prices, which for various reasons has occurred contemporaneously with the decline in the agricultural market, has made the burdens of life heavy. The peasants have accordingly been led to look for some new field of effort where there are greater returns for labor, and have found it in the United States. The motives for emigration are practically without exception of a financial nature.-Henry Pratt Fairchild, Yale Review, August, 1909. R. B. McC.

Phases of Social Life in a Country Town.-The following quotations are from two letters received by the undersigned after lecturing on sociological subjects before a chautauqua in a town of the Middle West, this last summer. They are reproduced here, with the permission of the writer, because they furnish a valuable and graphic, and not at all exaggerated, sketch of the social history, in one of its phases, of a typical town of the West.

"Since your lectures, I have thought even more about the social life and conditions here than I had before, and several things have come to my notice that I thought might be of some interest to you in your work.

"E

is a town of 4,000 and is like the average town of that size in this state, I believe. Few tragedies take place here within a year. In 1909 there have been three and all have been in the 'social set.'

"The first took place in February and these were the conditions that led up to it. Mr. X., a retired farmer of means, moved his family to E and started the E- National Bank, intending to turn over his controlling interest to his son A. as soon as the son was capable of taking care of it. A. was about twenty-one years of age when they came here, and engaged to a little girl in his home town. He was seemingly a very nice, quiet young man and was immediately taken up by the society crowd. Some of us girls noticed later on that he was drinking and soon he became one of the little crowd of young men and women whom I told you of, who drank together and played for money. About this time he married and I believe that his wife, had she known, might have saved him from what followed. The first place at which I saw her was with A. at church (and that was the only time I ever saw either inside a church). The next time I met her was at our Bridge Club and, although she hardly knew a Jack from a King (which was almost a crime then), I thought her one of the sweetest little brides that had ever come to E

"I heard afterward that she was a member of the Methodist Church and a great church worker before she came here; but she was made a member of the 'Married-and-glad-of-it Club,' invited to all the card parties, and like so many others seemed to be living only to have a good time. After a while I heard that A. had been leaving his wife at night and was gambling with the other boys and soon that he had been losing heavily. He was now acting as city treasurer and was cashier of the bank. The next thing we heard was that he had been robbing the city and the bank for some time and that he had taken flight in the night. Only Mr. X.'s money saved A. from the penitentiary. The bank has changed hands and one of the young men with whom he played is cashier.

"The second case was that of a young druggist who died suddenly of 'heartdisease' after losing his store and home. His wife was quite a society woman but knew nothing of household duties. She drank and played cards with the 'fellows,' etc. Only a few knew that he took something before his death and was foaming at the mouth when medical aid reached him.

"The third case occurred in June. A young dentist left with an 'affinity.' E. was a church-member and considered an exceptionally good, moral young man. He married one of the girls of our crowd. They have never really kept house since they were married and H. was one of a number of young married women who do not want to be 'tied-down' with children. She seemed to live only for society (which consists of card clubs and card parties here). E. got to drinking and gambling and now it is doubtful what will become of him.

"The wives have had the deepest sympathy in all three cases, but I wonder sometimes if they were not just a little to blame. There may be wives here, but I know of none, who do not play cards and whose husbands do not gamble. I know of several cases however of men who gambled before marriage but quit

before they married their wives, who did not play cards, and have not played since. At the last card party I attended, a young married woman for whom I had had all sympathy before, boasted that she had won twenty-five prizes within a very short time. Her husband had been a merchant and had lost nearly all they had at gambling and was then a clerk in the store he had owned two years before, and she was playing the piano part of the time in the 'Police Gem.'

"From our little crowd of young people who began playing cards together before the girls had done away with 'pig-tails,' one of the boys is a professional gambler who travels from place to place, and another one, I have certain knowledge, stole from certain school funds while he was school treasurer, to the extent that he could be imprisoned, and it was at a time when he was gambling a great deal. He came of a very strict Methodist family and his mother used to tell the girls of our crowd that we were ruining her boy. We thought it a great joke, but I am afraid now that it may have been true.

"I know nearly everyone who lives in E- and have since your lectures been summing up some of the conditions. Most of the unmarried girls do something to help support themselves. There are nearly fifty girls though, I believe, that are unemployed. Thinking I might not know all, I have been inquiring, but have not been able to count a half-dozen who do not spend a great deal of their time playing cards. Of course I may have missed some. Of those who play cards most know more or less about cooking but I know of only one who could make a shirt waist, and I do not believe that there are more than a half-dozen, if that many, married women who are card players who could do as much. Nearly all the society women and girls have every bit of their sewing done. It seems a sad thing to me that sewing is becoming a lost art with American women. Never was it made so easy as it is now with sewingmachines with every conceivable attachment and patterns in any size with chart, for only a small sum. When women begin to make their own clothes, if that time comes, and I hope it may, I believe they will dress with greater individuality, more becomingly, and follow less the French fashions.

"You inquired after the origins of the present conditions in our little town. I believe that it was not more than twelve years ago that the first card party was given in E- - A number of families played cards in their homes before that, but this was the first afternoon affair where women played cards and a prize was given to the winner. Formal and informal receptions had been the vogue until this time and cards had not been recognized to any extent by Esociety. After the card party of which I spoke, and which was considered a great success, there were very few receptions, and there has not been one that I can recall within the past six or eight years, with the exception of wedding receptions. The woman who gave the first card party had beep a quiet, conservative person. She had been an active church worker in the town in which she had formerly lived, was left with some means, married rather late in life a man much younger than herself. After she and her husband moved to EMr. A. invested everything his wife had and the little he possessed in mining stock. They were successful and became one of the wealthiest families in this community. About this time a young professional man and his wife moved to E - The wife had been a poor girl raised in a city, was strikingly handsome, charming in manner, and very ambitious. I will call her Mrs. B. Mrs. A. became a friend and admirer of Mrs. B. She became anxious to be a social leader. Mrs. B. had the wit, Mrs. A. the money, and it was easily accomplished.

"Soon after the party, a card club was organized, Mrs. A., Mrs. B., and Mrs. C. being perhaps most influential in starting it. Mrs. C. is a member of the Presbyterian church, a woman of strong personality, and the church has been afraid of hurting the feelings of Mrs. C. and her followers and so has been careful to say or do nothing derogatory to card-playing. The result has been that there is more card-playing in the Presbyterian and Episcopal churches than in any others in EThe Episcopal church is a small and comparatively young church here and was organized by people who play cards. Mrs. A. is now a woman of perhaps seventy years of age, or older, still a leader of society

and doing all in her power against the churches of the town. Mrs. B.'s husband died and she, after quite a career in America and Europe, married a wealthy man whom she met abroad.

"Of course the 'Pastime Crowd' who had been playing Old Dan Tucker, etc., at their evening parties soon organized an evening card club, after the mothers had become interested in the game and this was where most of the young people learned to play cards. The way the gambling started among the young men and women was through the old and seemingly innocent plan of the losers treating to oysters or ice cream.

"The Mrs. A. that entertained first at cards has no children but has brought up a nephew. The nephew was sent to the state university, but did not finish the course on account of his gambling, etc., it is said. He is the young man who took the place of the cashier I told you of in my other letter, has been one who played for money with the young women, and has taken part in most of the gambling among the young business men. Mrs. C. has but one child, a daughter, and she is one of the young women I told you of while you were here.

"At present our jail is full, and nearly if not all of the occupants are 'crap shooters.' Their fines and costs ranged, I believe, from about $25 to $75, and they, unable to pay, have been placed in jail. Most of the men, I think, are paper-hangers, plasterers, etc. My father's partner is mayor of the city and while he was in the office a short time ago, the father of one of the men in jail came asking help for the wife and family of his son. The family was destitute and the father, who had been caring for them for several weeks, being a poor man was compelled to ask aid of the city for them.

"Women of my class can play for prizes and the winner's name will be in the paper as though she had accomplished something to be proud of, while the poor wretches who 'shoot craps' are hunted down and placed in jail. would not attend a function where I must openly break the law, as I formerly did, if for no other reason than that I believe in fair play.

"This is the week of our county fair, or rather, the time of our annual horse-races. It has been a very common thing for girls to bet among themselves on the races. At every heat each girl will put up a small sum and the girl whose horse wins will take the pot. If there are young men with the party they too take part. This is done openly. There is always a great deal of fun over it and everyone seems to look upon it as a joke. . . . . If the young women who are looked upon as leaders bet on the races, is it to be wondered that the young men indulge in the excitement of winning and losing?

....

"If you remember, you heard a little in the discussions after your lectures, about our pool-rooms. At first I laughed at the agitation shown by some when the pool-rooms were opened in EI had played pool a few times at

clubs, etc., and can yet see no harm in the game, but I do not think the public pool rooms have been a benefit to the town. I have heard of cases here where men are spending their evenings and earnings there, and whose wives are taking in washing. I do not know whether this is true or not, but I know that it is a great loafing place for men and boys. There is one case though that I do know about. A man twenty-two years of age is married and has one child. He and his wife belong to the younger society crowd. The young man has been in business for himself less than a year and has cleared, I am told by one who should know, $1,800. He pays no house rent and his other expenses have not been large, yet he has nothing now. Although he has as good a business as his father's, if it were managed properly, he comes into his father's store and asks for money just as he did when a boy, and when anyone wants to see him it is said he can generally be found at the pool-room. He has been a boy that seemingly attended strictly to business until of late." L. L. BERNARD

The aversion exhibited by most animals to pairing with individuals of another species has been attributed by Westermarck to the selective power of hereditary instinct. Those which prefer pairing with their own kind transmit their characteristics to their offspring and become the progenitors of numerous individuals marked by this particular trait. Hybrid kinds on the other hand have a smaller chance of survival, both because they are either sterile or relatively infertile, and because departure from type is not conducive to the favor of their fellows.1 Among plants, where conscious choice is impossible, hybrid individuals are more numerous. So clearly developed is this instinctive aversion among the higher vertebrates that certain varieties refuse to interbreed with closely related varieties of the same species. Examples of this occur among some kinds of deer, sheep, and horses. It is impossible to determine at what point in evolution the non-pairing instinct merges into a definite consciousness of kind, or when physical inability to cross is transformed into actual aversion to crossing, but it is certain that species aversion exists far down the scale of animal intelligence.

With the lowest orders of humans there enters another factor based on a highly developed self-sense which is found in animals. only in a rudimentary form. Aversion to cross-breeding may

1 Westermarck, History of Human Marriage, 280.

spring from a sense of strangeness due to geographical isolation and non-contact with other human varieties. Some remote peoples have conceived of themselves as the only ones of their kind, and this idea has been reflected in the group name. Experience requires only that the name distinguish members of the group from animal kinds with which its members come in contact, and they call themselves merely "men" or "human beings." Strangers, especially those of a markedly different physique, are looked upon as beings of another order with whom it is dangerous or wicked to interbreed. Hybrids resulting from the earliest crossings with strangers are regarded as monstrosities. Darwin mentions that the offspring of the earliest white settlers of Australia with native women were killed off by the pure blacks. The Makhelchel and Nishinam Indians of California formerly put their women to death for marrying or committing adultery with white men, and blue-eyed or fair-haired children were killed without remorse. After intercourse has become so general as to bring about familiarity with the new type, pairing itself and the resultant offspring come to be regarded as humanly normal. Conquest often results in the killing off of the adult males and the taking of the women as wives by the victors, but in the ordinary contact of a masterful with a passive race pairing is chiefly through chance mating or concubinage. These illicit unions, by breaking down the first barriers of prejudice, open the way to a possible blending of races which, in the absence of positive checks, leads to an ultimate fusion of the types.

3

Contact through conquest may result variously. If there exist no marked difference of physical type, the natural outcome is gradual and complete fusion. Such has been the history of the various Teutonic invasions of Great Britain since the fifth century, of eastern France, of northeastern Spain, and of north

2A surviving example is the Alaskan Eskimo name Innuit, and the name Yuit found in the adjacent part of Asia. The Nishinam and Maidu tribal names in California also signify "men" or "Indians." Something of the same kind is found among some of the tribes of Borneo. For the California names see Powers, Contributions to North American Ethnology, III, 282, 312. For Borneo see Haddon, Head Hunters, Black, White, and Brown, 414.

3 See Powers as above, 214, 320.