EVALUATION OF THE DATA. 3 



When the top is spun the colors blend. By varying the proportions 

 of the sectors (with a small dissecting forceps) the color of the blend 

 is altered. Of the delicacy of the method there is no question; in a 

 good light the proportions N 55, R 40, W 5 can be readily distinguished 

 from N 53, R 42, W 5. That two persons who have had some experi- 

 ence with the tops will form closely similar judgments I am assured 

 by various tests that I have made; but in these studies all measure- 

 ments were made by Miss Danielson, except those on the five Lousiana 

 families, made by Miss Gillean. It is true that the skin color is not 

 homogeneous — one has to avoid places where veins run near the sur- 

 face. A real difficulty occurs in securing proper illumination. There 

 is a difference between skin and the colored papers in light-absorbing 

 properties, and it is possible that the determinations that had some- 

 times to be made near sunset upon men after they had returned home 

 from work are not closely comparable with the determinations made 

 in broad daylight. Determinations made under imperfectly satisfac- 

 tory conditions of light are specially indicated. Of all errors the most 

 likely is the substitution of red by black or vice versa. In a poor light 

 the difference between the proportions N54, R34, Y6, W6, and 

 N 48, R 40, Y 6, W 6 is not striking; no doubt an error as great as 

 this may have crept into the determinations made in poor Hght. 



The question of the actual paternity of our fraternities offers 

 extraordinary difficulties. Even in Jamaica, whose orderliness much 

 impresses the visitor, the percentage of illegitimacy is given at 60 per 

 cent from 1855 to 1895. In the province of St. Thomas the rate for one 

 year was 72 per cent of illegitimacy (Livingstone, 1900, pp. 113, 209). 



The fact that there has been no decrease during the last twenty years is 

 cited as a proof of the invincible unchastity of the race .... Chastity 

 is considered unnatural. 



Irregular as conditions now are, they were much worse 50 years 

 ago. Livingstone writes of this (p. 94) : 



The condition of the young was sad in the extreme. Few became moral 

 members of society. As very children they lived together, producing children, 

 and in many cases boys of twelve consorted with more than one girl of the 

 same age The father of a child was seldom known. 



One can see that conditions thus portrayed increase greatly the 

 difficulty of our study. Nevertheless, it does not militate against the 

 fact that there are to-day colored families in which a man and a woman 

 (whether married or not) are mutually faithful, and other cases where, 

 on careful inquiry, the admission is made of the illegitimacy of some 

 one child, or the fact that he had a different father from the others. 

 On the whole, families whose mothers had elevated ideals of chastity 

 were selected, so that the data are generally reliable; in case the truth is 

 not told the condition of the eyes and hair in the irregular child some- 



