Democratic Sentinel, Volume 22, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 January 1898 — Harsh Environment. [ARTICLE]

Harsh Environment.

In Limousin there is a barren range of low hills which lies along the dividing line between the departments of Dordogne, Correze and Haute-Vienne, about half-way between Perigueux and Limoges, says Popular Science Monthly. The water-courses show the location of these uplands. They extend over an area about seventy-five miles long and half as wide, wherein average human misery is most profound. Dense Ignorance prevails. There is more illiteracy than in any other part of France. The contrast in stature, even with the low average of all the surrounding region, is clearly marked by the dark tint. There are sporadic bits of equal diminutiveness elsewhere to the south and west, but none are so extended or so extreme. Two-thirds of the men are below five feet three inches in height in some of the communes, and the women are three or more inches shorter even than this. One man in ten is below four feet eleven inches in stature. This is not due to race, for several racial types are equally stunted in this way within the same area. It is primarily due to generations of subjection to a harsh climate, to a soil which is worthless for agriculture, to a steady diet of boiled chestnuts and stagnant water, and to unsanitary dwellings in the deep, narrow and damp valleys. Still further proof may be found to show that these people are not stunted by any hereditary influence, for it has been shown that children born here, but who migrate and grow up elsewhere, are normal in height; white those born elsewhere, but who are subject to this environment during the growing period of youth, are proportionately dwarfed.