98 Ame7'ican Statistical Association, 



variation in height and weight at each age. It will be 

 noticed that the range gradually increases with age (except 

 where the whole number of observations is comparatively 

 small), while the percentage of observations at the average 

 height or weight, as a rule, diminishes. The most remark- 

 able instances of variation from the normal dimensions are 

 those of a boy five years old, and but thirty inches in height, 

 and of three girls, 14, 16, and 18 years of age, weighing 

 upwards of two hundred pounds. 



Weight of Clothes. 



It will be noticed that in this investigation the weight of 

 the children has been given "in ordinary clothes," and no 

 attempt has been made to ascertain the net weight by mak- 

 ing an allowance for the clothing. This course was adopted 

 because most of the observations with which comparisons 

 were to be made had been taken in this way, but in order to 

 facilitate a comparison of these records with others, in which 

 a deduction is made for the weight of the clothes, an effort 

 has been made to determine the average weight of the ordi- 

 nary in-door clothing of children of different ages. For this 

 purpose 317 pupils of both sexes, of various ages, and living 

 in several different quarters of the city, were requested by 

 the principals of their respective schools to ascertain and to 

 report the weight of the garments worn at the time the obser- 

 vations were taken. From the data thus collected at various 

 seasons of the year the following table has been computed, 

 showing in parallel columns, for each age, the number of 

 observations, the average gross weight of the pupils, the 

 average weight of the clothes, and the percentage weight of 

 the clothes referred to the gross weight of the individual. 

 From this table it will be seen that, except in the case of very 

 young children, both the absolute and the percentage weight 

 of the clothing is, at any given age, greater for boys than for 

 girls. The average weight of the clothes for all ages is for 

 boys 8 per cent, and for girls 6.8 per cent of the gross weight. 



