Montgomery County Sentinel

Miscellaneous.

Stature of Different Races of Men.

In comparing races as to their stature we do not concern ourselves with the ordinary tallest or shortest men of each tribe, but with the ordinary or average sized men who may be taken as fair representatives of their whole tribe. The difference of general stature is well shown where tall and short people come together in one district. Thus in Australia the average English colonist of five feet eight inches looks clear over the heads of five feet four inches Chinese laborers.

Still more in Sweden does the Swede of five feet seven inches tower above the stunted Lapps, whose average measure is not much over five feet. Among the tallest of mankind are the Patagonians, who seemed a race of giants to the Europeans, who first watched them striding along their cliffs draped in their skin cloaks; it was ever declared that the heads of Magalhaens' men hardly reach the waist of the first Patagonian. Modern travelers find, on measuring them, that they really often reach six feet four inches, their mean height being about five feet eleven inches-three or four inches taller than the average Englishman.

The shortest of mankind are Bushman and related tribes of South Africa, with an average height not far exceeding four feet six inches. A fair contrast between the tallest and shortest races of mankind is afforded when a Patagonian is drawn side by side with a Bushman, whose head only reaches to his breast. Thus, the tallest race of man is less than one fourth higher than the shortest, a fact which seems surprising to those not used to measurements.