British Association News. 



393 



The Handboo'c to the City of Dublin and the surrounding district^ 

 issued under the editorship of Prof. Cole and Mr. R. Lloyd Praeger, is an 

 exceedingly useful and carefully-prepared volume, and may be taken as. 

 an ideal tvpe of handbook for these meetings. Its contents are varied, 

 but are just what one wants on visiting a district for a few days. We are 

 glad to notice that the volume is printed and bound in uniformity with the 

 York and Leicester volumes. We trust that this plan will continue. 

 In past years the British Association handbooks have varied considerably, 

 from the small, square-backed limp Liverpool volume, to the three large, 

 stiff, yellow-backed Glasgow guides. 



-As might be expected, the geologists had a thoroughly up-to-date 

 address from Prof. J. Joly, who took for his subject : ' Uranium and Geo- 

 logy,' We regret we should be unable to do justice to this excellent ad- 

 dress if we endeavoured to summarise it, and must refer our readers to the 

 address itself. 



In his address to the Anthropological Section at Dublin, Prof. W. 

 Ridgeway made a strong appeal for the application of Zoological Laws to> 

 Man. He pointed out that ' Amongst wild animals. Nature selects the 

 fittest for continuing the race, and the wise breeder simply aids Nature 

 by selecting still more carefully the best animals. The legislator, on his 

 part, ought similarly to foster the increase of the best element in the State, 

 and, on the other hand, discourage the multiplication of the worst. Yet 

 in our community, statesmen of both parties have adopted the very oppo- 

 site policy. The children of the working classes are educated at the cost 

 of the State, the offspring of the wastrels are given free meals, and already 

 there are demands that they shall be clothed at the expense of the rate- 

 payers, and that the parents shall even be paid for providing them with 

 lodging. It is not impossible that before long these demands will be 

 conceded by either party in the State. The heavy additional expense 

 incurred in this policy falls upon the middle-class ratepayers and tax- 

 payers, whe have to feed, educate, and clothe their own children by sending 

 them to the State schools ; but this is to level down instead of to level up ; 

 for if they do so, they will be lowering the general morale of their own class, 

 the most priceless asset of the nation. The heavy burden of taxation 

 entailed by this policy, falling as it does with special weight on the middle 

 classes, renders it more difficult each year for the young men and the young 

 women in that class to marry before thirty, for they naturally shrink from 

 the expense of bringing up large or even moderate-sized families. We need 

 not then wonder at the falling-off in the rate of increase of the middle 

 classes. Our legislators are bad stockmasters, for they are selecting ta 

 continue the race the most unfit physically and morally, whilst they dis- 

 courage more and more the increase of what we have proved to be the out- 

 come of a long process of natural selection. The present policy, therefore, 

 tends to reduce that which in all ages has been the mainstay of every State 

 — the middle class. . . If the present policy of our legislators is adherred to, 

 the moral and the physical standard of the British citizen will steadily 

 deteriorate, for the population will gradually come to consist of the pos- 

 terity of those who are themselves sprung from many generations of the 

 most unfit. Should this unfortunately come to pass, it will be the result 

 of human pride refusing to apply to the human race the laws which in- 

 exorably regulate all Nature.' 



A particularly noticable feature at the Dublin meeting was the business- 

 like way in which the various sections carried out their work. We rarely 

 remember an occasion upon which the devotion to scientific work was sa 

 whole-hearted ; the passage across the Irish Sea had kept several of the 

 drones away, and those who braved it were disappointed by the weather, 

 which made garden parties more like water carnivals. Singularly enough, 

 Sunday was far the best day as regards the weather, and was an agreeable 

 break in the week's work. 



1908 October 



