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Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 28, 10 March 1914, Page 6

Ah expert investigator, apparently with a view to dispelling the pessimism of the eugenists and proving a theory at the same time, has examined two hundred lads reared in the unsavoury' London slums. He reports that, so far from finding those disquieting features of heredity insisted on so loudly, yet so dolefully, by the general body of eugenists, the boys showed a physical condition that; only required decent living circumstances to build them up into a healthy manhood. In short, the bodies of these lads had been starved for want of fresh air and sustaining food, but showed no signs of race degeneracy. This is confirmatory of the work that has been carried on by various social reform organisations in the English slums for years past. Lads have been taken from the tenement areas and transported to lands across the seas —Canada can testify to-day that these fellows may develop into reputable citizens. All that most of these slum-bred youngsters require is the chance. Eugenists protest against the perpetuation of the unfit, of the racial degenerates. They experiment in the stockyard (it has happened so), and apply their defluctions to the human element. Mostly, they are splendid theorists, but they are too rarely practical. No. one denies that the feeble-minded and vicious will propagate their kind. It may be, too, that these deficients, almost invariably produce large families. But the very fact that they are of the unfit makes their elimination inevitable—an end which is being hastened by enlightenment and education, plus the assiduous campaign which is being conducted by social reformers the world over. It is London's misfortune, that she has entombed in her depths hundreds of thousands of

sturdy citizens in embryo, who have yet to know the sunlight. But, while the theorists contend at a wearisome length, practical men and women are .sacrificing their lives to redeem the submerged tenth. The work is prospering, even as it is in the huge manufacturing centres of the United States. Fresh air funds and relief refuges flourish apace, and with surprising results. Evidence accumulates to show that the doleful prophecies of many eugenists are the result of mere speculation—that there is little cause for alarm. A plant in a cellar may have risen from a strong root, even if it show an unhealthy colour. But the fibre is there. And so with the human plant. It is a thought to make even those who harp so insistently on the results of a deficient heredity more cheerful.