OF A CERTAIN PENNSYLVANIA FAMILY. 45 



One son is alcoholic, and both daughters have always had a reputa- 

 tion for recklessness and waywardness, the first marriage of the elder 

 daughter having been a forced one. They all live in weather-beaten 

 houses on the bluff overlooking the shops of the town where the boys 

 work. The girls have delicate and rather pretty features, but are list- 

 less, slovenly, bad-tempered, unintelligent. The children of all are 

 uncared-for, though they appear bright and active. Homes are inde- 

 scribably dirty and disordered. 



Going back once more, we now take up the third child of II-U and 

 12. III-38 was born about 1830, died 1893. She is remembered as a 

 woman of calculating and practical ability, though illiterate, since she 

 never went to school. Had an illegitimate child (IV-34), whose father 

 was a man of very bad reputation for sexual immorality. IV-34 mar- 

 ried, and died soon afterwards. Her only daughter's present where- 

 abouts are unknown. III-38 married Jared Rufer (III-9), whose 

 father was Aaron's eldest son, Isaac, and whose mother was a sister to 

 the mother of III-38. III-38 and her husband were thus double 

 cousins. He was slow and unambitious and had only a most rudi- 

 mentary idea of number. Owned a few acres of land and a poor house, 

 and worked very hard at anything he could find to do for a living. 



Their children were: IV-27, born 1862. Very little calculating abil- 

 ity and capable of only slight advance at school; now a slow, quiet, 

 reticent man of good repute who looks as though he might have tuber- 

 culosis. Had married IV-28, who died at 32 of neuralgia of the heart. 

 Living at present in G, where he works on the section. No surviving 

 children. 



IV-29, whose general mentality and calculating ability was above 

 that of IV-27. Died of tuberculosis, leaving no children. 



IV-31 was born about 1868. Slow and stupid; midway in calculat- 

 ing abihty between his two brothers; has shown little ambition, but 

 works with fair steadiness at odd jobs. He has a tendency to petty 

 thievery, surreptitiously gathering up eggs in places where he is 

 employed, and occasionally takes a chicken. He has consorted at 

 various times with immoral w^omen, and has lately married, under 

 the eugenic law of the State, a very obscene, boisterous, sexually 

 immoral girl, barely 18. She comes of very bad stock and w^as epileptic 

 from her second to her thirteenth year. Has attended school very 

 little; can do housework in a crude fashion, but prefers to run after 

 the ''Hunkeys" who work on the railroad nearby. She is, clearly, a 

 subject for permanent custodial care. 



The third son (IV-32), born about 1871, ran aw^ay from home when a 

 boy of 12, going West, where he has won success. Returned to his 

 boyhood home for a time, but resented the stigma on the Rufer name, 

 saying here he was "only a damned Rufer" — he would go back West 



