A Few Words About the Devil, and Other Biographical Sketches and EssaysBradlaugh, Charles
Religion
A Few Words About the Devil, and Other Biographical Sketches and Essays
Bradlaugh, Charles
Free thought
Pure negroes and negresses, transported from Central Africa to England,
and marrying among themselves, would never acquire the characteristics
of the Caucasian races; nor would pure Englishmen and Englishwomen,
emigrating to Central Africa, and in like manner intermarrying, ever
become negroes or negresses. The fact is, that while you don't bleach
the color of the dark-skinned African by placing him in London, you
bleach the life out of him; and _vice versa_ with the Englishman.**
* "Types of Mankind," p. 58.
** "Indigenous Races of the Earth," p. 458. The alleged
discovery of white-skinned negroes in Western Africa does
not affect this question: it is not only to the color of the
skin, but also the general negro characteristics that the
above remarks apply.
For a long time there has been ascribed to man the faculty of adapting
himself to every climate. The following facts will show the ascription a
most erroneous one: "In Egypt the austral negroes are, and the Caucasian
Memlooks were, unable to raise up even a third generation; in
Corsica French families vanish beneath Italian summers. Where are the
descendants of the Romans, the Vandals, or the Greeks in Africa? In
Modern Arabia, 1830 years after Mahomed Ali had got clear of the Morea
war, 18,000 Arnaots (Albanians) were soon reduced to some 400 men.
At Gibraltar, in 1817, a negro regiment was almost annihilated by
consumption. In 1841, during the three weeks on the Niger, 130 Europeans
out of 145 caught African fever, and 40 died; out of 158 negro sailors
only eleven were affected, and not one died. In 1809 the British
Expedition to Walchereen failed in the Netherlands through marsh fever.
About the same time, in St. Domingo, about 15,000 French soldiers died
from malaria. Of 30,000 Frenchmen, only 8,000 survived exposure to that
Antillian island; while the Dominicanized African negro, Tous-saint
L'Overture, retransported to Europe, was perishing from the chill of his
prison in France."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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