The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-03-19

ilIs birthday count as two days, in order to balance the suggested omissions, and 1t may even happen that the mythical
 month of Sundays may yet become an accomplished fact,
 ,s ef.s9es 4-
 | If we wished at the present moment to produce a race of men who had two bones instead of three in all their fingers and toes it could be done. The oonten- ton is made go9d' by an eminent doctor and man of science writing In the new monthly magazine, the Mendel Journal. Indeed, that wonderful law of heredity discovered years ago by Mendel is dis Closing so manyt secrets of character in plants and animals that 1t demands a special magazine to aid and popularize the study of 1t. The practical bearing Of this law is shown by the fact that all the great sweetTpea growers, some of the best producers of new wheats, and some poul- try keepers are working on Menders lines.
 The second volume of the magazine contains the above astonishing example of the law as displayed in the inheritance of man. Mir. Drinkwater, M D., has traced the history of family for seven generations from an ancestor who was remarkable for the abnormalty known as thumb fngerness'; that is, she had only two instead of three bones in all her fingers and toes. This pecuIiarity has been inherited through the six genera tions strictly In accordance with the law On the one hand the normal children have never, produced abnormal offspring; on the other hand the creation of a race who all possessed shortened fingers and toes could be positively insured by se- lected marriages of cousins
 Two other writers throw light on the in- hertiance of color in horses and cats. It is quite proved, for example in race horses, that chestnuts always have chest nut progeny and that bays crossed by chestnuts always produce bays. In re- gard to the cats light is thrown on the queer fact that in5 one variety the males are nearly, always red and the tabbies tortoiShell. -'Ast - f
 The history of the cat is also tracked out by inference, from the extreme diff culty experiencess z by .scat fancers in breeding out stripes and spots, the marks of those more distinguished felines. the tiger and the leopard. sfF'
 The latest estimate of the ravages of plague In the far east gives 19,O0O as the total mortality This figure, apparently covers the whole period since the begin ming of the epidemic, not less than four months ago. The plague in its present manifestation has now been in India since 1S96 and since that time 1t has carried off probably not less than 9,000000 of people. Culminating in 1907 with an official death roll of 1,315, 1892, 1t has show until the last year a remarkable decline, and the pres ent season is not looked upon as espe cially severe. But contrast the mortal ity returns with those from Manchuria.
 In the week ending January IA, there were in India 12,143 deaths from plague; in the following week there were 20167, the seizures numbering 24,7S3, so that the plague death rate for the whole of India was over 81 per cent.
 In the United Province alone the deoths during this one week of January the last for which figures are avalable) were con- siderably more than half the entire nor tality in the far east. .5
 The great difficulty between the bubonic plague which has been pandemic in h. dia for more than a decade, and the pneumonia plague, which became epidem- .ic in Manchuria towards the end of 1910, less fatal to Europeans than to Asiatics.
 Europeans in India do not flee from the bubonic plague. But it will be seen that
 in the respect of destructiveness the two cases differ enormously, the plague in h. dia being incidentally more deadly. Again, the pneumonia plague Is a winter disease; the bubonic gathers in strength during the first three or four months of the year. reaching its highest point in March or April.