Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/868

This page has been validated.
786
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

this is peculiarly unfortunate, since these are the very peoples who find population pressing most severely upon the soil at home.[1] The Latin nations, of course, are the ones who lay most stress upon this comparative disability of their rivals; but in justice to the French, it must be added that they have generally recognized that the Spaniards and Italians possess as great an advantage over them as they in turn do over the Germans.[2] The experience of Algeria affords a good illustration of this point. The year 1854 marks the first excess of births over deaths in this colony; and the following table shows the relative disabilities of the Europeans for 1855-'56:[3]

Births pro mille. Deaths pro mille.
Spaniards 46 30
Maltese 44 30
Italians 39 28
French 41 43
Germans 31 56

Dr. Ricoux[4] gives the following death rates per thousand for children under one year: Spaniards, 180; Maltese, 178; Italians, 194; French, 225·2; and Germans, 273. This disability of the Germans is confessed by all their most able and candid authorities.[5] All writers, even in France, acknowledge that the Mediterranean natives possess a peculiar aptitude in this respect.[6]


  1. Levasseur, La Population Française, iii, p. 432.
  2. Revue d'Anthropologie, second series, viii, p. 190.
  3. Bulletin de la Société d'Anthropologie, 1886, p. 269; cf. L'Anthropologie, vi, p. 120. The small number of Germans present weakens the force of the evidence somewhat.
  4. Annales de Demographie, vi, p. 14. Cf. Quatrefages, op. cit., p. 230, and Bordier, Colonization, p. 184. The only north Europeans ever successful are the Dutch in South Africa and in the East Indies.
  5. Ratzel, Anthropo-Geographie, i, p. 304; Virchow, Fritsche, and Joest in Verhandlungen der Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, 1885, pp. 211, 474, etc. It will have been noted that nearly all references in German fall within the years 1885-'87. The question drifted into politics—out of the hands of scientists into those of pamphleteers. Vide Max Nordau, Rabies Africana, in Asiatic Quarterly Review, second series, ii, p. 76; and G. A. Fischer, Mehr Licht im dunkeln Welttbeil, Berlin, 1886. A blue-book on the subject was promised (Verhandlungen der Berliner Gescllschaft, 1886, p. 87), but the attention of the Colonial Society was for some reason diverted. Tropical hygiene was fully discussed, but the broader scientific aspect of the matter was neglected (Verhandlungen, 1889, p. 732). As late as 1890 no definite government report had been issued except Mähly's work. The Germans apparently do not dare to handle it without gloves, and their views are unique in their optimism (Kohlstock in Science, 1891, p. 3; and Finckeluburg in Handbuch der Staatswissenschaft).
  6. Ratzel, loc. cit.; Bulletin of the American Geographical Society, 1883, No. 2; Jousset, p. 292; Montano, pp. 444, 446; Felkin, in Scottish Geographical Magazine, ii, p. 52, and in British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1886, p. 730; Levasseur, op. cit., ii, p. 431; and Bordier, Colonization, pp. 185, 493.