QUESTION OP PHYSICAL DEGENERATION 237 



standard of height required for the guards. We cannot infer 

 any great superiority for our own period from the fact that at 

 the Eglinton tournament many of the performers found the 

 ancient suits of armour much too small. They were, I believe, 

 young men of birth and it does not require much observation to 

 see that the scions of the upper ten thousand are in stature far 

 above the average. When we come to consider the mean height 

 of Englishmen, the facts, so far as they are known, are not so 

 flattering to our conceit. If we take 5 ft. 5 in. as the standard 

 of our army, then 2lo per looo adult males in Northamptonshire 

 are below it, according to Dr Beddoe ; in Wilts and Somerset- 

 shire 260-280 per looo ; in Bristol 353, in Hertfordshire 41 J. 1 

 The smallness of the French soldier often strikes us, but in 

 France only some 77 per looo are excluded from the army as 

 being below the regulation height. 



Race is a very important factor but it is certainly not the only 

 one. Dr Beddoe's measurements put it beyond all doubt that the 

 dwellers in large towns are inferior in height and weight to 

 countrymen. The natives of Sheffield compare unfavourably 

 with the men of the small towns and villages in the neighbour- 

 hood though their actual height 5 ft. 6*5 in. with shoes on is not 

 so bad. The most depressing result comes from Spitalfields. 

 Eighteen silk-weavers were measured and their average height 

 (with shoes on!) was 5 ft. 1*4. But if any one doubts that 

 stature may be reduced by unfavourable conditions, a walk or an 

 omnibus ride through East London, will produce conviction with- 

 out the aid of any figures. Indeed, to go from west to east in 

 London, keeping one's mind on the subject of physique and one's 

 eyes on the illustrations of it, is a melancholy experiment. It 

 brings out too painfully how a strong race can be crushed and 

 dwarfed by vice, bad diet, bad housing and all that goes to make 

 up a vile environment. Even very definite under-feeding, it is 

 true, may only postpone the age of growth. But if it passes a 

 certain limit, or is too long continued, there is no recovery. The 

 system loses its elasticity like a feather that is bent too far. 2 



1 Memoirs of the Anthropological Society, vol. iii. p. 547. 



' 2 See die Pubert'dts cntiuickelung, p. 2$, by Professor Axel Key (pub. by Hirschwald 

 at Berlin). 



