72 6 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



and those found on other sites in Britain, as well as those recorded in the German 



Limes Reports. 



F. A. BRUTON. 



STATISTICS 



Report on the English Birthrate. Part I. England north of the Humber. 

 By Ethel M. Elderton. [Pp. viii -t- 246, with 2 diagrams and 20 

 plates.] (London : Dulau & Co., 191 4. Price ox net.) 



THE science of eugenics has suffered somewhat from the undue dogmatism of many 

 of its exponents. The application of the principles of heredity to mankind is no 

 doubt a matter of great importance, but unfortunately there are at present no 

 generally accepted principles to apply. The rival theories of Neo-Darwinians, 

 Neo-Lamarckians, and Mutationists are to a large extent mutually destructive, 

 and this is a fact which many writers on eugenics (most of whom aie Neo- 

 Darwinians) have ignored. But some of the literature on the subject is valuable, 

 especially the series of memoirs which have proceeded from the Eugenics 

 Laboratory of London University, to which the present volume is an addition. 

 The subject is certainly a topical one, for we have all had our attention forcibly 

 called to the disproportion between the French and German populations (a dis- 

 proportion which of course did not exist in 1870), and this memoir like its 

 predecessors contains a large amount of carefully collected information and is a 

 monument of industry. 



The investigations cover Cheshire and the six northern counties, the three 

 ridings of Yorkshire being treated, however, as distinct counties. This area 

 contains rather more than one-third of England's population, but statistics are 

 not given for the region as a whole, which is an unaccountable omission. The 

 birthrate is calculated throughout on the number of married women between the 

 ages of 15 and 55 (including legitimate births only, of course), not on the usual 

 basis of total population. The period covered is from 1851 to 1906. The full 

 facts are secured from the 1901 census, but it has been found possible to bring 

 most of the computations down to 1906, and in a few cases data from the 191 1 

 census are given. In Durham and Northumberland the birthrate rose con- 

 siderably between 1851 and 1876, and in the other counties it was fairly steady 

 during that period. From 1876 to 1906 the rate fell in all the counties, but in 

 Durham and Northumberland the fall was not much more rapid than the previous 

 rise. The changes in the " potential birthrate," which varies with the age of 

 married women between 15 to 55, have been trivial. The actual fall is mostly 

 of a serious character. Thus during the thirty years the birthrate in Lancashire 

 fell from 24 (per annum per 100 married women between 15 and 55) to 17. The 

 bulk of the book (pages 20 to 194) is taken up with a detailed consideration of 

 the individual counties and individual registration districts. The only district of 

 any importance which shows a rise from 1876 to 1906 is Liverpool, which con- 

 tains, of course, a considerable number of Roman Catholic Irish. Owing to 

 the heterogeneous character of the registration districts, it is not easy to find 

 in what classes of the community the fall has been most marked. The data 

 are incomplete, but it appears that the fall is large among workers in cotton 

 and woollen factories, and where married women are employed, but much less 

 among miners and agriculturists. There is also some evidence that the fall is 

 least among people described as socially inferior, and it is this differential fall in 

 the birthrate upon which the authoress lays great stress. The investigations were 



