142 Coming Shadows : [March, 
must encounter fluctuations of climate and a winter cold 
very different from those which prevail in the cradle of his 
race. 
But there is one point in favour of the blacks — or rather 
in disfavour of the whites — which Prof. Gilliam has over- 
looked : judging from the medical papers, means for the 
limitation of a family are- adopted in the Northern States, 
as in France. It has been shown, and is indeed self-evident, 
that Malthusianism, if practised by any one class or nation, 
means self-effacement. To be efficacious it would have to 
be universal. That it will not be adopted by the Negro race 
is certain. 
As to the alleged greater fecundity of the blacks, not in 
virtue of their race, but as a labouring class, some doubt 
may exist. In France the so-called working population — 
or, to use the happier expression of Prof. Owen, the “ wage 
class” — is not remarkable for rapid increase. It is said, 
jokingly of course, but not without a basis of truth, that the 
ouvrie'r never becomes a grandfather. In England the clergy, 
who are certainly not taken from the lower orders, have often 
been denounced by Malthusian writers for their large fami- 
lies. Royalty itself has incurred the same censure. Per- 
haps, before finally pronouncing that the increase of the 
Negro is, by a natural lav/, more rapid than that of the 
Aryan, it may be well to await the result of at least another 
census, that of 1890. Whether practicable precautions 
should not at once be taken is a question not for the ethnol- 
ogist, but for the politician, and is consequently unfit for 
discussion in these pages. 
Meantime it must be admitted that there is danger not 
merely in the ultimate numerical predominance of the 
blacks, but in their very presence as a free alien body placed 
by artificial devices on a political level with a superior race. 
In the Southern States of America, after the collapse of the 
Confederacy, their conduct was marked by such outrages 
that “ bull-dozing ” was but a natural reprisal. In the 
British West Indies they have shown their gratitude for 
emancipation by insolence and rebellion. 
As regards Nicaragua Mr. Belt writes : — “ In Central 
America there never were many black slaves ; since the 
States threw off the yoke of Spain there have been none ; 
and this comparative scarcity of the Negro element makes 
these countries much more pleasant and safer to dwell in 
than the West Indies, where it is much larger. The Indian 
seldom or never molests the whites, except in retaliation for 
some great injury ; whilst among the free Negroes robbery, 
