The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1899-07-22
RAGE Of DEAF ADTES
10 a Fair Way to be Establish
ed, Says Prof. Bell.
MISCHIEF OF SEGREGATION
'Fiue Generations Suffices to
Fix the Type.
MISCHIEF OF SEGREGATION

reference to the remarkable divorce suit
inwhich Mrs. Mary L. Haight and Henry
J. Haight figured respectively as plaintiff
ard defendant. Both persons are deaf
and dumb, and it appeared that the father
and many relatives OF the defendant were
deaf and dumb. The evils of the inter-
marriage Of people 5ereft of the faculties
Of speech and hearing were made ap-
parent In this suit, aud the Sunday World
called them to dhe attention of Professor
Alexander NJ. Bell. Professor Bell re-
views the present system of educating
deaf-n1utes, points out its reulting evils
and predicts the establishment Of dis
tinct human species If deaf-mutism Is per-
petuated by the inter-marriage Of the az
hicted.
Prof. Alexander Melville Bell Is the
father of Prof. Bell, of telephone fame
and says:
The census of 1900 is liable to bring
out some notable facts in regard to the
deaf-mute af1iction in this country. Ac-
cording to the figures Of 1880 there were
in the United States in that year 1852
deaf and dumb people and SO,616 persons
totally deaf but not dumb. The rapidity
with which the curse is spreading will
be made obvious by statistic adduced for
the last year Of the nineteenth century.
There can be no question that increase
Of deaf-mutes will be startling, in view Of
the figures already at hand. We know
that the population of the United States
doubled in the forty years between 1850
and $780, while during the same period
the number OF deaf and dumb people
in the country was multiplied by five.
The first recorded marriage of deaf and
dumb people was in 1919; in the thirty
years from 1850 to 1880 there were 1,400
such marriages. We find, in short, that
the deaf-mute element Is growing at
rate enormously crater than the
population at large, and 1t is entirely OBJ
vious that this is due to intermarriages
among deaf and dumb people, which are
not only customary but habituaL
There is every prospect that before long
we shall come to recognize the existence
of a deaf-mute variety of the human race.
entirely distinct and apart, At all events
1t is to be hoped that the variety will be
set apart, inasmuch as we must otherwise
reconcile ourselves to the prospect of the
existence of deaf and dumb members in
nearly every family. This seems rather a
stratling assertion, but It may be easily
demonstrated Already there are groups
Of deaf-mute familiese scattered all over
the United States, and intermarriage
simply by reason Of the affiictIon which
they share, that certain names are asso-
ciated with deaf-muteness. For example,
when you meet any one who Is named
Closson. Brasher, Gortschalg, Gopher,
Hullet or Blizzard you have a right to in
fer that the individual is deaf and dumb.
Epileptics do not marry epileptics as a
rule. nor do consumptives choose con-
sumptives as their mates, but deaf-mutes
are practically Obliged to marry deaf
mutes. the reason being obvious enough.
Now there is nothing, not even the ten
dency to badness, that seems to perpet-
ate itself more inevitably by inheritance
than deaf-muteness. Take any two deaf
and dumb persons of opposite sexes
whose ancestry seems to have exhibited
no such physical misfortune, marry them
to each other and one in five of their
children will be deaf-mutes. Let their
children marry other deaf-mutes and the
tendency to the reproduction of the evil
will steadily increase. Thus it is that in
many families there is a large proportion
of deaf and dumb members, with the
prospect that a few generations hence all
of them will be thus afflicted.
You are aware that white rabbits with
pink eyes are now bred, with only a semi
| occasional lapse of color, due to revision
or atavism whichever you choose TO call
IL. There is no doubt whatever that al
binism among human beings could be
similarly propagated and perpetuated by
| compelling albinoes among them TO marry
each other. Alblnism in rabbits is Just
as much n freak as it Is among human
beings, but with those animals the abnor-
nal condition has been so far encouraged
| by breeding that a return to the normal
| becomes a freak . Similarity let deaf
mutes marry each other through a lorg
series OF generations and only very rarely
will a speaking child-itself freak in the
! same sense-appear.
Scares are frequently worked up but
this is no imaginary alarm. Reliable data
may be cited for every fact alleged. II
an object lesson is demanded for the sake
of illustration it may be found near at
hand. in Marthas Vineyard. On that is
| land there is town called Chilmark
where one person in every twenty-five is
a deaf-mute. Evidently there was some
faint of that affiiction among the earlier
inhabitants Of the island, and it has been
perpetuated and encouraged in its devel-
opment by frequent intermarriage.
Freaks OF all kinds may be perpetuated
by in-and-in breeding, and human beings
are not less subject to that law than are
other animals. l may remark incidentally
that in Martha's Vineyard there is an ex-
traordinary number OF dwarfs and six
10 the. same cause.
fingured persons, owing unquestionably
Msrtha's Vineyard is not easily of &C
cess from the main land: ii Is shut Of 10
some extent from The rest OF the main
world. Thus II has come about that the
inhabitants have bred in-and-in, as We
would say Of the lower animals. At the
same time We may find in that island
an Illustration on a small scale OF what is
coming to pass in the United States at
large. so far as deat-muteism is concern
ed. The main danger, which may he
more properly termed certainty of dis
aster unless some adequate means are
taken to prevent It, lies in the inevitable
tendency OF deaf and dumb people 70 wed
each other
As 1 will show you presently this is du.
In large par1 70 ARTIFICIAL restrictions