OBSERVATIONS ON BREEDING. 
383 
to her own son. And allow me to ask Mr. Lance, whether 
“ the deformities of mind and body,” which, according to Mr. 
Lawrence, spring up so plentifully in our large cities, cannot 
be amply accounted for by the intemperate habits, the vicious 
indulgencies, the vitiated atmosphere, the unhealthy occupa- 
tions, the undrained and unventilated habitations in which 
so many of our urban population live and have their being, 
without having recourse to “the want of selections and 
exclusions ” to which he has alluded. For it must be borne in 
mind that, in the agricultural districts, the same “ want of 
selections and exclusions ” exists as in the cities, without, as 
Mr. Lance must admit, anything like the amount of mental 
and bodily deformity, which “ degrades the race” in the towns. 
And, supposing, for the sake of argument, that the state of 
many of the royal houses in Europe be such as Mr. Lawrence 
implies, may it not be possible, that, many generations of 
luxurious indulgence and unrestrained passions, which, 
perhaps, are inseparable from their exalted position, may not, 
by their continued, though gradual effect on the constitution, 
sufficiently account for it, without attributing it wholly to 
the fact of their being restricted to some ten or twenty 
families in their choice of husbands or wives. But to return 
to sheep-breeding. 
I gather, from what Mr. Lance implies rather than from 
what he says, that he imagines Mr. Barford allow r s the most 
promiscuous and indiscriminate intercourse amongst his 
flock. There cannot be a greater mistake. The most con- 
tinual vigilance is exercised to prevent the propagation of 
any defect, should any appear, and to use Mr. Lance’s own 
words, “ it is only the best that are allowed to continue the 
race.” In this I presume Mr. Barford only follows the 
example of every other breeder, and not to do so, would at 
once stamp a man with the most ridiculous imbecility. If 
the cousins, of whom Mr. Lance has spoken, of the white 
breed of fowls in Hampshire, if Mr. Marsh’s hogs, if the 
“ silly ” sheep in Wiltshire, in fact, if the subjects of any of 
the in-breeding experiments he mentions, had any “ de- 
ficiency of nervous energy,” any “ weakness of nerve or 
malformation ;” in short, any defect whatever, it is evident to 
the narrowest mind, that the nearer the affinities, and the 
longer they are bred so, the more decided will those defects 
become. But it must be absurd to attribute them to the 
bare fact of in-and-in breeding. Mr. Lance must prove that 
all cross-bred animals are free from all defects before he 
can say that. In fact, I should regard failure in in-and-in 
breeding experiments as the most irrefragible evidence of 
