28 C.CAN_Z.S. 
In this table, though the average of each measurement is above 
the general average, the excess may be due to mere chance, except in 
the case of chest girth measurements. A glance down the two columns 
of chest girth measurements shews, at once, the remarkably high aver- 
age of this group of boys in this particular. It may be regarded as 
quite out of the question, that a group of 31 boys could by chance 
exceed the chest yirth of the general average by 13 inches, 
The result may be due to one or both of two causes; either birth 
and the early years of life in a hot climate are very favourable to the 
development of the chest, or these boys are sons of selected parents, 
it being probably the fact that men and women who go out to live in 
hot countries are, for the most part, of robust health and good 
physical development. 
The average is however so high that it can hardly be due to this 
latter cause alone, for, as Mr. Francis Galton* has shewn, the sons of 
a group of men and women who are above the average in any par- 
ticular are sure to be considerably nearer the general average in that 
particular than their parents. 
There is one other point to be noticed. The proportion of boys 
born in India and other hot countries to the whole number of boys 
certainly exceeds in our case the proportion which exists in the case 
of Public School boys in general. The chest girth of these boys born 
abroad so much exceeds the general average, that it must affect our 
average found in Table I. Excluding all the boys of Table II., the 
average chest girth of the remainder turns out to be ‘23 inch above 
the general average, in place of *42 inch, which is the excess when all 
our boys are included, and the calculated odds against this smaller 
excess being due to mere chance are about 20 to 1 instead of 5,000 to 
1, which were the odds when all the boys were included. 
We thus see that the large average chest girth of Table I. is partly 
accounted for by the presence amongst us, in more than the usual pro- 
portion, of boys born in hot climates. There is, however, a strong 
presumption that some other influence is at work, favourably affecting 
our chest girth. Is it not to be found in our systematic gymnastic 
training ? ; 
*See Mr. Galton’s Book on ‘‘ Natural Inheritance.” 
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