THE rnnanEss of science 



519 



Front and Sidk Views of Twelve Positions. 



are the seven children of Charles Dar- 

 win, who married his first cousin. The 

 royal families of Europe are closely in- 

 bred, but form a superior group. A 

 consideration of their heredity shows, 

 as might have been anticipated, that 

 both desirable and undesirable quali- 

 ties are enhanced by the marriage of 

 those related by blood. 



The social reasons making it desir- 

 able to forbid the marriage of those 

 who become related through marriage 

 are not urgent; indeed they have prac- 

 tically disappeared since segregation of 

 the sexes has been largely abandoned. 

 The limitations do not exist in many of 

 the states and in others are curiously 

 inconsistent. Marriage with a deceased 

 wife 's sister is not prohibited, but in 

 West Virginia a man may not marry 

 his deceased wife 's step-daughter and in 

 Massachusetts he may not marry bis 

 deceased wife 's grandmother. 



The laws in regard to intermarriage 

 of races differ greatly in different 

 states, as does public sentiment. Just 

 now southern newspapers are urging 

 the dismissal of a university professor 

 because in an article in this journal 

 he spoke kindly of the mulattoes. In 

 Maryland whites and negroes or mu- 

 lattoes who intermarry ' ' are deemed 



guilty of an infamous crime," and are 

 subject to ten years' imprisonment, 

 while a mile away such marriages are 

 legal. Apparently a white person and 

 a mulatto who marry in Pennsylvania 

 can return to live in Maryland, but 

 would be subject to five years' im- 

 prisonment if they went to Texas. In 

 California and in several other states 

 marriage of a Caucasian with a Mon- 

 golian is illegal, and several states have 

 laws against marriage with a North 

 American Indian. 



The diversity of the laws of the dif- 

 ferent states, marriages that are legal 

 and approved by public sentiment in 

 one part of the country being crimes 

 elsewhere, indicates that it may be less 

 difficult to apply eugenics in practise 

 than it is to determine which kind of 

 eugenics it would be desirable to apply. 



SCIENTIFIC ITEMS 



We record with regret the death of 

 Dr. Eeginald Faber Fitz, professor 

 emeritus in the Hai-vard Medical 

 School ; of Dr. John Green Curtis, from 

 1876 to 1909 professor of physiology 

 in Columbia University; of Professor 

 Lucien Augustus Wait, emeritus pro- 

 fessor of mathematics in Cornell Uni- 



