Year: 1867

The Commissioners Of the Kentucky In
stitutiOn for the education and training Of
feble-minded children, at Frankfort have
just made their annual report to the Legis-
lature These Commissioners are persons
thoroughly competent to judge Of the mat
ter which they consider, being the Princi-
pals of the Asylum for Deaf Mutes and
Blind and the superintendents of the East
ern hospital for the Insane, at Lexington.
Against the marriage Of blood relations,
which is much more frequent in Kentucky
than north Of the Ohio river, they protest in
| the following emphatic terms;


A subject of very great social Importance
is brought incidentally to notice IN the re-
port; the intermarriage of persons nearly re-
| lated We deem it, says the report, our
duty to the interest of humanity, as well as
to the pecuniary interest Of the State, to
bear our testimony heretofore collected and
published by physicians and philanthropists,
and to the observation or every close obser-
yer, as well as to general considerations of
prOpriety, that a large per centage of deaf
mutes and of lunatics and, no doubt much
larger one than either Of feeble-minded or
idi0tic childred are the offspring of the mar
riage of first cousins. Our charitable insti-
tutions are filed with children all the time
whose parents are so related sometimes as
many as four from one family; and we have
known in the case of idiots, of a still larger
number in q family.


1t is fearful penalty to which persons so
related render themselves liable by forming
the matrimonial relation, and which they in
nearly every instance incur, not indeed In
all, but in one or more of their offspring
Instances, we do not deny, may be shown
where a portion Of the children-one or
more-may inherit, from both parents, where
possessed of high mental and bodily endoWn-
ment Of q common origin enhanced and re-
markabIe qualities of body and mind but it
is generally at the expense of unfortunate
and deeply afflicted brothers and sisters
We believe few instances can be given where
such enchanced endownments are common
to all the offspring; while instances are not
urfrequent where nearly all, and, in a few,
perhaps, every child is afflicted either in body
or mind, and sometimes in both


The State has, IN large majority of ca
ses, to educate, and often support for life,
these afflicted children. Has she not then
n clear and indisputable right to interpose
her authority to prevent matrimonial allan
ces, so productive of private calamity and
of public iniury2 The State is thereby not
only defrauded of the labor, usefulness, en-
ergy and intelligence of a considerable por-
ton of her citizens, but she has, in addition
the burden of their education and support
and, in tie case of uueducated idiots, their
support for life, thus unreasonb1y superin-
duced upon her The unfortunate, by una
voidable casualty, she must and ought cheer
fully to provide for; but surely she is not
bound, in reason and good policy, to legalize
marriages so productive of private and pub
lie damage Indeed it is preposterous, not
to say wrong that she should do it


A law of a few lines would cut of, hence
forward, the expenditure of thousands of
dollars for the support of the offspring of
marriage of first cousins, as well as prevent
the burden of lifetime of sorrow and re-
gret in many estimable families. We desire
to say, emphatically, that this opinion is not
a theory but is based upon well ascertained
and indubitable facts.