The Sun.
London, England, 1863-09-01 00:00:00

THE NEGRO.

Dr. JAMES HUNT read a paper " On the Physical and
Mental Character of the Nego." The paper generally treated
of the anatomical and physiological differences between the
negro and European races. The general deductions drawn
were-Ist. That there is as good reason for classifying the
negro as a distinct species from the European, as there is
for making the ass a distinct species from the zebra. 2d.
That the negro is inferior intellectually to the European.
3d. That the analogies are far more numerous between the
negro and apes, than between the European and apes. No
man who thoroughly investigates with an unbiassed mind,
can doubt that the negro belongs to a distinct type of m
ofan
to the European. This word species,state
in the present
science, is not satisfactory; but we may safely say that
there is in the negro that assemblage of evidence which
would, ipso facto, induce an unbiassed observer to make
the European and negro two distinct types of man. My
second and third proposition must be equally patent
to all who have examined the fac a. We must for the pre-
sent leave apart all questions cf the origin of the negro,
and simply take him as he exists, and not as poets or fanatics
paint him. We shall then learn that it is only by observa-
tion and experiment that we can determine the exact place in
nature which the negro race should hold, and that it is both
absurd and chimerical to attempt to put him in any other.
Mr. GALTON said that the case was briefly this :
Among the negroes of Africa there were more frequent in-
stances of an abject and superstitious character, combined
with brutal behaviour, than could be paralleled elsewhere in
the world. It was a wonder that people like those of
Dahomey could mould themselves into any form of society
at all, and it was actually found that when the chief of such
a tribe died it disintegrated and rapidly disappeared. In
short, the tribes of Africa were remarkable for their rapid
formation and short continuance. Many of their chiefs
were of alien descent, and it was remarkable how their
greatest kingdoms had been ruled by Tewareks—men with
Arab blood—or, as Captain Speke now informed us, by
straight•haired Whamas. How did it happen, then, that so
degraded a people could furnish men capable of constructing
nations out of the loosest materials ? The question once
stated was almost its own reply. The negro, though on the
av::rage extremely base, was by no means a member of a
race lying at a dead level. Oa the contrary, it had the ca-
pacity of frequently producing able men capable of taking
an equal position with Europeans. The fact of a race being
distinguished by the diversity of its members, was well-
known to ethnologists. There were black and red sub-divi-
sions of many North African races, and the contrast be-
tween the well-fed and ill-fed classes of the same tribe of
negroes was often such as to amount apparently to a spe-
cific difference.

Mr. CRAFT, who was received with cheers, said that
though he was not of pure African descent, he was black
enough to attempt to say a few words in reference to the
paper which had just been read. While Dr. Hunt was
reading it a fable occurred to him which he would, with the
permission of the audience, repeat. A lion and a man were
walking together along the road, and disputing as to which
of the two could claim to belong to the superior race. By
and bye they came to a public-house, the sign of which was
a lion violently held down by a man. The man triumphantly
pointed to this in confirmation of his superiority, but the
lion sagely inquired who painted the picture. With regard
to the origin of the negro, he for one believed that black and
white men were all descended from a common parent. Many
scientific gentlemen present 'would probably dispute that ;.
but at any rate, supposing Adam to have been the founder of
a race of men, white men had no stronger claim to him as
their father than black men, as it was admitted that owing
to the climate in which he commenced his existence, he
could have been neither blacknor white, but copper coloured.
(Laughter.) As Africans were very dark, and the inhabi-
tants of Northern Europe very fair, and as, moreover, the
nations of Southern Europe were much darker than those
of Northern Europe, it was perfectly fair to suppose that
climate had a tendency to bleach as well as to blacken.
(Hear.) The thickness of the skull of the negro had been
wisely arranged by Providence to defend the brain from the
tropical climate in which he lived. If God had not given
them thick skulls their brains would probably have become
very much like those of many scientific gentlemen of the
present day. (Laughter.) The woolly hair was not consi-
dered by Africans as a mark of inferiority, though some of
them shaved it off, but it also answered the purpose of de-
fending the head from the sun. With regard to his not
being a true African—his grandmother and grandfather
were both of pure negro blood. His grandfather was a chief
of the West Coast; but through the treachery of some white
men, who doubtless thought themselves greatly his supe-
riors, he was kidnapped and taken to America, where ho
(Mr. Craft) was born. He had recently been to Africa,. on
a visit to the King of Dahomey. He found there consicier-
able diversities even among the Africans themselves. Those
of Sierra Leone had prominent, almost Jewish features.
Their heels were quite as short, on the whole, as those of
any other race, and upon the whole they were well
formed. Persons who had any knowledge of Africans
knew that when they enjoyed advantages, they were capable
of making good use of them. He might refer to the
instance of the little girl brought to this country by
Captain Forbes. This child was presented to the Queen,
who had her carefully educated. When she grew up she
mingled in good society, and interested every one by her
proficiency in music, and recently she had been married to
a commercial gentleman of colour at Lagos. Another case
was mentioned by Mr. Chambers in one of his works, and
another case was that of Mr. Crother, who was well known
to many gentlemen in this country. One word with re-
ference to the ancient Britons. When Julius Caitar came
to this country, he said of the natives that they were such
stupid people that they were not fit to make slaves of in
snivE(
Hte n.
development.rgneyghacl
rerti sa,sbh.phemi
edsaAeai
rpnlis.
rfowthgooholrlifteatnhsteaoes‘g
agricultural
ieesohiegyne:srtnnlhoetmoduovnwalrlvoaadtewtoleevebeesidrlerliaeio,
Rome. (Laughter.) It had taken a long time to make
wonderful
etnsethhosiiutisanhnsmget
country
elo
an
urentmenchuttaiiumnrudyag-
stance of independence of character and intellectual power
on the part of the negro, and contended that in made
tnHdheoeeg
chance
ha
was
snemdos
eoeprioorufsyi
discussingpttir that
navt whichng
scientificwh a nba'iwnyogaputnpriearodrreadov'ersvgecsadrft
,nueistrtatsahnhgaii therefore,
ha
steuhwbao
subject
eldscv forced oesratcrhreneadaet toreally
y occupy l goafv
de
ihimn
America the
omouenldshporouvlde wofasnbtoe
benefit to mankind. He spoke with great deference to their
opinions, but, for his own part, firmly agreed with Cowper,
that

Fleecy locks and black complexion
Cannot alter nature's claim;
Skins may differ, but affection
Dwalls in white and black the same,

(Loud and prolonged applause.)
The Rev. H. B. Titzs'Num said he had been a chaplain
for several years in a mixed school for blacks and whites in
one of the West Indian islands, and could testify that the
children of free negroes who were engaged in honourable
occupations were invariably more intelligent than the chil-
dren of slaves,

Mr. CARTER BLARE said that he agreed substantially
with the author of the paper upon the anatomical evidence
which he had brought forward with regard to the negro
race. Mr. Craft had stated that the heels of the negro were
not longer than those of Europeans, but that was contrary
to the testimony of anatomists. He contended that in nearly
every instance of a negro attaining intellectual eminence it
had been ascertained that there was an admixture of Euro-
pean blood in his veins.
Mr. TRISTRAM said he knew Mr. Crother and all the
particulars of his history, and could testify to his pure
African descent.

Mr. CARTER BLAKE said that the evidence of the pater-
nity of full blooded African negroes in contact with Euro-
peans was rather difficult to ascertain. Anatomists had
ascertained that there were wide differences in the structure
of the negro and European, and specified some instances of
such diversity. In conclusion, he expressed his opinion
that, till Mr. Craft could rail away the seal which nature
had impressed on the physical character of the negro, his
breath was all but spent in vain when he contended for the
equality of the African European races.
Sir E. BELCHER said that he had spent nearly all his life
among the Atricans, and believed that, when properly edu-
cated, they could be as true, as faithful, and as sound-
hearted as Englishmen. (Cheers.) The gallant admiral
mentioned several instances which he had met with in his
travels of remarkable intelligence in the negro, and scouted
the idea that he was naturally, either physically or rat:s-
tall', of interior capacity to other human races. (Cheers.)
Professor WILSON' claimed for the author of the paper
atsnalnediigirethett on
ceoiomsnegentleruen who supported him, the credit of being
influenced by a desire to search out facts which could throw
a h h
uht hseieodinileproit a
en: tnasssui
dvbeejrresycbtilmuy npdforerotrmadnitstctho hmuessai ovineu sufficient o
.s A
o o
thef
data before forming a theory, and he thought that Sir
Charles Lyell and others,who contended that the intellectual
progress of the negro stopped at the age of fourteen, had
fallen into the error which a person who went into a wa,rk-
house among the most degraded and wretched of its occu-
pants to find intellectual culture and capacity. The fact
and in addition
to
u (tit),
ed drawback,sud Oyppretospsleed
waa that very few, if any, black children had any oppor-
tunity of pursuing their educationrahfetyerhtahae age of
m fourteen,tsfortune
hadela class,
enough
to belong which was
crushed and held down in the social world, The wonder
two.a':intalkm:;'hnt.3‘i.rf)festchse:),:ci übilifoolrttountatetreptire knowledge sufficient
to cnablo them to carve a way for therne,Aves through life
as not many of them did. (Cheers.) The English cha-
racter was made up of many elements; but a few hundred
years ago the inhabitants of this island were cruel, unlet-
stuerbejdeCted to c
practical
erpeople.certain
influences
;'1 e n h
put
eA
undern goodglo. s
n provedtlrxaoiningan
ne aaPt ;4%Tel ee
rot ef rgr eymoaf rlikiLsibcP'h a (riaecyteelro.l)
ment,
The
servable in some tribes of the present day, such as the New
soalmvieng.qucahliiteyflywatos othbe-
Zealander, and it was not wise therefore to argue as though
the absence of combination denoted a natural and primary
inferiority of race. (Hear, hear.)

Full benefit 61 reduced duty obtained by pur-
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4s- " Mgh Standard "et 4s. 4d. (formerly 4s. Bd.), Is ii")
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The Wolverhampton and Dudley Mysteries,

Yesterday the adjourned inquest was held at the Waggon
and Horses, Bilston-road, Wolverhampton. on the body of
the man William Cheenery, who was found dead in the
house that he had occupied in No. 4 Court, Bilston-street,
with marks of great violence upon his person, his body
tarred, and far advanced in decomposition.
The first witness called was the deceased's mother, who
is now the wife of Richard Parnell, a miner, of Portobello,
near Wolverhampton. She deposed that deceased was a
wireworker, and would have been 26 years of age next
October. He lived at No. 4 Court, Bilston:street. It is
six years next May since he sent a letter to say that he was
about to bring up his wife from Liverpool. He afterwards
brought her to live at the house of my brother, in Birming-
ham ; her Christian name was Rosanna, and she always
went by the same name as my son did. At that time she
was at least 15 years older than her supposed husband, and
belonged to Birmingham. She was scarcely of middle
height, and was a fair woman with grey eyes. She had a
slight cast in her right eye, and this caused her slightly to
squint. Her figure was short. She continued to live with
my son until his death, but she never had any children, and
the last time I saw her was at 11 o'clock on the morning of
the fair day (July 10). I went back with her to her house
in No. 4 Court, Bilston-street, where I had before been
once or twice, and she then seemed comfortable and
happy. She was a dirty and lazy person, but neither she
nor my son were addicted to drink. I never knew them to
quarrel with each other. They formerly lived in Bir-
mingham after they were with their relative, and before
that they lived at Wellington, in Shropshire. Before
they went to Wellington they lived at No. 30, Walsall-
street, in Wolverhampton, where the woman was well
known, and in the market of which town she used to
stand. The furniture in the house in which the deceased
was found was very scanty, and consisted chiefly of
a few boxes. About five weeks ago I met
my son in Wolverhampton. He told me that he had re-
cently received his money, and placing his hand upon his
chest said, "I have it here, for I ma afraid my wife will,
take it, as she had threatened to go away." He did not say
with whom he thought she would go. In April last Ro-
sanna left my son for a month, but she afterwards said that
during that time she had been to her brother's. Deceased
had searched about for her but could not find her. The wit
ness then described Rosanna's dress, but could not identify
as belonging to her the bonnet which was found by the side
of the corpse of the woman who was found dead, and her
body decomposed, and who was like the deceased, in an un-
occupied house in Dudley, on the day before the corpse of
the deceased was found. Witness, continuing, said—l heard
of the suicide at Dudley, but I have not been there to see
the body. She always wore a wedding ring and a keeper
made of a certain description of gold, and which I had given
to her. The keeper found with the ring upon the body of the
woman was shown to the witness, but she said that was not
the one of which she was speaking; she however identified
as a part of Rosanna's dress a portion of the dress found on
the body of the dead woman at Dudley.
The Chi -f Constable then said that he should be able to
produce sufficient evidence with reference to her bonnet.
The witness,
Continuing, said—ln the beginning of March
I received a letter from my son telling me that his wife had
gone away, taking with her 30s in money and 12s worth of
goods. He asked me to come over and keep his house, and I
went. One evening while I was there a man with dark hair
and inflamed eyes, as if he was used to drinking, opened
the door and inquired, "Is my Rosey in the house ?" I
said, " Who is Rosey ?" He then asked for William, who
came down stairs wh let this man was sitting in the
kitchen. It came into ray mind that this was a man of
whom Rosanna had spoken, and I told him that if he did
not go out I would scald him with the boiling water in the
kettle on the fire. After he had gone, my son said to me,
" I wish you had not spoken so, for I am in danger from
that man." This man was about six feet high, with coarse
features, and was dressed in a kind of jacket-coat and cap.
I am sure that I should know him again. Last Tuesday a
Mrs. Barry, of Wolverhampton, with whose husband my
son used to live while Rosanna was away, showed me a
piece of a dress which she said she gave my son 3d. for.
(The piece, worked into a quilt, was here produced, and it
exactly corresponded with the pieces of the dress before
produced, which had been taken from the corpse of the un-
known woman found at Dudley.)
The Coroner said—l think the production of that piece
of cotton is very satisfactory.
The jury were of a similar opinion.
Witness identified as belonging to Rosanna a Norwich
shawl that was found fastened up to a window of the house
in which deceased was found, and also= old bonnet brought
from the same place.

Rachel Barry, the woman spoken of by the last witness,
deposed that she was the wife of an image:maker in Wolver-
hampton. She knew Chenery and his alleged wife about five
months ago. Chenery came to her house and said that Rose
was gone away and was not again coming back. At the
same time he said that he would not again take her back
for a reason which he would tot state. Three weeks after-
wards, and about a month after her disappearance, Rosanna

came to her house for her-clotheswhich, with some wire,
..
had been left there. Among these 'clothes was the skirt of a
dress, which she afterwards saw suspended as a curtain at a
window of the house in which Chenery's body was found.
In reply to a juror, witness said the night Rosanna
returned and came to my house a knock came at the door,
and a man's Voice presently said sharply, " Come, now,
there, how much longer are you going to be?" She would
not let me go to the door, but rushed before me, and
beckoned the man outside to go back. I looked out, but
it was so dark I could not see any one. The man was
not Chenery, for he would not have come in that way.
Rosanna denied that he was one of her fancy men, but
said he was a man who wanted to pay her lodgings.
Coroner—When she came to get her clothes did she ap-

pear angry ?
Witness—She said, "I have heard say 'revenge is
sweet,' and if he does not give my clothes I will have re-
venge on the one-eyed —,"
Did she bay that if she could not do it herself she would
get some one else to do it F.—Yes, when she spoke of the
one. eyed --, I think the meant the deceased, as he had
but one eye.

A Juror—Did she say she would get some one else to
assist her ?

Witness—She said she would get them as would assisther.

A Juryman—Did you ever see another man down stairs ?

Witness—There was a man down stairs that she told me
wanted her to go and live with him, and ho would keep her
as a lady, and if Williams (Chenery) came he would knock
his brains out. Her husband was present at the time, and
ha answered, " You had better go with him if he can keep
you better than I can. I should like him to come and knock
my brains out." She said "1 would sooner have Williams's
little finger than the other man's whole body," This man
I have seen, and he is down stairs. I am quite sure that
he is the man, because a night or two before he came to our

house.
John Barry, an image modeller, of Bell-street, and the
husband of the laet witness, gave evidence principally cor-
roborative of that of his wire.

---Mrs. ilannah Lewis, who occupies one of the houses that
adjoins the one in which deceased lived up to the time of
his death, deposed to the woman Rosanna, who passed for
his wife, having, so far as she knew, lived comfortably with
the deceased. She never heard any quarrelling in the
house ; if they had quarrelled she should have beard them.
At about half-past nine in the evening of the 27th of July,
Rosanna knocked at her door and said " We are going out
intooE iif anybody inquires after us."
R
back to the house, came out with
a shawla
door, and went away.
The witness here
nnea country
thoen nlocked hawking,went
the
identified as the bonnet of Rosanna the
bonnet that was found near the woman who was discovered
dead at Dudley. Pieces of the jacket and skirt found upon
the body of the woman at Dudley were here identified as
having formed part of the clothes worn by rbosanna when
last seen by witness, who also identified the shawl found at
the window of the house in No. 4 Court as belonging to
Rosanna. About a week before the body was discovered a
very bad smell came from the house, and it continued until
the body was found. IVitnese then described the finding of
the body, the facts of which have already appeared.
A woman named Ursilla Jones deposed to the man Ed-
wards having frequently visited the house of the deceased
before he removed to that iu which he was found dead. He
used to go there with Rosanna's niece.
Mrs. Barry recalled, identified the remnants of clothes
brought from Dudley as belonging to the garments worn
by Rosanna.
Police-constable Sansome, of the Dudley force, deposed
to the finding of the body in that down, decomposed, and
with laudanum by its side. The dead woman's hair was
dark. She was of tolerable height, and stout (previous
witnesses had referred to her hair as light.)
The Coroner remarked that the identification of the clothes
Dudley as that of the woman Rosanna.
but not the body of the woman found at
waAslcnoomngpltehtee other witnesses who were examined, was a
chemist, of Bilston, named Lister, who deposed to having
sold laudanum in the bottle before described. A second
label on the same bottle showed that the same kind of
poison had been sold in it by another chemist of Bilston,
named Cr:3y.

William Ed wards, who seemed to be a puddler, was called.
He said he had been summoned as a witness at that in-
-11,2228t. lie know the deceased and Rosanna, but ha had
not seen them since the latter end of February or the begin-
ning of March. Ile denied that lac had followed her to
Birmingham, but said that he was there on business and
met her at Digbeth. The deceased had a ked him to
ask her when she was coming hornet
if he saw her.
Ile told deceased when he (Jame back that hs had seen her,
end deceased said that tithe did Lot make haste she would
be too late, for she was no wile of his. lie had lived with
a cousin of Rosanna's, but the was now dead. She had died
at Derby. He had never said to Rosanna that if she would
leave the deceased and live with him that he would keep
her liko a lady.

The Coroner, who had cautioned the last witness, said
there was no doubt that a shocking murder had been com-
mitted, and that the ends of justice would not be answered
unless the police had an opportunity of investigating the
matter furtLr. To assist them he thought he ought to
keep back the result of the post 9norfent ememination.
The jury concurred in this view, and tl-i inquest was
arijourned Wail to-day (Twsday) week.