The Dupuyer acantha. [volume] (Dupuyer, Mont.) 1894-1904, 1901-01-03
PERSEVERANCE
AND BRAVERY EXPLAINED BY
PROF. LOMBROSO.
tie Says Their Blood Is Richer than
That of Other Nations-Calis Them a
Select People Superior to Europeans
Scientists Startled at Figures. v

Many theories have been advanced in
explanation of the logged persever-
Rnce with which the Beers have car
ried on their struggle to maintain
their independence, and o Profess
sor Cesare Lombroso, the distinguish
ed criminologist, comes forward and
assures the world hat the n great
reason why the Beers are such stub
born fighters is because their blood is
richer than that of other nations. His
article on the subject appears in Nuo-
va Antologia.
According to him, the Beers of to-
day have in them the blood Of four
nations, namely the Dutch, the French,
the Scotch and the German. Dutch
blood pr~eponderates, but with it, we
are told, is intermingled the precise
quantity of French, German and
Scotch blood which is needed in order
to produce such valiant warriors as
the people of the Transvaal.
In order to obtain exact knowledge
a chemical analysis of Boer blood, and
hen he compared the results which
he had obtained with those obtained
by Herr Kuyser, a Dutch scientist who
had been working in the same direc-
ton. The conclusion at which he has
arrived, is that the Boer blood is com
posed of se~venty-eight per cent Dutch
blood, twelve per cent Of French,
twelve per cent of Scotch and three
per cent of German. All obtainable
statistics, he maintains, point to the
correctness of these figures. In con-
clusion he asks: "Such being the
chemical composition of their blood,
what is there astonishing in the fact
that this mixture of the four best ma
tions of Europe, in a climate which is
not %enervating and in which an ener-
getic mode OF life is necessary prom
Uses to form of the Beers a select peo-
pie who will prove themselves the bull
wark of liberty and civilization and
who will be a race superior to all those
of Europe?" Scientists attach a good
deal of weight to Professor Lom-
broso's views on a matter of this kind.
Nevertheless this article has startled
them a good deal, and for the simple
reason that the figures which it con-
tains are, to say the least, bewildering.
The Boer blood, says the professor,
is composed of four elements. Quite
possible, reply the scientists; but how
can se~venty-eight per cent of Dutch
blood, twelve per cent of French,
twelve per cent of Scotch and three
per cent of German make 100 per cent
Of Boer blood, for do not these fig
ures, when added together make a
total of los. The misleading figures,
it is thought by some, may be due
to a typographical blunder, but such
does not seem to- be the general opin-
ion. "The superstition that there Is a
mistake in the figures says a French
writer, sis hardly ~tenable, since sta
tistics are an exact science and a sta
tistician like Lombroso is not likely
to make a mistake of this kind. No;
the figures themselves, are correct,
although the theory based on them
may seem highly improbable. They
furnish, indeed, as they stand at pres
ent, an additional argument in favor
of Lombroso's theory that the sur
prising valor of the Beers is due to
their blood, since it ear readily be
seen that a nation ought to be I'M
usually brave whose blood is above
par and is rated at los per cent"
A plausible explanation of the puz-
zling figures is that the seventy-eight
MT ~
in this case would have five per cent
less of Dutch blood than Lombroso
assigns to them; yet by this simple
change they would be freed from the
charge of being abnormal, which is
now brought against them by certain
phllistines, who maintain that those
persons cannot be normal human be-
ings the elements of whose blood ex-
coed 100 per cent.