10 NOVEMBER 1900, Page 15

ENGLAND NOT A " GERMANIC " NATION.

[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—Mr. Ludlow, in the Spectator of November 3rd, is quite right. The Englishman is not of the " Germanic " type. His skull is of quite a different shape from that of his German cousin, but it is very like that of his Danish or Dutch brother. This fact was brought home to me in a picturesque way a year or two ago. I was ordering a new hat in Bond Street. My hatter took the measure of my head by a mysterious machine, which finally evolved a cardboard shape, representing the horizontal section of my skull at the fitting line of my hat. He had drawers full of such shapes. But the shapes in the drawer of his German customers were absolutely different in type from the others. The German section was always circular, bulging at the aides above the temples. The English section is always oval, with the axis from front to back longer or shorter as it approaches the Danish or the Dutch type. This fact, I suppose, points to the physical cause of the differing " casts of mind " which Mr. Ludlow has always observed.—I am, Sir, &c.,