202 HEREDITY IN RELATION TO EUGENICS 



d. The Barrier of Race is of the very greatest, importance 

 in promoting marriage of kin — especially if one race be in 

 a marked minority as the negroes are in New Hampshire 

 and the whites are in the Mississippi River bottom around 

 Vicksburg or in parts of the West Indies. A\i a striking in- 

 stance of consanguinity in a colored population in the north 

 may be cited the " Jackson- White " clan of the Ramapo 

 mountain region. 



e. Finally, the barrier of religious sect has been erected 

 again and again to insure the intermarriage of the faithful 

 only. This is illustrated by the teachings of the Society of 

 Friends and smaller sects such as the Bunkers, Shakers 

 and Amish. Of the Dunkers, Gillen (1906) states: ''In 

 their early history marriage out of the church was punish- 

 able by expulsion (Chronicon Ephraterise, pp. 96, 346f). It 

 is still frowned upon, but the process of liberalization now 

 in progress has modified the attitude of the Church. In 

 some congregations families intermarry generation after 

 generation. But the degree of kinship is not so close that 

 any evil results appear in the offspring." Nevertheless one 

 sees the danger that any small sect with such tenets runs. 

 A critical study of the Amish of southeastern Pennsylvania 

 with much marriage of kin shows a sufficient frequency of 

 epilepsy and crippled children to serve as a warning that a 

 defect is in the blood of some of the strain that in time will 

 affect the entire sect who remain in that part of the country. 

 It is difficult to see how any religious sect would have a 

 tenet so opposed to the laws of Nature and God as practi- 

 cally to compel consanguineous marriage. 



Many other sects are in a worse condition biologically 

 than the Amish. Indeed, the smaller the sect the more apt 

 are its adherents to be thrown closely together and so to 

 become intimately acquainted with one another exclusively; 

 and it is easy to see that in a few generations cousin mar- 



