11th Nov.
Paere is a story of a very hard-headed resident in the Scottish Highlands who steadily refused to believe that there could be any truth whatever in the Darwinian theory. One day, however, he happened to tumble head over heels into a bog, since when he has been induced to acknowledge that "man may (at times) be profoundly influenced by his environment." Most of our readers will have been convinced of the same trath without the Highlander's practical experience, Woe may take so much for granted, for years of thought, observation and statistics all point to no other d. result, With a change therefore from a higher to a lower latitude, and from one set of conditions to another we naturally expect a corresponding alteration in the physical condition of such a community as ours. Fifty years is all too short to mark any racial difference, for nature does nothing per saltum, §o deliberately does she set about her work that years and centuries have to give place to milleviums in order that she may accomplish her ends mit hurry or "scamping." We should therefore look in vain for avy marked change in the physical condi-of the residents in the Far East except such as may be the results of excess, und they are equally in evidence everywhere. It is possible, however, already to note tendencies.
The main difference between China life and European life is to be found iv the length and heat of the summer. This so far as meteorological conditions jure concerned. Though the effect of this change is not entirely bad, it jean not be denied that heat induces indolence, and indolence indulgence, a self-indulgence which, almost a ue-Icexsity during the two hot months, has too often a habit of persisting throughout the other teu, and killing all desire for active exercise. Many of our residents find that a single hard day up-country ends in utter collapse, so "out of training" have they become. Far-sighted evolutionists declare that in time only the poor, the barbarous and savage will be able to walk at all. The rich will depend entirely upon vehicular locomotion. A good many of our residents have almost reached that stage already. The tray is nearly always at hand, and should that fail by any chance there is the perambulating temptation of the ubi-qui tous ricsha. The result is that nature's own locomotive powers become atrophied to such an extent as to be incapable of performing their duty for more than few minutes at a time, and the body robbed of its needed exercise develops adipose tissue at the expense of muscular fibre. When to this shortcoming is added another to which a Intge proportion of Far Enstera residents must plead guilty—devotion to the pleasures of the table—the increment in avoirdupois becomes more and more evident. And as good living usually needs a pathology all its own, we find that no inconsiderable proportion of the cases on our annual sick-list may be attributed to this cause alone. In plain trath we eat too much and we drink too much, Wines und spirits are cheaper relatively than beer, and as a natural consequence there is a tendency to use them much more freely here than in the home lands. Not that there is a large amount of drunkenness, Far from it, but there are unquestionably many drinks taken between meals that had better remain in the bottles, An utter stranger to Shanghai might from acritical examination of the many photographic groups exhibited io our shop windows, learn much respecting the convivial side of our society and its physical results, Take out the meu more or less in training and the remainder show plainly enough that their father confessor is the Friar of Orders Gray. On the other hand, when a foreigner in Far Cathay takes care to live with due regard to the laws of health he often shows to better effect physically than men of his own age at home. Climate, an easier life, less worry, and more recreation may account for this. For whatever may be said against the climate of China there is this in its favour, at least at Shanghai, that for neatly eight months of the year we are living practically night and day in the open ait. Our windows are never shut, there is the perfection of ventilation, and only during the colder months, perhaps two or three, can there be any chance of harm from stuffy rooms and vitiated air.
But it is not to adults from home that we must look for the main effect of China life. 'I'heir constitutions had matured before they landed here, and as we have seen, any degeneration that takes place is mainly attributable to preventable causes. It is to the children, to those born and brought up here that we must turn to find what tendencies our physical nature of the second generation seems to exhibit. Shall we find that, as in India, it will be impossible to keep our western stock up to its best form without continual importations from-home? Oe will the ten temperate months brace us sufficiently to tide us
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.