Year: 1859

We have recently seen the statement pub
lished, on the authority of some illustrious NJ
D., that the Anglo-Saxon race is rapidly de-
generating, through the influence of prevailing
habits, vices, and customs, and that the day is
not far distant when, upon either side of the
Atlantic, it will be difficult to find single spec
linen of the genus homo, allied by blood to that
race, which has not the taint of hereditary dis
ease at the hour of its birth


We should be 10th to believe that the dam
ger was SO imminent as this writer states; but,
as it may be true, nevertheless, it becomes US
to inquire what are the grounds Of the state
ment, and what we may do to prevent such
terrible deterioration in the physical powers
and capacities of a race, which, in intellectual,
as well as physical achievements, stands con-
fessedly foremost among all the races of men.


The ancient historians were not renowned
for their statistical knowledge. What we
know of the longevity of men in ''the days we
read Of is brief and uncertain; and it may
well be doubted, if the tendency to physical de-
terioration was not greater, and the causes of it
more numerous, in the early ages, than at the
present time,


In every period of the worlds history, and
among all the nations and tribes of men, the
vices of RIGHTEOUSNESS have been the most ac-
tive causes of physical degeneracy. Every
school-bey knows that those vast empires
which once f1ourished so bravely upon the
Eastern continent, persisted mainly through
81. oh 1fcH
excess in the paths of vicious indulgence, and
through the unrestrained exercise of the more
brutal propensities and passions of human ma
ture. The modern Greek has not yet recover
ed from the slough of sensuality into which
he was plunged by the reckless sensuality of
his ancestors and the Lazzaroni of Italy, who
swarm in the streets and highways of Naples
and of Rome, afford living illustration that
the effeminacy and puerility of the C@sarian
age has only been intensified, in the genera
tons that have passed away, since the Northern
invaders encamped their barbarian hordes in
the temples of '9ofty Rome"


But the causes, both natural and artificial,
for the continuance and growth Of physical de-
generacy in these nations, have not and do not





now apply to that race, more recently born of
a combination of the grandest physical powers
and capacities, and we are not willing to be-
ieve, that the best fed, the best Clad and
the best governed race of men, which has ever
inhabited this earth, already exhibits the signs
of premature decay, and is physically fast dy-
ing out, through the developement of diseases
which are the results of excess in the lowest
forms of vice. To believe this, is virtually to
admit that the refining influences of the Chris
tian faith have utterly failed in their mission,
and that those higher forms of civilization
which were born of that faith, and which are
the grand characteristics of the Anglo Saxon
wherever he is found have had no better or
more restraining influence upon the vices and
passions of men, than the NEUROLOGICAL del
ties of the ancient heather.


The physical energies of the Anglo Saxon
world, over incarcerated in diseased bodies
No soundness any where, but disease and rot
tenness all around? We do not believe it, and
in view of the vast and benefcent results of
that physical energy, never so universally op-
erative as now, the thing is impossible, just
yet


Compare the state of society, of that race at
the present day, on both sides of the Atlantic,
with what it was in the age of Elizabeth, and
how great the contrast. Surely race which
by its physical power alone, has in single
generation achieved so much greater successes
than any which has preceded it, or any that
now exists, has achieved in the progress of
whole centuries of time, cannot have fallen SO
fast and SO far, as to be, in its physical capac-
ties, already upon the verge of the grave.


In fact all the circumstances of its condition
are opposed to such theory. Its climate, its
location in the temperate zone, its very love
of labor, give to that race an innate capacity
of physical growth, strength and endurance
which no other people has yet possessed


1t must be admitted, however, in this con-
nection, that a tendency to disease does extern
sively prevail that the period of human life
is many years shorter than it ought to be =
that the faint of hereditary weakness descends
in many cases from sire to son, and from moth
SA w AouSAeCAs Jul, Will luloJ We nave LIc
lights of science to guide us, and the well de-
fined laws of physical health and disease to
aid us in our escape from the perils that pre-
maturely beset our paths. And although the
turbid currents ofSensuality and intemperance
pour themselves in pretty constant streams in
10 the tide of its life, we may yet see as we
look abroad over the world, that virtue and
goodness do still predominant among that peo-
pie from whom we are proud to have originat-
ed, and that away from the great cities and
crowded thoroughfares, "where the pestilence
walketh in darkness and corruption wasteth at
monday" the vital forces of physical life
continue to flow in their pristine vieor,
that millions of little ones are annually born
from that hardy, vigorous stock which has
made the desert places in all lands to blossom
as the rose, who will transmit to their de-
scendants, as time rolls on, the tough and rug
ged constitutions of their progenitors, along
with that larger and stronger mental develop
ment, which comes from the possession of a
sound mind in a sound body.





The CHINESE IN CALIFoRNIA.-In April
last, the Legislature of the golden State made
a law that, after the 1st October, 1858, no