194 THE MENDEL JOURNAL 



normal conditions, with a population having an excess of 

 females. In our present population of about forty 

 millions the females exceed the males by about one and a 

 half millions. That is not a very great excess from the 

 standpoint of proportion. 



But when we deal not with a normal population, but 

 with such an abnormal class like that shown in Dr. 

 Rutherfurd's Pedigrees A and B, as already noted, there 

 seems, indeed, to be a very great excess of females. In 

 Pedigree A there is a total of twenty-six females, thirteen 

 males, and twenty-four of unknown sex. In Pedigree B 

 there are twenty-eight females, sixteen males, and sixty- 

 five of unknown sex. In the two families, then, is a total 

 of one hundred and seventy-one individuals, of which 

 eighty-nine are of unknown sex, fifty-four are females, 

 and twenty-eight are males. Now if these proportions 

 ,are indicative of some peculiarity correlated with a 

 defective stock, it would seem that through our senti- 

 mentality we are going to rear a nation so constituted 

 that there will be two women to each man ! If this is 

 to be the outcome of an artificially-reduced infantile 

 mortality, we shall eventually have a nation of cripples 

 and two-thirds of them females ! 



But is the premiss based on these two pedigrees 

 applicable to other degenerate stocks ? Do other races, 

 showing some other type of degeneracy, also produce this 

 great excess of females ? I do not believe it will be found 

 a rule applicable generall}^ for in two other of Dr. Ruther- 

 furd's charts of twins, namely, C and D, there are respec- 

 tively twenty-one females and thirty-seven males, and 

 twenty-seven females and thirty-one males. Here we 

 have an excess of males surviving. But we can examine 

 the question from the facts given b\ other types of degene- 

 rate stocks. During the best part of the year 1910 and the 

 latter part of 1909, I was in charge of a small Committee 

 of Workers, organised by the Eugenics Education Society, 

 and we were occupied in hunting through workhouse 

 records and in interviewing paupers and their relatives. 

 By dint of hard work and patience we got together a 

 large pedigree going through six generations.* The por- 

 tion of the stock which I was able personally to examine 



* Eugenics Education Review, Nov., 1910, Vol. II., No. 3, page 186. 



