Morning journal and courier., 1883-11-12
An Interesting Theory.

The author claims to make known ''a new discovery of a great law of nature, nothing less than the law which governs the sexes, and whereby the sex of offspring can be con- trolIed." He has worked for twenty years at the subject, carefully counting the number Of boys and girls in all the families of his &C., quaintance, summing up the characteristics and taking the portraits of the parents, and reading Darwin and other authors who have handled the question. The great discovery is the law that ''sex is determined by what shall designate as the superior parent; also that the superior parent produces the oppo- site sex ;" that Is to say, that if the husband is superior to the wife the family will consist mostly of girls. and vice versa. Hence, as the author explains, results the preservation of the balance of the sexes; for ln the next generation the girls, inheriting their fathers superiority, will in most cases produce fami- lies with a larger proportion of boys. In future there will be no need to pry in order to determine who rules the roost in ones neighbours fam1y-it will only be necessary to count his boys and girls in order to deter mine the point hence it is to be expected that the desire for male offspring will scarce ly remain so strongly developed i'll fathers as hitherto.
 Dark complexions is superior to light, dark plants and trees are the most hardy and dark horses the best A square forehead and prominent veins are "superlor," large prominent eye (which indicates converse tional powers") is the reverse. But the best indication of superiority is large and prom meat nose, Roman or aquiiine, full a third the length of the face As an Illustration of the method of the summing up the charac- teristics of parents from the rules laid down, the several portraits of opposite sex given in the plates are hypothetically married, pair by pair, and their superiority or inferiority IS estimated numerically, 100 being taken ss TnG,It dren of either sex which such pairs ought to produce, according to the theory, is arrived at. One of the most ill-favored of the ugly women is mated, for example, with the man with the head which is biggest at the top, and the result is that If the pair have twenty ehil dren they will all be girls
 Then come series of cases from the per sonal experience of the author. M. B., man of genius, with large head and slender body, with corpulent wife of moderate in telligence, had five daughters. Mime. A., strong woman with masculine voice and slightly bearded chin, had seven children, all sons.
 T became acquainted with man of good address, with well shaped head and Roman nose. His wife was of consumptiEe tenden- cy, of literary tastes, but with an infantile nose and en expression of general ineficieu cy. Imagine my surprise when found they had three boys.'
 But the law remains unshaken: ''All WAS satisfactorily explained" the husband WAS extremely illiterate and addicted to drink. Nothing more surely degrades the nature."
 Philosophers, lawyers, editors, poets, Htera- ry mon and brain workers generally have a large excess of daughters. Wine merchants, tavern keepers small retail dealers, orators, physiciars and musicians have preponder- anoe of boys. Clergymen appear just to struggle through the ordeal without mourning the stigma of inferiority, being equally intel ligent, sober and moral with their wives and producing an equal number of boys and girls.
 Of course, for the stability of the new law 1t becomes necessary to show that musicians medical men and orators are inferior. Ac- cordingly the first are lymphatic, the second are made rather than born to their profession (and the most distinguished as an exception have large families of daughters,) and mere public speakers do not possess ''the highest order ot faculties or intellect,' while in most of them the base of the brain will be found to predominate over the superior portion"
 Were the theory established no married member of the learned professions would be able to get any employment ct all unless they had large families of girls They could not afford to run risks, and it would become a matter of common prudence with them to secure idiots for wives for fear of mishap.