The Daily News FRIDAY, AUGUST 4, 1904. DETERIORATION OF THE RACE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVI, Issue 182, 5 August 1904, Page 2

The Daily News FRIDAY, AUGUST 4, 1904. DETERIORATION OF THE RACE.

The repoit of the. Physical Deterioration C.'ommittet', that inhabitants iii slums In English i-itits are physically degmeratc, opens up once more the question whether tlm llritish race is deteriorating. In the month of April, l!)0:t, the military authorities called public attention to the deterioration in the health and physique of tho men who were offering themselves as recruits for the army, by n memorandum of Sir William Taylor, Director-General ol' the Army Medical Service, presented to Parliament. The. (lovi'rnment regai'd<"d the matter as so momentous that they n|>pointed a committee- to advise them on the propriety of appointing a Koyu 1 Commission to investigate the physical condition or t'»! British population. As to the physical condition of school children, a glimpse has been recently afforded well calenlukti to lill those who are concerned for the future of our race with alarm. In November, 1002, lUlin Scottish school children, so taken as to lie fair wimples of the ihildren in the public schools o l .' Aberdeen and Edinburgh, were medically examined for the Koyal Commission on Physical Training in Scotland—WW in each place. The results of these i Muuinatio'iN are to 1.0 found in the leport of (lie Iloyal ('ominis.tnn. presented to Parliament in iMarch, l'Jlt.'l. 'the condition of chihhvn in Aberdeen, which the Royal Commission regard aa fairly typical of that in small towns and rural districts in Scotland, is on the whole satisfactory, lint in Kdinburgh it i< far worse gincrnlly Jhr.n would have been expected ; and in the case of I he poorest school, from which a sample was drawn—the North L'anongale School-simply appalling. "A large minority, if not a inajoiit.y," of the children in this last sih.iol were reported by Dr. .Mackenzie, the examiner, to be '•habitually underfed and dcrrlothed ;" more than threefourths of I hem, 7(i.<> per cent., lived in one or tivo-roomrd houses ; such rhildiMi exhibited a luarkid inferiority to the ie.-.t in every particular, physical and mental ; in height, weight, development or head, trunk, ami limbs they were worse than the rest of their school fellows, who wele noise limn Kdinburgh children in general. Among the (lU<> sample children of Kdinburgh, .-it per cent, had du'vetivo eye light, A2 per cent, defective hearing, 7(1 per cent, incipient disease of some kind, swollen glands, diseae of the mouth or nose, adenoids, or moie serious complaints ; more than half these cases Dr. Mackenzie considered grave enough to deinan* more or less attention. ON THIS KOL'HTU PACK. Literature. Charge of Assault. ... Why Some People are Poor.