THE CROSS-BREEDING OF RACES 151 



however, recorded from time to time in the official reports 

 of the United States Government. 



Two beliefs about such unions are more or less 

 prevalent among white men in the regions where 

 they not infrequently occur. Neither of these beliefs 

 is' supported by anything like conclusive evidence. 

 The one is that such unions lead to the production 

 of relatively infertile offspring ; the mixed breed or 

 stock is said to ^ie out after a few (some seven or 

 eight) generations. It Is, however, the fact that the 

 circumstances under which this occurs suggest that it 

 is not due to a natural and necessary infertility. The 

 other assertion is that the offspring of parents — one 

 of white race and the other of black, yellow or brown — 

 tend by some strange fatality to inherit the bad qualities 

 of both races and the good qualities of neither. This is 

 a case to which must be applied the saying, " Give a dog 

 a bad name and hang him." The white man in North 

 America, in India, and in New Zealand desires the increase 

 and prosperity of his own race. Like the fancier set on 

 the production of certain breeds of domesticated animals, 

 he has no toleration for a " mongrel." In so far as it is true 

 that miscegenation (marriage of white and coloured race) 

 produces a stock which rapidly dies out — this is due to 

 the adverse conditions, the opposition and hostility to 

 which the mixed race is exposed by the attitude of the 

 dominant white race. To the same cause is due the 

 development of ignoble and possibly dangerous charac- 

 teristics in the unfortunate offspring of these marriages 

 more frequently than in those who find their natural place 

 and healthy up-bringing either in the white or the coloured 

 sections of the community. The " half-breed " is in some 

 countries inexorably rejected by the race of his or her 

 white parent and forced to take up an equivocal association 

 with the coloured race. 



