Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 34.djvu/342

328 to judge, the countryman came out incontestably superior in tone of muscular activity. These figures are recorded in the Anthropometric Society's Transactions. Standing alone, they are of no value; they prove nothing, because I had no evidence at what age town-dwelling ceased. It is in the mass of statistics that we can find proof. Mr. Francis Galton, to whom science is so much indebted, has recently recorded some measurements made by himself in his laboratory at South Kensington on men during the Health Exhibition, and has made a comparison with those of Cambridge University men. Mr. Galton's inquiry extended to as many as nine thousand persons. The relation of the two points to a considerable advantage of the Cambridge men:

These figures appear to substantiate the statistics of the Anthropometric Society: that the average well-to-do man has a higher general physical condition than the average of a lower grade of society; a similar, though not so well-defined, brain-development exists. These measurements, so far as proof of stature is concerned, must be accepted with some degree of reservation. Presuming that the Cambridge students were drafted from the upper stratum of society, and from the country mainly, there is no evidence that the other class were all from towns.

The tables of the Anthropometric Society, as issued by Mr. Roberts and published in the "York Meeting Transactions," state that the result of a comparison as to the average height and weight of the several classes of the population distinguished as (1) the professional classes, including town and country; (2) the commercial classes in towns; (3) the laboring classes in the country; and (4) the artisans in towns. The relative position of the four classes stands in the order stated, Classes 1 and 2 being taller and Classes 3 and 4 slightly shorter than the general population. This relation is maintained throughout, and the tables afford material for study as to the comparative effects of occupation and town and country life on growth. Another table (No. 6) relates to weight. Here, again, the relative position of the four classes stands in nearly the same order. Class 1 being heavier, and Class 4 (i. e., artisans in towns) lighter than the general population; but Class 3 (country laborers) very nearly coincides with the general average, and is, in general, superior in weight to Class 2 (commercial classes in towns). In other words, the occupation of the country laborer places him in weight over the town tradesman, though the latter has the advantage in height.