CONSANGUINEOUS MARRIAGES 263 



All this seems like a desperate attempt to avoid a perfectly 

 natural and almost obvious conclusion. The doctrine of the 

 mental equality of black and white does not commend itself to 

 most of those who have had much experience with the colored 

 race, and it is contradicted by the results of a number of studies 

 on the intelligence of whites and blacks by the application of 

 mental tests as is in fact admitted by Renter. ^ 



Much of course remains to be done before a precise comparison 

 of the mental status of the races of man can be made. If there has 

 been a selection of the better negro types in the production of the 

 negro-white crosses there is even more evidence that the white 

 parents are not to be considered as representing a very high aver- 

 age type of their race. Even granting that during slavery the 

 best negro women were more apt to become the mothers of mu- 

 lattoes, it cannot be contended that this was true after emancipa- 

 tion when more mulattoes were produced than at any previous 

 time. Since the Civil War the mulattoes were apt to be the prod- 

 uct of the worst elements of both races. Hoffmann collected 

 information concerning 37 black-white unions of which eight 

 were white men living with negro women and 29 were those of 

 white women living with negro men. Of the eight white men 

 living with negro women "three were criminals or under strong 

 suspicion of being such. . . . The others were more or less 

 outcasts. One was a saloon keeper, one had deserted his family 

 for his negro mistress, two were men of good family but them- 

 selves of bad reputation." The record of the twenty-nine women 

 married to or living with colored men was still worse. And of the 

 twenty-nine colored men living with white women, "only one, 

 an industrious barber, was known to be of good character." 



The number of cases is small, as Hoffmann states. "It is my 

 own opinion," he says, "based on personal observation in the 

 cities of the South that the individuals of both races who inter- 

 marry or live in concubinage are vastly inferior to the average 



^ In his recent valuable book on The Mulatto, Prof. Reuter has brought together 

 much additional evidence of the mental superiority of the mulatto to the negro. 

 The cause of this superiority is not discussed in detail. 



