192 THE MENDEL JOURNAL 



therebj^ to multiply human weakness and defectiveness 

 and increase the sum total of human misery, which is 

 their correlative outcome ? I plead that it is nobler and 

 sounder statesmanship to leave things alone. 



We see again in Dr. Rutherfurd's Pedigree B 

 the same fact of sociological significance obtruded 

 on our notice that a high rate of infantile 

 mortality is the expression of a weak, defective, 

 and lowly viable stock.* Let us glance at the family 

 Nos. 25 — 33, in Generation D. There were nine children, 

 and of these four,| or nearly fift}^ per cent., had such 

 a weak hold on life that they were stillborn. No doubt 

 some sentimental people would say, " Poor children ; 

 their mother had a hard time ! It was her struggle with 

 adversity that weakened her constitution and destroyed 

 the viability of her seed." That, too, might be pleaded 

 for the illegitimate, epileptic child, No. 2, D Generation. 



Such contentions were doubtless very plausible thirty 

 or twenty years ago, but they have no validity now. Our 

 knowledge of inheritance is too clear to justify such pleas. 

 For, quite apart from the fact that stillborn children are 

 born of mothers, as in the famih^ shown in Pedigree 

 Chart, No. II., Nos. 2 — 7, Generation F-^, p. 21, Mendel 

 Journal, No. 1, October, 1909, who live a normal, healthy, 

 country life, and are of well-to-do Middle-Class standing, 

 there is the obvious record of the unstable nature of the 

 stock we are considering. For the mother, No. 13, Genera- 

 tion C, was eccentric, her sister. No. 11, was insane, and 

 another sister. No. 15, was eccentric. 



Almost everywhere through the Pedigree we see the 

 same manifestation of low viability. There is the family 

 Nos. 23 — 43, of twenty-one members, in Generation C. 

 Of these only two are alive ! And yet, had this been a 

 vigorous stock, the majority of them should now be in 

 the prime of life. 



* In answei' to my inquiry, Dr. Rutherfurd informs me that the social 

 class of all the persons in his pedigrees was low. They were navvies, eoal- 

 miners, cotton-weavers, scavengers, old age pensioners, &c. This 

 has an obvious significance when read with the facts of the pedigree. — 

 [Editor.] 



t Only two are indicated on the chart, but that is the artist's error in 

 copying the original. The twins 27 and 28 were also both stillborn. See 

 the " Facts of the Pedigree," page 177. 



