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RACE IMPROVEMENT

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more than common share of shrewd business capacity, possibly also by a lower standard of commercial probity than at present.

" So far as beauty is concerned . . . it is not so very long ago in England that it was thought quite natural that the strongest lance at the tournament should win the fairest or the noblest lady. The lady was the prize to be tilted for. She rarely objected to the arrangement, because her vanity was gratified by the eclat of the proceeding. Now history is justly charged with a tendency to repeat itself. We may therefore reasonably look forward to the possibility, I do not say the probability, of some such practice of competition. What an extraordinary effect might be produced on our race if its object was to unite in marriage those who possessed the finest and most suitable natures, mental, moral, and physical!"

The last paragraph must of course be interpreted in the semi jocular sense in which it was written.

I may here speak of some attempts by myself, made hitherto in too desultory a way, to obtain materials for a " Beauty-Map " of the British Isles. Whenever I have occasion to classify the persons I meet into three classes, "good, medium, bad," I use a needle mounted as a pricker, wherewith to prick holes, unseen, in a piece of paper, torn rudely into a cross with a long leg. I use its upper end for " good," the cross-arm for " medium," the lower end for " bad." The prick-holes keep distinct, and are easily read off at leisure. The object, place, and date are written on the paper. I used this plan for my beauty data, classifying the girls I passed in streets or elsewhere