262 THE PEESENT EVOLUTION OF MAN — PHYSICAL 



of the Old World — the white from Europe, the black 

 from Africa, the yeUow from Asia — penetrated, there 

 the aboriginal inhabitants vanished or are vanishing. 

 Some races, such as the Caribs and the Tasmanians, 

 have become extinct; others are tending towards ex- 

 tinction, such as the Red Indians, the Polynesians, the 

 Australians, and the Maoris; others again, such as 

 the inhabitants of Central and some parts of South 

 America, persist, though in diminished numbers, and 

 possibly may persist long enough for the survival of the 

 fittest to endow them with powers of resistance sufficient 

 to save them from total extinction. It is to be observed, 

 that these yet persistent though long-afflicted races of 

 the New World inhabit tropical or sub-tropical coun- 

 tries, where the heat renders pleasant the admission of 

 much air to the dwellings. They are therefore sub- 

 jected, generally speaking, only to syphilis and to air- 

 borne diseases, — smaU-pox, measles, scarlatina, &c., — 

 against which immunity may be acquired by the indi- 

 vidual, and which are death-dealing to a far less degree 

 than that earth-borne disease tuberculosis, to which 

 the inhabitants of colder climates — e. g. the Eed Indians 

 and the Maoris — are subjected, as well as to the air- 

 borne diseases. 



Writing of the Spanish occupation of the West 

 Indies, the late Professor Froude says — 



" The Carib races whom the Spaniards found in Cuba 

 and St. Domingo had withered before them as if struck 

 by a blight. Many died under tlie lash of the Spanish 

 overseers. Many, perhaps the most, from the mysteri- 

 ous causes which have made the presence of civilization 

 so fatal to the Red Indians, the Australians, and the 

 Maoris. It is with man as it is with animals. The 

 races that consent to be domesticated prosper and 

 multiply ; those that cannot live without freedom pine 



