THE JUKES. 13 



grouped in the following diagram which, however, is not offered as 

 a generalization. 



CONSANGUINITY. 

 Prostitution. c Illegitimacy. p 



8 "I 



Exhaustion. o Intemperance. 



<-> s I* 



Disease. Extinction. 



NOT CONSANGUINEOUS. 



In other words, fornication, either consanguineous or not, is the 

 backbone of their habits, flanked on one side by pauperism, on the 

 other by crime. The secondary features are prostitution, with its 

 complement of bastardy, and its resultant neglected and miseducated 

 childhood ; exhaustion, with its complement intemperance and its 

 resultant unbalanced minds ; and disease with its complement ex- 

 tinction. 



The habitat of the " Jukes" The ancestral breeding-spot of this 

 family nestles along the forest-covered margin of five lakes, so rocky 

 as to be at some parts inaccessible. It may be called one of the 

 crime cradles of the State of New York ; for in subsequent examina- 

 tions of convicts in the different State prisons, a number of them 

 were found to be the descendants of families equivalent to the 

 "Jukes," and emerging from this nest. Most of the ancestors were 

 squatters upon the soil, and in some instances have become owners 

 by tax-title or by occupancy. They lived in log or stone houses 

 similar to slave-hovels, all ages, sexes, relations and strangers 

 " bunking " indiscriminately. One form of this bunking has been 

 described to me. During the winter the inmates lie on the floor 



O 



strewn with straw or rushes like so many radii to the hearth, the 

 embers of the fire forming a centre towards which their feet focus 

 for warmth. This proximity, where not producing illicit relations, 

 must often have evolved an atmosphere of suggestiveness fatal to 

 habits of chastity. To this day some of the " Jukes " occupy the 

 self-same shanties built nearly a century ago. The essential features 

 of the habitat have remained stationary, and the social habits seem 



