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Report of the Medical Officer (Education).
133

When the averages of stature and weight of the boys in each London elementary school are
arranged in groups and plotted out in map form, it may be seen that each group corresponds very closely
with the three classes distinguished by the British Association. The correspondence of the result
with the predominant occupation of the parents in each area is with a few exceptions remarkably closeThe
lower averages are found in the riverside districts, North Kensington, and in a central area extend,
ing from the Strand district to Bow and Bromley. The most unexpected figure is the weight recorded
for Fulham, and here the majority of the children are tidy and come from apparently comfortable
homes of the artisan and commercial class. The numbers at present available are, perhaps, too small
and liable to chance error from exceptional children ; whilst, from the map, physique appears mainly
correlated with social conditions, racial factors cannot be entirely excluded. The central areas, Central
Hackney, Haggerston, Hoxton, Finsbury, Bethnal Green, South'wark and Lambeth, and outlying
areas in North Kensington and along the banks of the Wandle were shown, in a report to the British
Association in 1904, to present brunette traits to a greater extent than those of the rest of London, even
when other obvious alien immigrants were excluded. This may correspond with the different basal
elements of the population, one of which is supposed to have been tall, fair and stoutly built; another,
shorter, slighter, and darker. There is also evidence that some racial strains attain a great proportion
of adult dimensions in early life.