the 'bottle' ensues, with its thousand evils and a
gradual deterioration of the race.

On the last occasion when James Russell Lowell came to England he was
asked what change, if any, he remarked since his last visit, among the
people he met, and he replied that he was most struck by the falling off
in height, and breadth of shoulders, of the average man in the London
streets.

Though matters have not yet reached such a point as in France and
elsewhere, it is I think incontestable that the English race, like many
another, is physically deteriorating. Athletics tend to improve the
standard, but there must be proper material to work upon, and M. Zola, I
found, held the view that for a race to be healthy its womenfolk should
be willing and able to discharge the primary duties of Nature. When he
discovered that so many Englishwomen would not or could not suckle their
babes, he remarked that England had started on the same downward course
as France.

He often watched the troops of nursemaids and children whom he met during
his afternoon strolls. He noticed and told me how many of the former
neglected their charges, standing about, flirting or gossiping, or
looking into shop windows, while the baby in the bassinette or the
mail-cart sucked away at that vile invention the bone and gutta-percha
'soother,' and he was astonished that ladies should apparently consider
it beneath them to accompany baby on the promenade. Indeed the invariable
absence of the mothers gave him a rather bad opinion of them: for surely
they must know that many of the nurse-girls neglected the infants and yet
they exercised no supervision. 'Of course,' said he, 'they are visiting
or receiving, or reading novels, or bicycling or playing lawn tennis. Ah!
well, that is hardly my conception of a mother's duty towards her infant,
whatever be her station in life.'

Now and again at intervals I accompanied him on his afternoon walks.
These generally took a semi-circular form. We descended from the plateau
of Upper Norwood on one side to climb to it again on another. Sometimes
we passed by way of Beulah Spa, then round by some fields and a
recreation ground, with the name of which I am not acquainted. There were
several shapely oak trees thereabouts, which he greatly admired and even
photographed.

'Do you know,' he remarked to me one afternoon, 'when I come out all
alone for my usual constitutional, and want to shake off some worrying
thoughts, I often amu