208 THE MENDEL JOURNAL 



Appendix to Mr. fudge's Rejoinder to tlie Criticism of 

 IVIiss Wodehouse. 



Ttie Incidence of Plague and ttie Relative Insensibility 

 of Hooligans to Pain. 



PosTSCKiPT TO PAGE 151. " Tlius the [Aague is benign to the race 

 in the long run" &c. 



While these pages were passing through the Press, I felt curious 

 to ascertain whether as a matter of history, quite apart from 

 biological considerations, however plausible and cogent they may 

 be, the plague does actually tend under the ordinary conditions 

 of life, to eliminate particular classes of people, and thereby to 

 exercise a selective value in the evolution of a community. 

 During my quest I came across, among others, a well-known 

 book, namely, Daniel Defoe's " Journal of the Plague Year."* 

 In order that I might gather a right impression of the events of 

 that period, namely, 1665, and obtain a true conception of the 

 nature of the author's experiences, and of the observations which 

 he had gathered from eye-witnesses, I carefully read the book 

 through. I think anyone who will do the same will be able to 

 arrive at a general conclusion something like this : that in the 

 course of a great and terrible epidemic such as the plague of 

 1665 was, there is an actually heavier incidence of the disease 

 upon the foolish, the reckless, the criminals, and those who are 

 of dirty instinct or habit. 



Let us deal with the foolish and reckless first. Defoe des- 

 cribed certain precautions which were enjoined upon the people, 

 and he tells us " It must be acknowledged that when people 

 began to use these cautions they were less exposed to danger, 

 and the infection did not break into such houses so furiously as 

 it did into others before ; and thousands of families were pre- 

 served by that means. But it was impossible to beat anything 



* As scientific evidence this book cannot of course be quoted. But 

 it does not necessarily follow that all evidence which is not strictly scientific 

 is not true. Defoe was only six years old during the Plague year, but he 

 had an uncle and other relatives who were in London, at the time, and he 

 became acquainted with others who were intimate with the incidents of 

 that year. Moreover, he had access to volumes, some written by medical 

 men, which appear not to be obtainable now. There is, therefore, no 

 reason to doubt the essential accuracy of his records, especially as the book 

 appears to have been WTitten as a means of administering precaution and 

 tendering advice to Londoners in view of the threatened extension of the 

 plague which was raging at Marseilles in the years 1720-2L 



