Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 June 1893 — Beauty and Climatic Conditions. [ARTICLE]

Beauty and Climatic Conditions.

The handsomest people in the world are the people of the Danube Valley. They are the descendants of the ancient Scythians, who were crossed by an Asiatic race, which has been pretty clearly identified with the Mongolians. It is not easy to see from which of these sources the belles of Pesth and Bucharest could have derived their beauty, and the student is driven to the conclusion that a naturally homely race became handsome under the stimulating effect of a congenial climate. Again, the old Romans, including under that head the Italians from the Alps to Calabria, were a tall, stalwart, muscular race; but the Italians of to-day are short, slight and not remarkable for strength. Are we to infer that an alternation of ages of luxury with ages of misery and starvation gradually deteriorated the national type? Where the conditions remain unchanged the human type remains the same. The figures on Egyptian monuments drawn 5,000 years ago might be taken for portraits of the fellahs of today. But no one would ever suspect the peasantry of the Morea of being akin to the Spartans who fell at Thermopylae. —(Sen Francisco Cail.