It cannot be doubted that town life is harmful to the town population.  I have myself investigated its effect on fertility (see Appendix B), and found that taking on the one hand a number of rural parishes, and on the other hand the inhabitants of a medium town, the former reared, nearly twice as many adult grandchildren as the latter.  The vital functions are so closely related that an inferiority in the production of healthy children very probably implies a loss of vigour generally, one sign of which is a diminution of stature.

Though the bulk of the population may deteriorate, there are many signs that the better housed and fed portion of it improves.  In the earlier years of this century the so-called manly sports of boxing and other feats of strength ranked high among the national amusements.  A man who was [1] successful in these became the hero of a large and demonstrative circle of admirers, and it is to be presumed that the best boxer, the best pedestrian, and so forth, was the best adapted to succeed, through his natural physical gifts.  If he was not the most gifted man in those respects in the whole kingdom, he was certainly one of the most gifted of them.  It therefore does no injustice to the men of that generation to compare the feats of their foremost athletes with those of ours who occupy themselves in the same way.  The comparison would probably err in their favour, because the interest in the particular feats in which our grandfathers and great-grandfathers delighted are not those that chiefly interest the present generation, and notwithstanding our increased population, there are fewer men now who attempt them.  In the beginning of this century there were many famous walking matches, and incomparably the best walker was Captain Barclay of Ury.  His paramount feat, which was once very familiar to the elderly men of the present time, was that of walking a thousand miles in a thousand hours, but of late years that feat has been frequently equalled and overpassed.  I am willing to allow much influence to the modern conditions of walking under shelter and subject to improved methods of training (Captain Barclay himself originated the first method, which has been greatly improved since his time); still the fact remains that in executing this particular feat, the athletes of the present day are more successful than those who lived some eighty years ago.  I may be permitted to give an example bearing on the increased stature of the better housed and fed portion of the nation, in a recollection of my own as to the difference in height between myself and my fellow-collegians at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1840-4.  My height is 5 feet 9-3/4 inches, and I recollect perfectly that among the crowd of undergraduates I stood somewhat taller than the majority.  I generally looked a little downward when I met their eyes.  In later years, whenever I have visited Cambridge, I have lingered in the ante-chapel and repeated the comparison, and now I find myself decidedly shorter than the average of the students.  I have precisely the same kind of recollection and the same present experience of the height of crowds of well-dressed persons.  I used always to get a fair view of what was going on over or between their heads; I rarely can do so now.