i88i.] 
Correspondence, 
367 
SANITARY CONDITIONS. 
To the Editor of the Journal of Science . 
Sir, — A medical contemporary of yours remarks it as something 
anomalous that the Boers of the Transvaal should be hale and 
vigorous whilst living under very imperfect sanitary regulations. 
The writer seems to forget that these men are at any rate free 
from the most important of all causes of debility, i.e.. worry and 
over-work. 
The men who first enticed women and children into an indus- 
trial career, and they who have in later times devised the scheme 
of competitive examination, have done more to enfeeble the 
British race than can be counterbalanced by the most perfedt 
systems of drainage and ventilation, with the highest personal 
cleanliness superadded. — I am, &c., 
G. 0. H. 
AN ALLEGED CONTRAST BETWEEN MAN 
AND BRUTES. 
To the Editor of the Journal of Science. 
Sir, — In his essays on the “ Unity of Nature ” the Duke of 
Argyll seeks to point out an anomaly in the moral condudt of 
man as contrasted with that of the lower animals. He mentions 
especially three points in which man differs unfavourably from 
the lower animals, viz., his propensity to infanticide, to canni 
balism, and to ill-usage of the weaker sex. It seems to me, 
however, that the distinction is by no means absolute. Among 
several species of rodents — e.g., the rabbit — the female hides her 
young from the male, and has occasionally to defend them 
against his attacks. The same thing occurs among the Felidae. 
The sow and the female cat will occasionally kill and eat their 
own offspring, and that not from want of food or lack of shelter. 
Male alligators greedily devour the young of their own species. 
The eagerness of the queen bee to put to death her female pro- 
geny is well known. 
Cannibalism is likewise not unknown among brutes. Rats, if 
shut up together, fight, and the weaker ones are devoured. 
Wolves eat up a wounded comrade without mercy. A stronger 
