82 



The Journal of Heredity 



early from generation to generation. 

 Their lines cross those of Aaron and 

 Mary Rufer, to an account of which we 

 now return. 



Isaac, the eldest son, married a 

 woman of average ability who lacked 

 sex control and came from a famih^ 

 showing nervous instability manifested 

 largely in alcoholism. Their six chil- 

 dren were very diverse, and through 

 their marriages gave rise to branches 

 (A in chart) widely divergent in re- 

 spect to these traits. Their mentally 

 deficient, immoral daughter, mating 

 with a sexually loose man, had children 

 ft with lack of sex control in the propor- 

 tion of two out of three. Later unions 

 with members of families showing 

 higher ability to plan and calculate 

 bring advance in these traits, but per- 

 sistence of the lack of sex-control. Two 

 members of generation III, who were 

 superior in calculating ability and per- 

 severance but low in aggressiveness, 

 married into strains with an average of 

 the traits, and the subsequent genera- 

 tions are considerably improved, except 

 where a defective daughter, through 

 marriage into a weak strain, carries on 

 the defect in number and perseverance. 

 The remaining members show a good 

 average of social worth, considerably 

 above that of three generations ago. 



The wife of Jared, the second son, 

 was able, but sexually lax. Their only 

 daughter seems to have escaped the de- 

 fects of both father and mother and to 

 have founded a line B showing fair 

 enterprise and morality. Line C was 

 founded by the most able of the broth- 

 ers, Stephen, and his able, aggressive 

 wife, who came from stock having 

 these traits in good measure. Subse- 

 quent marriages into good strains have 

 brought complete elimination of the de- 

 fects of the founders and correspond- 

 ing economic worth. Line D, founded 

 by Darius, who closely resembled Isaac, 

 through marriage into sex-offending, 

 alcoholic, criminalistic stock, has broken 

 up into very degenerate branches. 

 There have been a number of marriages 

 here which were arranged as jokes by 

 outsiders, one notably of an epileptic 



with an imbecile, which fortunately re- 

 sulted in only one daughter, for twenty 

 years an institutional case, the other 

 children having died. The most de- 

 generate branch arises where lack of 

 number sense and low aggressiveness 

 and perseverance mates with a low de- 

 gree of these traits combined with sex 

 offense. These defects persist in most 

 of the offspring, but with industry in 

 some cases, and sex control. However, 

 none of the trait-complexes from these 

 defective germ-plasms are such as to 

 produce social fitness ; we have, as a 

 result, vagrancy, pauperism, prostitu- 

 tion and petty criminality. With one 

 exception its representatives are all at 

 large, a drain on the resources and a 

 menace to the moral and economic de- 

 velopment of their communities. Left 

 to themselves, its degenerate members 

 have gravitated toward degenerate oft"- 

 shoots of other mixed strains, their 

 mating producing an accentuation of 

 the defects of the parents. 



The story of line E, founded by the 

 imbecilic Herman, dift'ers from the pre- 

 ceding in that there has been nothing 

 but imbecility from the beginning. 

 After three generations, in which the 

 property has been dissipated, the sur- 

 viving representatives are happily end- 

 ing their days in a state institution. 

 This is the line in which marriage has 

 occurred with the defective descendants 

 of Thomas and Martha Riel, the casual 

 nature of which is illustrated by this 

 episode. Walking along a country road 

 a young girl met two boy acquaintances. 

 "Come, let's get married," said she to 

 one. He, however, demurred, where- 

 upon the other one agreed to do so, and 

 thev went forthwith and were married. 

 This mating resulted in five children, 

 three of whom died of neglect; the 

 other two were cared for in institu- 

 tions at an expense of thousands of 

 dollars. 



To recapitulate, we have here one of 

 nature's experiments in selective mat- 

 ing, experiments repeated over and over 

 again, and ascertainable if we only give 

 the needed careful study. All mem- 

 bers carrv defects. "We are none of us 



