The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-05-24
NOT A CHARLATAN.


conscientious student of the historical
epochs and great historical figures he talks
about to the people. If he errs it is the
honest error of an able and conscientious
student; not the immoral indi ference to
accuracy that characterizes the arrogant
literary charlatan of the platform.
This may seem Q small merit, but it is
in our judgment the thing that lifts Mr..
Fiske clean above the plane OF such lect-
urers as that most resonant rhetorician,
Joseph Cook, "Glittering Generality Joe,"
who is responsible for more of the current
false philosophy and popular historical ig-
norance than any other platform speaker
in the land. unless it he DR.. Talmage. The
difference between Mr.. Fiske and Mr..
Cook is that Mr.. Fiske honestly seeks to
know all the facts, while Mr.. Cook is
monumental egotist who cares only for
those facts that seem to fit in with his as
sumptions, and even when his facts are
seemingly straight wrings out of them abb
surd conclusions.
To illustrate, take Joseph Cooks dog
matte statement that the reason why the
Anglo-Saxon is so stable and tenacious
race In its physical and mental life is be-
cause his ancestor. the primitive German,
was chaste person before marriage and n
mirror of conjugal fidelity through life.
Now the Saxon was always a hard fighter,
a great feeder and a great drunkard, and
the primitive barbarian drunkard is quite
ilrol,y 70
perience of the world is that while many
unchaste persons are not drunkards nearly
ell drunkards are unchaste Bacchus, the
god of the vine, is always represented in
ancient art and poetry as followed by a
troop of Keeling satyrs grinning at you
with licentious leer. 1t is not an easy
thing to penetrate the mystery of God that
suffers certain very low and filthy civiliza-
tons TO have great tenacity of life,
like the Chinese, while a superbly
intellectual civilization, like that of Greece,
is but bright exhalation in history, and
the explanation of the transient and per-
manent does not lie in any such solution
as that applied to the Saxon by Cook, for
whether the German ancestor of the Saxon
was chaste animal or not, it is quite GER
tain that the drunken Saxon. who lost the
battle of Senlac to William the Norman
because Harold and all his army were
drunk the night before the battle, was by
no means pure person, and it is quite
certain that the everlasting Chinese, who
seem unchanged and Interchangeable in
social and political life. have been about
as llcentious people as are known to
history.
The shallowness of Mr.. Cooks assump-
tions that the tenacity and stability of the
Saxon civilization is solved by the excep-
tional chastity of his ancient German an
cestry is riddled beyond repair by DIR.
Leffingwell in his recently published
work, "Illegitimacy, a Study in Morals"
The poverty-stricken Celt population of
County Mayo. Ireland, is about equal to
that Of the thriving County Down, which
is not peopled by Celt stock, but by per-
sons of Scotch Irish and Anglo-Irish
blood.
During the ten years from 1879 to 1883
both inclusive, the total number of lille
gitimate births IN Mayo was 322. while in
Down it was 3,0Si. In 1873 of each thousand
children born in England, Scotland and
Ireland, the illegitimate were in Ireland
%, in England AZ, and in Scotland 81
There is not a more hardy, tenacious,
intelligent, stable race in Europe than the
Scotch, and yet year after year of each
1000 births in Scotland there are almost
twice as many iIlegitimate as in England
and in Wales. and more than three times
as many as in Ireland.
The largest percentage of ilegitimacy is
found in Austria and Bavaria, whose an
cestors must have dated beck largely to
the ancient German stock. There are GER
tain sections of England where every
sixth, seventh or eighth child is illegiti-
mate; yet every one of these districts is at
some distance from any great city.
In three English counties adjoining
each other, viz. Essex, Suffolk and Nor
folk, the rate OF illegitimacy increases in
proportion to the distance from London.
and this popularity goes back to 1912.
when statistics on tho subject were first
compiled.
Denmark, Norway and Sweden, Prussia.
Saxony and Scotland show high rate of
LEGITIMACY, while in Russia and Ireland
the rate is very low. The rate of illegiti-
macy which prevails in the county of
kircudbright. Scotland. is year by year
greater than in any OF the eishty-nine de-
par;ments of France, Paris alone excepted.
Similar facts have been observed in Ire
land. During the ten-year period 1873 So
there was not twelyemonth in which the
rate of il!esitimacy was not four times as
high in Ulster as in Connaught.
In France, where inquiry as to paternity
is refused, ont of 1000 births scventy-four
are i.legit mate; yet in Russia, where the
same state Of things prevails. the proper
ton Of illegitimacy is only twenty-eicht in
l,ooo. II now We turn 10 the countries
where inquiry As 10 paternity IS permitted.
We ind that in Austria ont of 1000 births
there are 14S cases of illegiIimacy; where
as, in Ireland, under the same regime.
there are only twenty-five.
The percentage Of LEGITIMACY which
has long obtained in the five counties of
Northeastern Scotland is one in seven.
The population is not poor: the peorle
have been Calylnists since the davs Of
John Knox; it Is not caused hv any
surplus of women. The facts n-ove com
pletely the ahsu-dity of Mr.. Cooks
assumption that the Anclo-Saxon race is
y suprene!y stable and tenacious race in