LITERARY NOTICES. 



73 



should never for a moment permit himself to 

 look upon a member of any neurotic family 

 that is, one in which insanity, epilepsy, 

 habitual drunkenness, suicide, or imbecility 

 has at any time appeared as a probable, or 

 even possible, partner in marriage. . . . All 

 these diseases, together with neuralgia, hys- 

 teria, cancer, and the like, are allied, and, 

 following some law at present unknown to 

 us, replace each other in successive genera- 

 tions, and in different individuals of the same 

 generation, in a manner at present inexpli- 

 cable." 



In the chapter on tubercular disease, the 

 causes which produce the consumptive tem- 

 perament are given as impure air, drunken- 

 ness, and want among the poor ; dissipation 

 and enervating luxuries among the rich. 

 This temperament occurs in families that are 

 on the down grade of general decay. Among 

 instinctive criminals, which are regarded as 

 representatives of a decaying race, tubercular 

 disease, very naturally, is found actively at 

 work. 



In the concluding chapters of the work 

 it is shown that too early and too late mar- 

 riages have an injurious effect on the off- 

 spring of such unions, while consanguineous 

 marriages injure the children proceeding 

 from them only by intensifying whatever de- 

 fect may characterize the family to which the 

 parents belong. Attention is called to the 

 fact that unions of the criminal, the dissolute, 

 and the intemperate bring forth children 

 whose degenerate organizations make them 

 burdensome and dangerous to those of more 

 wholesome parentage. On the basis of these 

 facts Dr. Strahan urges those who perceive 

 that they possess any serious constitutional 

 taint to forego marriage, and advocates the 

 confinement of the criminal and habitually 

 drunken so as to prevent the propagation of 

 their kind. 



Bibliography of the Algonquian Lan- 

 guages. By James Coxstaxtixe Pil- 

 ling. Washington: Government Print- 

 ing-Office. Pp. 614. 



We have already noticed the four previous 

 numbers of the author's series of bibliogra- 

 phies of Indian languages those of the Es- 

 kimauan, Siouan, Iroquoian, and Muskogean 

 families. The whole have grown out of an 

 attempt made several years ago to embrace 



within a single volume an author's catalogue 

 of all the material relating to the native 

 North American languages. Too much ma- 

 terial was collected for a single convenient 

 volume, and it was concluded to change the 

 style of publication and issue a series of bib- 

 liographies, each relating to one of the more 

 prominent groups of our native languages. 

 The Algonquian-speaking people perhaps 

 covered a greater extent of country than 

 those of any other of the linguistic stocks of 

 North America ; and the literature of their 

 languages is greatest in extent of any of the 

 stocks north of Mexico, being equaled, if at 

 all, by only one south of that line, the Na- 

 huatl. Probably every language of the family 

 is on record, and of the more prominent, ex- 

 tensive record has been made. The whole 

 Bible has been printed in the Massachusetts 

 and Cree languages, nearly the whole in the 

 Chippewa and Micmac, and portions of it in 

 a number of others. Rather extensive dic- 

 tionaries have been printed in Abnaki, Black- 

 foot, Chippewa, Cree, Delaware, Micmac, and 

 Nipissing, and manuscript dictionaries are in 

 existence of Abnaki, Nipissing, Blackfoot, 

 Chippewa, Cree, Illinois, Massachusetts, Mon- 

 tagnais, and Pottawatomi ; grammars of the 

 Abnaki, Blackfoot, Chippewa, Cree, Massa- 

 chusetts, Micmac, and Nipissing ; and manu- 

 script grammars exist of the Illinois, Menom- 

 enee, Montagnais, and Pottawatomi. Prayer- 

 books, hymn-books, tracts, and scriptural 

 texts have appeared in nearly every language 

 of the family ; several of them are repre- 

 sented by primers, spellers, and readers ; 

 and a geography for beginners was printed 

 in Chippewa in 1840. The present volume 

 contains 2,245 entries of titles, of which 1,926 

 relate to printed books and articles, and 319 

 to manuscripts. Of these, 2,014 have been 

 seen and described by the compiler ; and of 

 those unseen by him, titles and descriptions 

 of probably half have been received from 

 persons who have actually seen them and 

 described them for him. Many full titles of 

 printed covers are also given, and fac-similes 

 of the original. The author has sought to 

 include everything, printed or in manuscript, 

 relating to the Algonquian languages books, 

 pamphlets, articles in magazines, tracts, se- 

 rials, etc., and such reviews and announce- 

 ments of publications as seemed worthy of 

 notice. 



