From W. R. Greg 2 March [1871?]1
Stationery Office
March 2.
My dear Sir
You were speaking the other day of the alledged degeneracy of the military standard of height in France. I cannot find Cochut’s book which I then mentioned to you as the authority.2
But I find that Jules Simon, in his book (1867 ‘L’Ouvrier de Huit Ans’,—gives the following as the progressive reductions in the minimum height required from recruits.3
| 1701— | 1.624 metre |
| 1803— | 1.598 — |
| 1818— | 1.576 — |
| 1860— | 1.560 — |
Of the 325,000 who annually reach 20 years, 18,000 are found too short—ie below 4 ft. 10 french or 5.1 English— —& ninety one thousand more to be disqualified by disease and infirmity. That is nearly one third of the youth of France are either too short or too sickly for service.4
Yours very sincerely | W. R. Greg
CD annotations
Footnotes
Bibliography
Cochut, André. 1867. Le problème de l’armée: réorganisation de la force militaire en France. Revue des Deux Mondes 67: 645–77.
Descent: The descent of man, and selection in relation to sex. By Charles Darwin. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1871.
Freeman, Richard Broke. 1977. The works of Charles Darwin: an annotated bibliographical handlist. 2d edition. Folkestone, Kent: William Dawson & Sons. Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, Shoe String Press.
Simon, Jules François. 1867. L’ouvrier de huit ans. Paris: Librairie Internationale.
Summary
Quotes authority on the decline in height of French army recruits.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-7532
- From
- William Rathbone Greg
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Stationery Office
- Source of text
- DAR 87: 149–50
- Physical description
- ALS 3pp †
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 7532,” accessed on 24 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-7532.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 19
