August 13, 1904.)
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and in this condition they were handed down, as were such ballads in England as
Chevy Chase
for hundreds of years. CONFUCIUS it is noteworthy never uses any expression with regard to them which could be construed into an indication of their existing in a written form. "Have you learnt the Ballads?" he asks of his son; "if not, you are not fit to talk with." As a fact no one attempted to put them in the fetters of writing for many generations after Cos- FUCIUS. As a toatter, almost of history, certainly within historic recollection, they were not put into the form of writing till the time of the great Emperor Wu, B.C. 139; and the enormous extent to which that rendering is merely phonetic indicates that the accepted story is authentic. Almost to the same extent similar remarks apply to the other fragments of the old literature preserved. The older parts of the Shu- King consist, as Dr. LEGGE must have perceived had he been capable of reading and comparing the original, largely of similar ballads. This is clearly marked in the Yau and Shun Tiens, and is especially conspicuous in the so-called Yu Kung, for here not merely the vocabulary, but the eutire grammar and syntax as well as the rhythm of the two portious, are entirely different. We can only attribute to the strange practice of everlastingly consulting the "teacher" the want of appreciation of these apparently self-evident facts. Of course a similar failing is to be noted else- where; it is not to an English dominie that one has to go to study Anglo-Saxon, though the difference between modern English and that of our ancestors of a thousand years ago is far less than between modern Chinese aud that of eight centuries B.C. Is there no BURNOUF to come to the rescue of the well-meaning, but sadly maltreated student, who really desires initiation into the mys- teries of Chinese antiquity, but finds no guide on the lonely shore?
ARE WE DEGENERATING?
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CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
113
must be asked: Is British degeneration au | sonstantly inhaled by the town mouse, the nctual fact? When first mooie, it was unceasing nervous excitement to which regarded like the lupus cry of the fable, he or she is subjected by town life, both and denied with some bent. Dismissing conspire to defeat Nature's aim of A the observations of those still living, who strong and sturdy race. Brains are not of profess to have noticed the course of permanent value unless kept in a healthy the deterioration, we are bound to atta casket. The well-meaning faddists who great importance to evidences like the two or three generations ago clamoured for Army statistics recently published, showing a general nurturing of the British brain did how the standards of stature required not foresee the consequences of the com. from recruits have had to be pulsory method on the British body: did repeatedly lowered. Granting the exis- not realize, apparently, that the fitness of a tence of a general deterioration, our next nation as a whole depends upon its main- move must be to ascertain its cause or tenance of a healthy peas intry that devotes causes. It must be premiised that the most of its attention to the cult of the body. average condition of the race must depend Water is most valued when the well runs dry. upon the environmental influences brought In the present day, when our hewers of wood to bear upon the majority of its members. and tenders of cattle are all running, with That is just where we find agreement with Standard VII. certificates in hand, after Dr. CANTLIE, in his proposition that food clerkships and other sedentary and clean-cuff and air are the predominating factors in jobs, we have begun to realize that the the development of the people, and where parent stock, the backbone of the Anglo- we take leave of him to follow the conse-
Saxon man of bravu and beauty, 'is not quent deductions on other and surer lines. what it was. Dr. CANTLIE considers it important that There is also another probable' cause, English people should be nourished with which is never mentioned, but which to us English products. So far as chemical appears an obvious forerunner of physical evidence helps us, it does not matter where degeneration. If we have assimilated food comes from, if it be good enough; and DARWIN properly, we suppose it to be we regard the medical gentlemau's assevera- understood that Nature adapts is creatures tion that "no imported food can supplant in due course to its creatures' habits. the native products in efficiency as
When man abandoned the practice of swing- nousense. Our own observations have con.ing himself from branch to branch, and vinced us that the diet of the majority is with the weapons of his cuning walked not wholesome, but that is entirely the fault upon the ground, his arms grew shorter and of the majority. Suitable fare is within less strong. The broadsword and the ham- their attainment, but they do not elect to mer kept them until recently fairly muscular, take it. Such luxuries as tea, sugar, con- and his chest fairly developed. By "unti! fectionery, and tinned dainties are now con- recently we mean until the universal sumed in such wholesale quantities as t be advent of machinery. It stands to reason almost entitled to be called staple foods. that the man who spends his day running Why is it? Our theory is so far original round a stuffy engine-shop with an oil-c.n that it is bound to be cavilled at. This and a lump of cotton waste," does not habit of luxury came in contemporaneously need the physique of his grandfather; nor with compulsory and State education; and do his sons beget him grandsons resembling we say a noticeable shiftlessness ensued his glorious forehears. The subject it upon the cramming of the working classes too great for treatment in so short a at the expense of their old-fashioned utili- space. That we have indexed, at any tariau methods. The moderu girl of that rate, the more probable origins of degene- station, instead of learning to make porridge ration is, to us, not a matter of argument. and bread, absorbs at severe pains to herself As for possible remedies, the temptation is the names of the rivers and mountains of to cry "Too late! Too late!" Our publi. South America, and (in later educational cists, who have the subject at heart, my times) scientific dress-cutting. The working-be able even now (we hope) to suggest man's wife of less than a hundred years ago modifications of the social scheme that, is an extinct animal. By a quaint sort of without being too reactionary, may restore phylogenic process, a new species has at least some of the conditions that made evolved which reads fashion papers and the British the finest folk in all the w rld. Such a consummation we devoutly wish
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(Daily Press, 12th August.) Dr. JAMES CANTLIE, M.A., M.B., D.P.H., whom many will remember as a practitioner in Hongkong, has written a loug article in the London Daily Chronicle, entitled "Are "we degenerating? The physical state of "the English people and some remedies." He broached the subject as long ago as 1885, in a lecture on "Degeneration amongst Londoners," and his latest comments are to society novelettes," and feeds its husband | the effect that the degeneracy then noticed and children on tea (badly prepared), tinned has spread among the rural population. In salmon, bought bread (selected for its white- this article, Dr. CANTLIE Confines himself ness) and bloater pasts. MOREL, in a to physical deterioration, and mentions as famous French book on Traits of Degeneracy, the principal causes the quality of food and attributed the unhealthy deviations from a air consumed by the majority of our sound type to poisoning. In denouncing countrymen. Therein he has not gone far the widespread use of narcotics and stimu- astray; but he attaches, in our opinion, a lauts, however, he did not forget to mention false emphasis to the fact that so much of the food question. Food which does not our national food is imported from abroad. properly serve its own end, that is not so He also overestimates, we think, a fact that nutritious as it ought to be, is no better is none the less true, that the "tied house than if it were tainted. In the large towns, system" applied to dairies (milkmen con- curiously enough, there is no scarcity of tracting to send all their product to Town) | right food. There is a saying at Home that has made good milk harder to get for poor the best of everything goes to London. children in the country. On the question That there is no longer a marked difference of fresh air, Dr. CANTLIE touches the inuer between the average physique of secret of the trouble, if somewhat unphile-town mouse and country mouse we may sophically. He was the gentleman who, in November, 1886, was ridiculed by Punch for proposing that country air should be introduced to the cities by pumping it through pipes.
the
explain by the theory that one gets the best air and the other the best food. For air is of no lesser importance than food. That very doubtful blessing of compulsory education which we have blamed for the Having thas utilised the Doctor and his deterioration in the diet of the rural masses article to introduce the topic that is now is likewise responsible for the overcrowding forcing itself more than ever upon public of the towns. Well may our economists attention, we may drop both and consider and sociologists have raised the cry of the matter independently. First of all, it i“Back to the land." The organic detritus
to see.
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HONGKONG
JOTTINGS.
(8th Angust.)
A correspondent inquires whether coroners" inquests are ever held in Hongkong, and, if so, who is supposed to hold them? The answer is that coroners' inquests are held in Hongkong, though very rarely, the Police Magistrates being the coroners. My correspondent asks the question in connection with the death of a European resident who, according to the news- paper reports. was found in the readway one day last week with a bad wound on his forehead. It is suggested that the unfortunate man's fall was occasioned by certain repairs which were being done to the road. I agree that if this is all that is known of the matter, a coroner's inquest should have been held to determine whether or not the accident was due to any neglect to insure public safety on the part of the persons effect- ing repairs to the roadway in question, or whether, as might conceivably have been the case, the wound was caused in any other manner.
A few nights ago I witnessed on one of the understand your vermilion language," he began, wharves a man in a rage with a coolie. “I don't wrathfully, and much to my amusement, "but
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