LECTURE XV. 437 



they are ultimately absorbed in one of tlie parent stocks. It 

 might alsOj taken strictly, be boldly asserted that there exists 

 no proof for the infinite prolificacy of mulattoes between each 

 other ; and it might even be maintained that they or their 

 descendants must necessarily be sterile between each other, 

 inasmuch as nowhere can successive generations of such mu- 

 lattoes be shown to exist. It would, indeed, be difiicult to find 

 in any country a single instance of grandchildren of a mulatto 

 by pure inbreeding ; whilst, on the contrary, the mongrels, by 

 recrossing, exist in all possible gradations, so that a number 

 of terms have been invented in transatlantic countries to 

 designate these crossbreeds. 



The connections between negro and a white female seem to 

 be less prolific, for anatomical reasons, which appear to be well 

 founded. That they are productive at times there is no doubt, 

 but the cases are so rare, that we possess no facts as regards 

 the bastards so produced. 



The distribution of the parental characters in Mulattoes and 

 human mongrels in general, seem to differ as much as in 

 animals. Sometimes the Mulattoes resemble more the White, 

 and sometimes more the Negro. Thus Lislet-Geoffroy, the 

 mathematician, though the son of a Frenchman and a Negress, 

 presented physically nearly all the characters of the Negro. 

 Quatrefages tells a story of a black servant who had married a 

 white woman, and found on his return from a journey that his 

 wife had given birth to a child so white, that he would not 

 acknowledge it until the midwife showed him some black spots 

 on the body. A Doctor Parsons, who saw the child, authen- 

 ticates this case. It is very probable that neither the father 

 nor the Doctor had ever seen a new-born Negro child, and 

 were therefore not aware that the dark colour is only gradu- 

 ally developed. 



Some American authors assert that they have ascertained a 

 difference in the fertility of the Mulattoes, according as the 

 white fathers belong to different stocks. Nott observes that 

 in South Carolina the Mulattoes are shorter lived and less fit 

 for hard labour than the Whites and the Negroes ; that the 

 Mulatto women are very delicate and subject to many chronic 



