THE RACIAL GEOGRAPHY OF EUROPE. 27 



influence of factory life is more often to retard growth than to 

 cause a complete cessation of it. 



Interesting deductions might also be drawn from the relation 

 of the height to the weight in any class, by which we may deter- 

 mine to some degree when and how these degenerative influences 

 become effective. Thus clerks, as a class, are above the average 

 stature, but below it in weight. This follows because these men 

 are recruited from a social group where the influences during the 

 period of growth are favorable. The normal stature was attained 

 at this time. The unfavorable circumstances have come into play 

 later through the sedentary nature of the occupation, and the re- 

 sult is a deficiency in weight. The case of grooms given above 

 is exactly the reverse of this, for they became grooms because 

 they were short, but have gained in weight afterward because 

 the occupation wae favorable to health. 



These differences in stature within the community offer a co- 

 gent argument for the protection of our people by means of well- 

 ordered factory laws. The Anthropological Committee of the 

 British Association for the Advancement of Science delares, as a 

 result of its detailed investigation, that the protection of youth 

 by law in Great Britain has resulted in the gain of a whole year's 

 growth for the factory children. In other words, a boy of nine 

 years in 1873 was found to equal in weight and in stature one of 

 ten years of age in 1833. This is nature's reward for the passage 

 of laws presumably better than the present so-called " beneficent " 

 statute in South Carolina which forbids upward of eleven hours' 

 toil a day for children under the age of fourteen. In every coun- 

 try where the subject has been investigated in Germany, in 

 Russia, in Austria, Switzerland, or Great Britain the same influ- 

 ence 'is shown. Fortunately, the advance out of barbarism is 

 evidenced generally by a progressive increase in the stature of the 

 population as an accompaniment of the amelioration of the lot of 

 the masses, which is certainly going on decade by decade, abso- 

 lutely if not relatively. There is no such change taking place 

 among the prosperous and well-to-do. It is the masses which 

 are, so to speak, catching up with the procession. It offers a 

 conclusive argument in favor of the theory that the world moves 

 forward. 



One of the factors akin to that of occupation which appears 

 to determine stature is the unfavorable influence of city life. The 

 general rule in Europe seems to be that the urban type is phys- 

 ically degenerate. This would imply, of course, not the type 

 which migrates to the city on the attainment of majority, or the 

 type which enjoys an all- summer vacation in the country, but the 

 urban type which is born in the city, and which grows up in such 

 environment, to enter a trade which is also born of town life. 



