fascinated by them, as the birds are fascinated by the lighthouse or the moths by the candle. And the results are not altogether unlike those which this analogy suggests. At the present time, one-third of the population of London is made up of immigrants from the country. Yet, notwithstanding this immense and constant stream of new and vigorous blood, it never suffices to raise the urban population to the same level of physical and nervous stability which the rural population possesses. More alert, more vivacious, more intelligent, even more urbane in the finer sense, as the urban population becomes,—not perhaps at first, but in the end,—it inevitably loses its stamina, its reserves of vital energy. Dr. Cantlie very properly defines a Londoner as a person whose grandparents all belonged to London—and he could not find any. Dr. Harry Campbell has found a few who could claim London grandparents; they were poor specimens of humanity.
48Even on the intellectual side there are no great Londoners. It is well known that a number of eminent men have been born in London; but, in the course of a somewhat elaborate study of the origins of British men of genius, I have not been able to find that any were genuinely Londoners by descent.49 An urban life saps that calm and stolid strength which is necessary for all great effort and stress, physical or intellectual. The finest body of men in London, as a class, are the London police, and Charles Booth states that only 17 per cent of the London police are born in London, a smaller proportion than any other class of the London population except the army and navy. As Mr. N.C. Macnamara has pointed out, it is found that London men do not possess the necessary nervous stability and self-possession for police work; they are too excitable and nervous, lacking the equanimity, courage, and self-reliance of the rural men. Just in the