means prepared. Expressing 

 himself as utterly au desespoir, he took his seat, 

 and was whirled away, leaving my poor young 

 friend alone on the platform to fight her battles 

 as best she might with the impracticable officials. 

 The results might have been annoying had not a 

 homely English stranger stepped in and proffered 

 his aid ; and, having recovered the missing prop- 

 erty, simply lifted his hat and escaped from the 

 lady's expressions of gratitude. 



In this little anecdote I think lies a compen- 



