122 MARRIAGE AND HEREDITY 



appears to have a special effect in reviving latent 

 qualities, but these of course may be bad as well 

 as good, and there is nothing to warrant the 

 supposition that when a superior race is crossed with 

 an inferior one the product can be better than the 

 best elements composing it. While the offspring 

 of a white man and a negress may be morally or 

 physically equal to the white man, experience shows 

 that as a rule the father's qualities in such cases 

 suffer deterioration in the child. Crossed races are 

 more or less inferior to their best original stock. 

 Many travellers have noted this fact, from Humboldt 

 downwards. The Pitcairn islanders are sometimes 

 cited as an example to the contrary. In that large 

 family group, however, there was a pretty equal 

 admixture of European and Polynesian blood, inas- 

 much as the four mutineers of The Bounty and 

 the ten native women who were the real founders 

 of the community lived promiscuously together ; 

 and although their offspring were subsequently 

 found to be superior to the native stock, they could 

 not be said to be better than their white progenitors. 

 The hybrid Jews of the east of Europe have an evil 

 reputation, arising probably from the fact that they 

 spring from the dregs of their respective races. 



