New Orleans Republican., 1871-10-01
A POPULAR fALLACY.
The Physical Deseneracy Of Mas.
From the London Snecfator.1

The fhysieaI DeGeneracy Of Man.
Prom the London SPECTATOR
Dr. BeddOe's argument, read before til,
British Association in Edinburgh. as to tn,
degeneracy of Englishmen in physique, doe
not seem to have excited much attention
OF tendency to excited discussion, and w
do not wonder at the neglect. Ordinary
pc pie will not believe an argument. how
ever carefully put, so opposed to the evi
dence of their senses, and the few who
have examined the matter carefully, have
made up their minds that the evil Of which
Dr. BeddOe complains is temporary, par
partial, and affords no just ground of alarm
1t there is one fact certain in the history o1
the world, it is that the notion of the physi
cal degeneration Of the human race, which
pervades all literature, has infected all
creeds, and has been embodied in almost all
histories, rests upon no evidence whatever
Abraham would not be more noticed in
Syria for his size than any sheik who traces
to him his ancestry
There is no record worthy moments at
tentiOn OF any race who, if stripped and
disarmed and put opposite an equal number
OF English navies equally stripped and dis
armed, would not in ten minutes be smashed
Unto indistinguished Jelly. The earliest pic
lures we possess Of human beings. those on
the Egyptian monuments. display a people
slighter, shorter, and with altogether less
OF the constituents which make up healthy
weight, than the English of to-day The
mummies are here in London for us to see:
they are the bodies of mobiles, warriors,
priests, and other picked and we'll fed men,
and they are distinctly smaller than the
lnummies of the same class OF Englishmen
would be likely to he. Greek statues,
when intended 20 be life-size, are the stimuli
AGRA, as far as weight goes, of Greek men
and women as we see them now. The old
est coins give no hint Of people in any way
bigger. The soldier of Pharaoh was very
like Sikh, and Greek athlete would have
recognized his own type in Leotard. the
trapeze performer. The notion that civiliz-
alton weakens Is just as baseless.
The people who still exist in state of
nature are, with the exception of the
negroes of the upper Nile, if Werne's ac-
count OF them is accurate. rather slighter
persons than ourselves, and possess no
physical qualities whatever which English
men similarly trained would be without An
average New Zealander or kaffir is about
the equal of an average Englishman. and no
other savage is equal to that Most savages
would be as hopelessly beaten in a naked
contest with an Engishman trained to their
work as an unframed Englishman would be
by a Westmoreland wrestler: and a very
large proportion Of them are greatly interior
TO any western man. and could not enter
into any physical contest with them with
any hope of victory. The most perfect saw
age Of mankind. the Veddah or the
would be strangled by a Lon
don costermonger in three minutes. and
the red Indian warrior in the highest condi-
ton is, apart altogether from the differ
enoes created by civilization, wholly una
BILE to encounter the kentuckian. The
kentuckian can crush his ribs at the first
hug. An Anglo Saxon pedestrian with any
thing like the Indians training can beat
nearly twice the weight the other can lift.
The armOr IN our museums is not the ar
NOR OF the coMmonalty. but of knights
whose motto was that of the earls of Grams
tOun. most honest of aristOcrats, Thou
shalt want ere / want" that is. of specially
we'll fed men, and ii five hundred suits
were collected half the House of Commons
'ould not get into them. The other half
would. no doubt. be horribly tired if
arises from want OF habit, and. indeed, the |
Knights would have been as horribly tired |
They did not walk habituallv |
II armor, but rode huge dray horses spe- !
Tally selected because they could carry |
weight. There may. of course, in some |
prehistoric period have been men Of amaz- |
ne size on earth. Just as there We're birds |
ike the moa. and immensely big bats: but |
If scientific evidence for any such asser-
ion. or for the kindred assumption that hu-
nan physique deteriorates under civilza-
ion. there Is not one trace. The enormous
is that a Roman corps of 1000
nen was composed of soldiers who would |
lave seemed to our life guardsmen punv.
yho We're, in fact about the average weight
hat a regiment of born Parsians or Ital-
ans would be- though. from training in the
fields. rather broader chested.
The general argument makes men I'M
Wiling to listen to such assertions, and we
10 not see much force in Dr. Beddoe's par
icular Legations. He SAYS civilization is
Iwarting us all. that the Frenchmen were
'eaten by the Germans because of their in
erlor physique-as if Jena had not hap
ened as well as Sedan, or as if Germans
ad not conquered those tall Poles-and
hat the degeneracy is mainly due to city
fe. Why is it due to city life! Because of
he unhealtliness of the employments usual
n cities. Many OF them, as for example.
he printing of daily papers or the watch
NJ of wool machines, are no doubt un-
the fact that they are car
led on under cover, while agricultural
iborers get wet, ought to be taken into
ccount-but where is the proof that short
we'd father produces an inferior son, L. is
OF the circumstances of the situation
men are reproduced, Dut the normal type:
nd you might blind sheep forever, bv
ecuring an eyeless or bleareyed breed
lambs. The pale and overworked
lctory hand might, granted good
'od, good air and good exercise, rear
hildren as savagely healthy as the farmer:
nd the tendency among the children to be
ealthy will last hundreds of years, or
robably, if We may judge from some evi-
ence procurable in Bengal, forever The
engalese have certainly been puny people
+ SIX hundred years probababiy for double
lat period, the evidence being their extreme
luctance to fight: but the children of ma
We Christians are not puny-;re often as
G as the fighting races of the North Two
'neratiOns of the generous diet forbidden
the Bengalee by his creed, has increased
cir weight Oue-third, and the weight of
cir skeletons il almost equal proportion.
I'd food, no doubt, makes men puny,
ough. by the way, some underfed races, !
tably the Irish, are exceptionally fine |
en-: but there Is no reason in the world {
ny citizens should be worse fed than 6
untrymen. On the contrary, as the coun- c
'men come to the cities for profit, the l
obability is incontestable that they will '
better fed, and, we believe as
alter OF fact. that i'll this country they d
2. The citizens get more meat. better t
eau, Dettcr peer. anu, except i'll Il
few districts. just as much milk. a
1t is, next to none of all. A Manchester C
isan is a better nourished man than the '
erage English laborer; ask linn himself .
le is not, or, if you disbelieve him, ask \
Lancashire doctor, who worked through t
, cotton famine, and who will tell you d
It the artisans are palpably benefited in b
alth by their more restricted diet Then, p
IS DR.. Beddoe. modern science. by keep G.
alive the feeble, tends to make the type II
BILE; but, apart from actual disease, fee G