Page:The Negro a menace to American civilization.djvu/103

Rh that the "hair-splitters" would quickly make two distinct genera of them. The fact that they are fertile inter se would constitute no barrier to such an arrangement, for we have no trouble in crossing jungle fowls (Gallus) with Guinea hens (Numida), any more than we have in crossing the most refined and intelligent Anglo-Saxon in existence today with the most savage negress on the banks of the Congo, or, for anything we know to the contrary, with a female chimpanzee. I have seen the hybrids between Gallus and Numida, as well as the half-breeds from the latter crossing, barring, however, the anthropoid last mentioned.

In all such hybrids we can see with greater or less distinctness the laws of heredity carried out. Hybrids, the results of the crossing of individuals representing different races of men, as in the case of whites and negroes, often exhibit hereditary characters and traits in the most interesting manner possible. Sometimes, however, where they are inherited from remote ancestors, they may be very obscure as to their origin. Then, too, they may be so mixed and massed that we can tell very little about them. There is no trait, habit, organization, disposition, nature or anatomical or physiological character that may not be inherited down a line of related individuals from generation to generation. Pathological conditions or predispositions may likewise be passed down in a similar manner, as may also deformities or, at least, abnormalities. Certain talents, gifts, abilities and inclinations, and idiosyncrasies often pass down through families with a similar certainty, and crop out in individuals in the most peculiar and unexpected way sometimes. In their main trend, however, all of these are governed by