A second indication in the case of the Jew of uncommonly hard usage in the past remains to be mentioned. These people are, anthropologically as well as proverbially, narrow-chested and deficient in lung capacity. Normally the chest girth of a well-developed man ought to equal or exceed one half his stature, yet in the case of the Jews as a class this is almost never the case. Majer and Kopernicki[18] first established this in the case of the Galician Jews. Stieda[19] gives additional testimony to the same effect. Jacobs[20] shows the English Jews distinctly inferior to Christians in lung capacity, which is generally an indication of vitality. In Bosnia, Glück[21] again refers to it as characteristic. Granted, with Weissenberg,[22] that it is an acquired characteristic, the effect of long-continued subjection to unfavorable sanitary and social environment, it has none the less become a hereditary trait; for not even the perhaps relatively recent prosperity of Jacobs's West End Jews has sufficed to bring them up to the level of their English brethren in capacity of the lungs. At this point a surprising fact confronts us. Despite the appearances of physical degeneracy which we have noted, the Jew betrays an absolutely unprecedented tenacity of life. It far exceeds, especially in the United States, that of any other known people.[23] This we may illustrate by the following example: Suppose two groups of one hundred infants each, one Jewish, one of average American parentage (Massachusetts), to be born on the same day. In spite of all the disparity of social conditions in favor of the latter, the chances, determined by statistical means, are that one half of the Americans will die within forty-seven years; while the first half of the Jews will not succumb to disease or accident before the expiration of seventy-one years. The death rate is really but little over half that of the average American population. This holds good in infancy as in middle age. Lombroso has put it in another way. Of one thousand Jews born, two hundred and seventeen die before the age of seven years; while four hundred and fifty-three Christians--more than twice as many--are likely to die within the same period. This remarkable tenacity of life is well illustrated by the following table from a most suggestive article by Hoffmann.[24] We can not forbear from reproducing it in this place. _Death Rates per 1,000 Population in the Seventh, Tenth, and Thirteenth Wards of New York City, 1890, by Place of Birth._