Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-12-03
NAN VERSUS WOMAN.

A Frenchman, NJ. Delaney, has bearded
the lioness in her den by publishing most
fiagitious paper purporting to be cold
blooded scientific analysis of the differences
between men and women, physical and
mental. This malignant scientific person,
having no fear of the strong-minded sister
hood before his eyes, and not admitting
the force of the American idea that sexual
inequalities are capable of removal by stat
utory enactments, has brought together a
mass of alleged facts all of which tend to
show that woman is both physically and
intellectually inferior to man. He does
indeed show that in the earlier processes of
evolution, that is to say, in state of bar
barism, the woman is often the superior of
the man. This is also the case with very
many insects, reptiles, birds, etc.; but
among the higher animals it is the male
which is almost always the superior. M.
Delaney goes on in monotonous and per.
fectly reckless way, citing authorities to
prove that man eats more than woman,
that he has more red globules in his blood,
that he absorbs more oxygen, that he ex.
hales more carbonic acid, that his pull
monary capacity is greater, that his
temperature is higher; that his blood
pressure is greater, that his skeleton is
heavier, that his frame is larger,
that his foot is more arched that he ia
less prognathous that his muscular sys.
tenn is more vigorous and better devel.
oped that his movements are more pre-
cise that his brain is heavier and has
more convolutions to the square mile that
"even ip the most intelligent populations,
''as among contemporary Parisians, the
skulls of notable proportion of women
"more nearly approach the volume of
skulls of certain gorillas than that OF the
better developed skulls of the male
ssrace ;" that the brain of woman as
"whole is always in more or less embry-
ionic condition :" that SO in the evo-
"lution OF tastes and ideas, woman marches
about century behind man )" that she
is going through the phases of culture which
man has already left behind him that, in
short, :" the male exceeds the female not
only in the intensity OF the nutritive
phenomena, but also in muscular force
land intellectual development" And
from all these alleged facts M. Delaney
argues that it is useless for woman to claim
equality with man, because Nature has
made the sexes unequal, and no amount
of education can restore the balance. He
points to the fact that though girls out
strip boys at school until about the twelfth
year, after that time the boys surpass
them. He points further to the fact
that whereas girls stop growing at
about the seventeenth year, boys con-
tinue to grow long after that period. He
cheerfully admits that in the stage of
savagery women are often superior to men,
hut he meanly adds that this kind of thing
only happens in the savage state. and that
"that equality which existed among the
"primitive races, and still exists among
ssome savages, is tending more and more
..to disappear with the progress of ciyiliza-
s'tion. Tne pre.eminence of man over
s'woman, which is product of the evolu-
g ton of individuals and races, is rather
increased by instruction, the effect of
(which, far fromre- establshingth the equality
"of the races, is to assure deinitively the
supremacy of man." In short this highly
offensive scientific person from the female
standpoint) coolly and deliberately asserts