BOYS OF TO-DAY

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 46, 10 March 1937, Page 14

BOYS OF TO-DAY

What Post Office Records Show FINER PHYSIQUE That the physique of the youths of to-day is better than that of te* and twenty years ago is suggested by the records of both the British and the New Zealand Post Office. The principal avenue of entrance into the New Zealand Post and Telegraph Department is through the position of message-boy, and in the staff now totalling nearly ten thousand, the great majority are able to take pride in the fact that they have graduated from that position. Records of the heigfixt and weight of message-boys appointed to the department are available over a long series of years, and when the British Post Of-' fice recently published some valuable data regarding the improvement in the physique of candidates examined by its medical service the " opportunity was taken of making a similar shrvey from the New Zealand records. This amply supported the British view that the boys of to-day are of a better physical class than those of ten and twenty years ago. From the notes kept of all candidates for entrance to the British Postal Service, an interesting series of comparisons was made possible. An unselected consecutive series of 20O London boys of 16 years of age seeking employment, from the same sorts of families and districts, was compared with a similar series of 200 London boys of the same age, who were examined 25 years previously. The present-day boys were found to weigh, on an average, 161b, a boy more, and to be l£ inches taller, than those of the previous generation. A similar comparison between unselected, consecutive groups of 200 girls of 16 years of- ago, examined five years ago and 25 years before that, showed that the girls of to-day weighed on an average 101b. a girl more, and were an inch taller, than the girls of the last generation. ■Following as closely as possible the basis of the English comparison, the New. Zealand Post Office medical ieports" were examined, a consecutive series of 60 boys appointed from April till December, 1936. Their ages varied between the ages of 14 years 10 moliths and 15 years two months. It became clearly evident from the medical reports that the boys of 1936 were better in physique than those of the two previous periods. Of 60 boys engagjsd in 1917 only 15 exceeded 5ft. 6in. in height, though in 1936 26 wero above that standard. In weight also the latest batch of records showed that 56 of the 60 boys in 1917 were less than 9 stone, but in 1938 only 38 were found to be Lelow that weight. The general result of the comparison enabled the cone] 11sion to be reached that judging by applieants for positions in the New Zealand Post Office, the present-day boys weigh on an average 131b. more than those of 10 years ago, and 191b- more than t]jose of 20 years ago. The boys of to-day in the matter of height were found to he on the average 2.1 inches taller than those of 1927 and 2.3 inch- : os taller ihan their predecessors of ' 1917. i :