is the young, healthy, vigorous blood of the country which is exposed to
these unhealthy conditions. A pure Londoner of the third generation,
that is, one whose grandparents as well as his parents were born in
London, is very seldom found. It is certain that nearly all the most
effective vital energy given out in London work, physical and
intellectual alike, belongs to men whose fathers were country bred, if
they were not country born themselves. In kinds of work where pure
physical vigour play an important part, this is most strikingly
apparent. The following statistics bearing on the London police force
were obtained by Mr. Llewellyn Smith in 1888--

London born. Country born. Total.

Metropolitan Police 2,716 10,908 13,624
City " 194 698 892

Railway men, carriers, omnibus-drivers, corn and timber porters, and
those in whose work physique tells most, are all largely drawn from the
country. Nor is the physical deterioration of city life to be merely
measured by death-rates. Many town influences, which do not appreciably
affect mortality, distinctly lower the vitality, which must be taken as
the physical measure of the value of life. The denizens of city slums
not only die twice as fast as their country cousins, but their health
and vigour is less during the time they live.

A fair consideration of these facts discloses something much more
important than a mere change in social and industrial conditions. Linked
with this change we see a deterioration of the physique of the race as a
distinct factor in the problem of city poverty. This is no vague
speculation, but a strongly-supported hypothesis, which deserves most