August 23, 1877] 



NA TURE 



347 



on many accounts more difficult to grapple with than it may at 

 first sight appear to be. The vagrant habits of the criminal 

 classes, thtir illegitimate unions and extreme untruthfulness, are 

 among the difficulties. It is, however, easy to show that the 

 criminal nalure tends to be inherited while, on the other hard, it 

 is impossible that women who spend a large portion of the best 

 yea'S of their lives in prison can contribute many children to the 

 population. The true stale of the case appears to be that the 

 criminal population receives sieady accessions from classes who, 

 without having strongly marked criminal natures, do nevertheless 

 belong to a tvpe of humanity that is exceedingly ill-suited to 

 play a respectable part in our modern civilisation, though they 

 are well-s-uited to flourish under half-savage conditions, being 

 naturally both healthy and prolific. These persons are apt to go 

 to the bad ; thtir daughters eon-ort with criminals and berome the 

 parents of criminals. An extraordinary example of this is given 

 by the history of the infamous Jukes family in America, whose 

 pedigree has been made out with extraordinary care, during no 

 less than seven generations, and is the subject of an elaborate 

 memoir printed in the thirty-first annual report of the Prison 

 Association of New York, 1876. It includes no less than 540 

 individuals of Jukes blood, among whom the number of persons 

 who degraded into criminality, pauperism, or disease, is frightful 

 to contemplate. 



It is difficult to summarise the results in a few plain figures, 

 but I will state those respecting the fi th generation, through the 

 eldest of the five prolific daughters of the man who is the 

 common ancestor of the race. The total number of these was 

 103, of whom thirty-eight came through an illegitimate grand- 

 daughter, and eighty-five through legitimate grandchildren. Out 

 of the thirty-eight, sixteen have betn in gaol, six of them for 

 heinous offences, one of these having been commited no less than 

 nine times ; eleven others were paupers or led openly disre- 

 putable lives ; four were notoriously intemperate ; the history of 

 three had not been traced, and only four were known to have 

 done well. The great majority of the women consorted with 

 criminals. As to the S5 legitimate descendants, they were less 

 flagrantly bad, for only five of them had been in gaol and only 

 thirteen others had been paupers. Now the ancestor of all this 

 mischief, who was born abnut the year 1730, is described as 

 having been a hunter and a fisher, a jolly companionable man, 

 averse to steady labour, working hard and idling by turns, and 

 who had numerous illegitimate children, whose issue has not 

 been tiaced. He was, in fact, a somewhat good specimen of a 

 half-savage, without any seriously criminal instincts. The girls 

 were apparently attractive, marrying early and sometimes not 

 badly ; but the gipsy-like character of the race was unsuited to 

 success in a civilised country. So the descendants went to the 

 bad, and the hereditary moral weaknesses they may have had 

 rose to the surface and worked their mischief without a check. 

 Cohabiting with criminals and being extremely prolific, the result 

 was the production ot a srock exceeding 500 in number, of a 

 prevalent criminal type. Through disease and intemperance the 

 breed is now rapidly diminishing ; the iniant mortality has of late 

 been horrible among them, but foitunitely the women of the 

 present generation bear usually but few children, and many of 

 them are altogether childless. 



This is not the place to go further into details. I have alluded 

 to the Jukes family in order to show what extremely important 

 topics lie open to inquiry in a single branch of anthropological 

 research and to stimulate others to follow it out. There can I e 

 no more interesting subject to us than the quality of the stock of 

 our countrymen and of the human race generally, and there can 

 be no more worthy inquiry than that wnich leads to an expla- 

 nation of the conditions under which it deteiiorates or improves. 



SECTION G. — Mechanical Science. 



The following is an abstract of the address of the pre- 

 sident, Mr. E. Woods, C. E: — The president ssalected the 

 question of railway brakes as his topic. He said that 

 the provision of adequate brake power to control trains was 

 a subject which had latterly much engaged the attention of 

 railway companies and of the Government. In the summer 

 of 1874 a Royal Commission was appointed to inquire 

 into the causes of accidents on railways, and the possi- 

 bility of removing them by further legislation. One branch of 

 the inquiry naturally led to the consideration of accidents caused 

 by collision ; and it appeared from the evidence taken before 

 tne Commissioners that trains were generally provided with 



insuflftcient controlling power, and that the distance within which, 

 when running at high speed, they could be stopped by the brake 

 ordinarily in use had not been ascertained with any approach to 

 accuracy. It was under these circumstances that the Commis- 

 sicners applied to the railway companies to institute a definite 

 series of experiments to test the value of hand-brakes, and the 

 effect of various systems of continuous brakes. In conjunction 

 with Col. Inglis, R. E., he was intrusted by the Commissioners 

 with the supervision of the experiments, to the sati, factory 

 conduct of which the railway companies C->ntiibuted in the most 

 liberal manner. VViih few exceptions, and up to a compara- 

 tively recent per'od, the companies had remained content with 

 the brake appliances which were common forly years ago. 

 These, no doubt, were sufficient to control the trains in those 

 early days, few as they were in number, and limited in weight 

 and speed. The brakes were applied separately, and by hand- 

 power, always to the tender, and usually to some few of the 

 carriages and to the guard's van or vans, if such accompanied 

 the train. As long ago as 1858 the Board of Trade called the 

 special attention of the railway companies to the fact that the 

 amount of brake power then habitually applied was insufficient 

 to prevent frequent accidents occurring from collisions, many of 

 which they considered might be averted. Particular reference was 

 made to two systems which had come into duly use on the East 

 Lancashire and the Lancashire and Yorkshire railways, namely, the 

 brakes of Newall and of Fay, by means of which trains of ninety to 

 100 tons weight, running fifty miles an hour, could be effectually 

 controlled by driver or guard, even when proceeding down stesp 

 inclines, and brought up within a moderate distance. It was 

 certainly matter for surprise, seeing the advantage of continuous 

 brakes, that the railway companies should have so long tolerated 

 the old system, and been so slow to adopt a method which, 

 instead ol being dependent for its due action on the attention of 

 several persons, was effectually placed under the control of one. 

 This lethargy prevailed, too, throughout a period when increased 

 speed had come to be demanded, when augmenting traffic required 

 heavier train;, and when, consequently, more ponderous and 

 powerful engines had to be used — circumstances which ought to 

 have induced the companies to effect simultaneously a readjusi- 

 ment of their brake appliances. After the year 1850 many 

 attempts were made to supersede the ordinary type of brake, 

 some of the brakes introduced bairg self-acting and put into 

 operation by the momentum of the train, w^iile others actel as 

 sledges or shoes. None, however, proved successful. The 

 continuous breaks of Newall and Fay simply involved a wider 

 distribution of power over the different vehicles of the train, and 

 gave the means of applying that power by one, or, at most, two 

 attendants. It was' in that direction that the ingenuity of in- 

 ventors had recently been turned, and there were now sever*! 

 systems of continuous brakes in successful working on the lead- 

 ing railways, each claiming some special advantages over its rivals', 

 whether as more simple in construction, less expensive in appli- 

 cation, or effecting more complete con'rol of the train. The 

 Royal Commissioners desired that attention should be primarily 

 directed to the following points :— i. The distances within 

 which trains running at various speeds could be stopped by the 

 system of brakes in ordinary use on the dilTerent lines 

 of the United Kingdom ; (2) what results could be obtained by 

 the additional application of brake power; and (3) how far a 

 very large amount of brike power could be suddenly resorted to 

 with satcty in heavy trains running at high speeds. For the 

 purpose of the experiments a portion of the Nottingham an i 

 Lincoln branch of the Midland Railway was selected as offeiiiig 

 a piece of line comparatively level and free from any sharp 

 curves. Six companies furnished eight complete trains, whica 

 represented as many systems of continuous brakes comprehended 

 in four classes, namely, (I) Clarke's and Webb's and Fay's brakes, 

 applied by ordinary mechanical gear ; (2) Smith's and Westing- 

 house's vacuum fjrakes, actuated by atmospheric pressure pro- 

 duced by exhaustion of air ; (3) Westinghouse's and Steel 

 Mclnnes's air brakes ; and (4) Clarke's and Barker's hydraulic 

 brakes. The experiments extended over a week, and comprised 

 several series. It was demonstrated that the friction of a com- 

 plete train, in which the weight of the engine and tendei consti- 

 tuted, say one-lourih of the gioss weight, inclusive of the 

 atmospheric resistance it encountered in its course, was 42-looth8 

 per cent., or about g.V lbs. per ton. This result confirmed what 

 long experience had led them to anticipate. It « as discovered 

 further that, on a level line, a train running at the rale of forty- 

 five miles an hour could be stopped by hand biakes within 1,000 

 yards, or, if at the rate of sixty miles, within i, 700 yards. The 



