POPULAR MISCELLANY, 



279 



the systematic examination of the height, 

 weight, and other physical characters of the 

 inhabitants of the British Isles," and, in 

 performing its work, took all sorts of meas- 

 urements of people of all classes, of all 

 ages, and of both sexes, living in all parts 

 of Great Britain, and, to a small extent, of 

 persons living in Ireland. The measure- 

 ments or observations covered twelve points 

 by which man is externally distinguished 

 from man, and were made upon thousands 

 of people. We notice a few of the more 

 striking results: In average height, the 

 Scotch stand first (68-61 inches), the Irish 

 second, the English third, and the "Welsh 

 fourth, while in weight, the Scotch still lead- 

 ing with 165-3 pounds, the Welsh are sec- 

 ond, the English third, and the Irish fourth. 

 In the light of these two results, the Lon- 

 don "Times" observes that the Scot will 

 look upon the discovery made by the com- 

 mittee " as simply giving the hall-mark of 

 science to his own instinctive conviction 

 that he is a much better man in all respects 

 than the ' fausse southron.' " As between 

 the sexes in England, the average stature 

 of adult males is 67-36 inches, and that of 

 adult females 62*65 inches, while the aver- 

 age Englishman weighs 155 pounds, and the 

 Englishwoman 122-8 pounds. In strength, 

 the Englishman can draw a bow with a 

 power of 77^ pounds, while the woman 

 brings to bear a force 35 pounds less, or 

 a little more than half as much. In com- 

 plexion, the lighter shades rule over the 

 country as a whole, but a large percentage of 

 dark complexions stretch in a band across 

 the center of England and Wales. The in- 

 habitants of the more elevated districts 

 appear to possess a greater stature than 

 those of the alluvial plains, and those of 

 the northern and colder districts than those 

 of the southern and warmer parts of the 

 island ; those of the northeastern and drier 

 regions are taller than those of southwest- 

 em and damper climates. A comparison 

 with American army statistics does not show 

 that the Anglo-Saxon race reaches a higher 

 stature here than in England, as some have 

 claimed, but that a close correspondence 

 prevails between the two groups. Com- 

 pared with other nationalities in stature, 

 except as to a few extraordinarily tall Poly- 

 nesians, the English professional class head 



the list, and the Anglo-Saxon race takes the 

 chief place among civilized communities, 

 though it might stand second to the Scan- 

 dinavian countries if a fair sample of their 

 population could be obtained. Other gen- 

 eral facts deduced from the examinations, 

 as true in the British Isles at least, are that 

 an open-air country life is more favorable 

 to height and weight than a sedentary town 

 life; that favorable hygienic and sanitary 

 conditions have a marked influence on 

 growth and weight; that lunatics show a 

 deficiency of weight and stature, and crim- 

 inals a greater one, indicating a lack of 

 physical as well as mental stamina in both 

 these classes ; that athletes appear a little 

 taller than the general population, and not 

 as heavy; that growth diminishes, as we 

 descend in the social scale, to a difference 

 of five inches between the average stature 

 cf the best and most nurtured classes of 

 children of corresponding ages, and of three 

 and a half inches in adults. The popula- 

 tion of the manufacturing towns do not 

 appear to be degenerating, but exhibit a 

 slight but uniform increase in stature, and 

 a large increase in weight. 



Darwinism in the Talmud.— Dr. B. 



Placzek, of Brunn, has collected citations 

 from the Talmud to show that the old Jew- 

 ish writers were keen observers of Nature, 

 and had ideas akin to Darwinism. Joseph 

 Albo, in the fifteenth century, suggested the 

 thought of compensation, or interchange of 

 relations, in an hypothesis that cattle are 

 defective in teeth because so much of the 

 tooth-stuff goes to horn, and that they make 

 up for the resultant deficiency in their pow- 

 ers of mastication by the faculty of chew- 

 ing the cud. Other writers noticed that the 

 integrity of the comb of the cock had much 

 to do with its masculine potency, and that 

 other birds suffer in spirit and vigor when 

 deprived of their ornamental appendages. 

 A writer in the " Agada " affirmed, in justifi- 

 cation of Solomon's selection of the ant as 

 an example of wise industry, that it builds 

 its houses in three stories, and stores its 

 provisions, not in the upper compartment, 

 where they may be rained on, nor in the 

 lower, where they will gather dampness, 

 but in the middle one, the safest place, and 

 that it gathers all it can. The ant is also 



