WAR AND POPULATION 77 



thing, to retain some traces of its relatively degenerate 

 derivation. This is indeed the case. In Dordogne 

 this contingent included nearly seven per cent, more 

 deficient statures than the normal average. Quite 

 independently, in the distant Department of Herault, 

 Lapouge discovered the same thing. He found in 

 some cantons a decrease of nearly an inch in the 

 average stature of this unfortunate generation, while 

 exemptions from deficiency of stature suddenly rose 

 from six to sixteen per cent. This selection is not, 

 however, entirely maleficent. A fortunate compen- 

 sation is afforded in another direction. For the 

 generation conceived of the men returned to their 

 families at the close of the war has shown a distinctly 

 upward tendency almost as well marked. Those 

 who survived the perils and privations of service 

 were presumably in many cases the most active and 

 rugged ; the weaker portion having succumbed in 

 the meanwhile either to wounds or sickness. The 

 result was that the generation conceived directly 

 after the war was as much above the average, 

 especially evinced in general physique more than in 

 stature, as their predecessors, born of war-times, 

 were below the normal." 



I must add still further to the dubiety of the 

 " dysgenic " effect by recalling the great importance 

 of hardship on the individual life in reducing general 

 physique and stature. The Dordogne area, in which 

 the fall in stature was most conspicuous, contains 

 some of the poorest regions of France, and although 

 Herault has a fertile and prosperous southern margin 

 many of its inland portions are bleak and barren 

 uplands. In such districts the general economic 



