Chap. YII. 
THE RACES OF MAN. 
221 
been said that when mulattoes intermarry they produce 
few children; on the other hand, Dr. Bachman of 
Charlestown 11 positively asserts that he has known 
mulatto families which have intermarried for several 
generations, and have continued on an average as fertile 
as either pure whites or pure blacks. Inquiries formerly 
made by Sir C. Lvell on this subject led him, as he 
informs me, to the same conclusion. In the United 
States the census for the year 1854 included, according 
to Dr. Bachman, 405,751 mulattoes; and this number, 
considering all the circumstances of the case, seems 
small ; but it may partly be accounted for by the de- 
graded and anomalous position of the class, and by the 
profligacy of the women. A certain amount of absorp- 
tion of mulattoes into negroes must always be in pro- 
gress ; and this would lead to an apparent diminution 
of the former. The inferior vitality of mulattoes is 
spoken of in a trustworthy work 12 as a well-known 
phenomenon ; but this is a different consideration from 
their lessened fertility ; and can hardly be advanced as 
a proof of the specific distinctness of the parent races. 
No doubt both animal and vegetable hybrids, when 
produced from extremely distinct species, are liable to 
premature death ; but the parents of mulattoes cannot 
be put under the category of extremely distinct species. 
The common Mule, so notorious for long life and vigour, 
and yet so sterile, shews how little necessary connection 
statement, that Australian women who have borne children to a white 
man are afterwards sterile with their own race, is disproved. M. A. de 
Quatrefages has also collected (‘ Revue des Cours Scientifiques/ March, 
1869, p. 239) much evidence that Australians and Europeans are not 
sterile when crossed. 
11 * An Examination of Prof. Agassiz’s Sketch of the Nat. Provinces 
of the Animal World,’ Charleston, 1855, p. 44. 
12 1 Military and Anthropolog. Statistics of American Soldiers/ by 
B. A. Gould, 1869, p. 319. 
