Owyhee bullion. [volume] (Silver City, I.T. [Idaho]) 1866-1867, 1867-05-02
NO 25
MARRIAGE OF COUSINS.


the prevention of marriage between first
cousins. BY single act of tho Leg
islature you can save in the future an
immense amount ofsuffering. You can
diminish, according to the opinion of
those who have fully investigated this
subject, twenty per cent, ofthe mum.
ber of imbeciles, insane, deaf mutes aud
blind children. Render the marriage
of cousins illegal, and great evil is
at once eradicated. At least from Is
to 20 per cent. of all these sufferers
are the ofsprngs of cousins. A gentle
man of science, Of learning, and enlarged
experience, who has for long time
paid great deal of attention to this
subject, recently informed me he never
yet had seen all the children so related
sound in body and mind, There is
always among some of them some defect,
mentally or bodily. A large numberof
the pupils ESQ say the teachers) 10 Deaf
and Dumb Asylums are the children
of cousins.
At Danville there are four sisters
deaf and dumb, the children of cousins
they have two speaking brothers, both
in delicate health. There is also. from
another family, there, sister and brother,
children of cousins. There is another
instance Of sister and brother there, also
deaf and dumb, the children of sec.
ond cousins, showing that the defect
extends beyond even the second degree.
In thatinstitution at Danville, as in other
States, l am infomed that from sixteen
to twenty per cent. of the pupils are
now, aud always have been, the children
ofcousins. The State, when the parents
or friends Of these children are not able
to provide for them, has to do it and the
instances are numerous where the burden
falls on her to provide for and educate
them as mutes, insane, blind or i'm
beetles. She is weakened by SO many Of
her citizens suffering these privations
and heavy tax is thereby imposed upon
her. Is it not her right and her duty to
protect herself against the evil and ex-
pense, by forbidding such unions, which
nature plainly forbils by the natural
penalty she uniformly inficts ?-[Gov:
Magoffin.
THE DEAD OF THE MEDITERRANEAN
The whole channel of the Mediter-
ranean must be strewn with human bones.
Carthagenians, ,Syrians, Sidonians, Egypt
ians, Persians, Greeks and Romans
there they lie, side by side, beneath the
eternal waters, and the modern ships that
brings freight from Alexandria, sails in its
whole course over buried nations. Itmsy
be the corruption of the dead, that adds
that brightness to the phosphorescence
of the waves. The orientals have su-
perstition on this subject, which repre-
sents the spirits of the departed as hover
ing, whether on land or on water over
the spot where the ruins of their earthly
tenements are found, so that in plowing
the Mediterranean, we sail through ar.
mics Of ghosts, more multituninou, than
the waves. These patient spirits some
times ride on the foam, at others repose
in those delicious little hollows, which
look like excavated emeralds between the
crests of the waves. 1t is their armies
aud thronging together, they believe,
that constitute the phosphorescence of
the sea wherever there is light; and the
billows flash with the luminonsness of van
ished generations, that concentrate, as it
were, the starlight on their wing
A celebrated wholesale merchant in
London, England, has presented the
proprietors of the Telegraph with print
ing press which cost $25, 900, as token
of appreciation. In doing so, he accom-
panied the gift by letter, which said
an your paper, by judicious advertising
l have amassed the fortune which ena-
bles me to offer the testimony of regard
and good will"
A negro once gave the following toast;
ode Gobernor OBJ de State-he come in
wild berry little opposition--he go out wild