Of course the extremes vary. Of five hundred
day-old infants at Paris the lengths varied from
seventeen to twenty-two inches; but very few
of them deviated far from nineteen. What
relation the gallant Generals and Commodores
of the dwarf family bear to these numbers,
we need not stop to inquire. The boy-babies
—nature's nobles in the bud—are usually
about half an inch longer than the girls. At
five years old, according to rather an elaborate
tabulation by M. Quetelet, the average
height of French and Belgian boys and girls
is three feet three inches; at ten years old,
four feet two; at fifteen years old, five feet;
and at twenty years old, when the difference of
height in the two sexes is greater than at any
earlier age, five feet six inches for young men, and
five feet two inches for young women. Girls
are nearer to their full height at sixteen than
boys; in other words, a maiden is relatively as
tall at sixteen as a youth is at eighteen, the
sex and full growth of each being taken into
account. As regards country and town life,
M. Villermé has ascertained, contrary to the
generally received notion, that the inhabitants
of towns are, on an average, a little taller than
those of country districts. M. Quetelet found
the same rule to apply in Brabant; where, after
nearly ten thousand measurements, he
ascertained that town people are, on an average,
three-quarters of an inch taller than country folk.
Much discussion has taken place in connexion
with the question at what age we cease to grow.
M. Quetelet shows that, in Belgium at any rate,
men not only grow between twenty and twenty-five
years of age, but even on to thirty. Among
nine hundred soldiers and recruits whom he
measured, this was perceptibly the case,
although the increase was, of course, but small.
Dr. Knox, of Edinburgh, some time ago observed
a similar fact; young men, leaving the university
at twenty or twenty-two years of age,
and returning seven or eight years afterwards,
had increased, not only in breadth but in height.
The average height of conscripts, twenty years
old, taken from the whole of France, for
renewing the imperial armies, is found to be
five feet three inches and a half. Were it
not that the French are very accurate in
these matters, one might almost doubt
whether the average was so low. Only one
French soldier in forty, is above five feet
eight high; many of them barely reach five
feet. It is the opinion of army surgeons
that the maintenance of large standing armies
tends to lessen the average height of the
population of a country, by various direct and
indirect agencies. Mr. Cowell, one of the factory
inspectors, some years ago measured as well as
weighed many of the factory operatives at
various ages; but as Lancashire mill-folk are
very prone to wooden shoes of formidable
thickness, and as it is not stated whether Mr. Cowell
included or excluded these substantial
understandings, it may be well to pass over his
tabulations unnoticed. Young men in a good
station of life are rather taller than those who
have more privations to bear. Of eighty
Cambridge students, between eighteen and
twenty-three years of age, the average height
was over five feet nine. It appears to be pretty
certain, from the average of a large number of
instances, that the height remains constant only
from about the age of thirty to that of fifty; a
slight average growth until the former limit, a
slight average diminution after the latter.
Among all the adults of all classes measured by
M. Quetelet, he found that fully developed and
well-formed men varied from four feet ten to
six feet two, with an average of five feet six;
and that fully developed and well-formed
women varied from four feet seven to five feet
eight, with an average of about five feet two.
Professor J. D. Forbes, of Edinburgh, about
thirty years ago, measured about eight
hundred young fellows at Edinburgh University;
those at twenty-five were a little, and only a
little, taller than those at twenty, and presented
an average of five feet nine and a half: Irishmen
being a little taller at that age than
Scotchmen, and Scotchmen a little taller than
Englishmen. But these had their shoes and
boots on, and were nearly all from the well-to-do
classes. And, moreover, as the professor
remarks, little men don't like to come forward to
be measured.

All things considered—shoes taken off, various
classes selected, and all ages from twenty to
sixty—the average of well-formed Englishmen
cannot be far removed from five feet seven,
about an inch taller than average Belgians, and
rather more in excess of average Frenchmen.

Learned people say that tall people owe their
tallness to a great variety of circumstances.
M. Villermé remarks, that "human height
becomes greater, and the growth takes place
more rapidly, other circumstances being equal,
in proportion as the country is richer, the
comfort more general, houses and clothes and
nourishment better, labour and fatigue and
privation during infancy and youth less; or, in other
words, the circumstances accompanying misery
postpone the period of the complete development
of the body, and stint human nature."
M. Virey, in the Dictionnaire des Sciences
Médicales, points to the fact that intense cold
and dry heat tend alike to dwarf the population:
a moist temperate climate being better
than either. The Lapps, Samoïedes, Ostiacks,
Koriacks, Kamtchadales, and Esquimaux, are
all diminutive. The Poles, Livonians, Danes,
Prussians, and English, are a little taller than
Austrians, Frenchmen, Italians, and Spaniards,
owing (as he thinks) to living in more temperate
climates. Livy and Pliny used to say that the
Germans and Gauls were taller than the Greeks
and Romans. Some philosophers think that, as
the equatorial regions of the earth revolve in
their daily course with greater velocity than the
polar, and as the centrifugal force is thereby
greater, it may be that this is the reason, or one
reason, why tropical mountains and tropical
trees are taller than mountains and trees
elsewhere; and they ask, are tropical men and