Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 November 1883 — Tall Men and Short. [ARTICLE]

Tall Men and Short.

Fair men may derive some satisfaction from being told, on the authority of Sir Rawson and the “anthropometric committee,” represented by him at the meeting of the British association, that the greater number of criminals are of dark complexion. But dark men may triumph in their turn when Sir Rawson goes on to say that lunatics are for the most part fair; a truth which the late M. Fetcher had probably in view when he determined to present Hamlet in a wig. Tall men, again, will be interested to hear that criminals and lunatics classed together are two inches shorter that the rest of the population; and against this there is nothing in the way of consolation to offer short men except—what in most cases they already knew—that the people of Spain, Italy and France are shorter than those of the northern countries. That tall men, however, are not absolutely perfect is suggested, if not absolutely proved, by the fact as alleged by the spokesman of the anthropometric committee, that among the tallest people in Europe are the Irish. The tallness of the Irish is out of harmony, moreover, with the argument that the shortness of short people is to be accounted for by their having been insufficiently fed, clothed and housed when young. Tue facts and figures put forward by the anthropometric committee are very confusing; and no reasonable conclusion can be drawn from them. This confusion would be “worse confounded*” if, instead of dealing with races the an- ! ' thropometric committee were .to doOi with selected individuals. The German Emperor, Prince Bismarck, Ount Moltke are all tall, and many of the superior officers of the Prussian array are giants. The Duke «qf Wellington, on tlie other hand, was rather below the middle height, while Nelson and Napoleon were decidedly short.— St. James’Gazette. * ' "■( -1 ■ >— tu • m ; Won’t'He * ~ A little grandson t>f was attempting.to build, a tuvjSe-Yegggd stool, when he looke#* up to her aad ... *.« m.# .** <• ■ .said; ttuMf • ■ “Grandma, does Gua see every-, thing?" ~ w ; * “Ices, my son,” she replied, “God is everywhere and sees'every act of our lives.” “Well, by jingo,” said the boy, “won’t he laugh when he sees this stool."—, Carl Pretzel’s Weekly.