admission into their select corps, and their generally British
descent. The result is a composite having an expression of
considerable vigour, resolution, intelligence, and frankness. I have
exhibited both this and others that were made respectively from the
officers, from the whole collection of privates--thirty-six in
number--and from that selected portion of them that is utilised in
the present instance.

This face and the qualities it connotes probably gives a clue to the
direction in which the stock of the English race might most easily
be improved. It is the essential notion of a race that there should
be some ideal typical form from which the individuals may deviate in
all directions, but about which they chiefly cluster, and towards
which their descendants will continue to cluster. The easiest
direction in which a race can be improved is towards that central
type, because nothing new has to be sought out. It is only necessary
to encourage as far as practicable the breed of those who conform
most nearly to the central type, and to restrain as far as may be
the breed of those who deviate widely from it. Now there can hardly
be a more appropriate method of discovering the central
physiognomical type of any race or group than that of composite
portraiture.

As a contrast to the composite of the Royal Engineers, I give those
of two of the coarse and low types of face found among the criminal
classes. The photographs from which they were made are taken from
two large groups. One are those of men undergoing severe sentences
for murder and other crimes connected with violence; the other of
thieves. They were reprints from those taken by order of the prison
authorities for purposes of identification. I was allowed to obtain