Genre:

News-Commentary, Drollery

Subjects:

Anthropology, Human Development, Statistics

    Discusses a report of a paper by John Beddoe presented at the recent meeting of the Anthropological Society (a version of which was published as Beddoe 1867–69). Beddoe announced that he has discovered that the tallest men lived in upper Galloway, the heaviest in Berwickshire, and the smallest 'among the Spitalfields weavers'. Mocks the apparent uselessness of this information, telling Beddoe that its own 'Special Commissioner' has furnished some equally useless information, including the discovery that 'in Cornwall are the most men who squint' and that in Herefordshire are 'the most men who never blow their noses'.