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    much less a race wholly new to science , is ridiculously extravagant . They are simply what the best physiologists have pronounced them , and what , indeed , is obvious at a glance , instances of arrested growth and malformation—well-proportioned dwarfs , rendered additionally curious by a peculiar form of idiotcy ; their nervous system , though deficient in quantity , being apparently good in quality , so that they are not heavily stupid , like most idiots , but extremely active , mentally and . physically . As to the assertion that they have been thus debased by artificial means , as well as by restraints acting for ages on their progenitors—that four or five hundred beings like them exist in Iximaya , &c . &c . —all this is not only unsupported in fact , but altogether absurd in principle : nor can I see the least ground for presuming that their parents were not individuals of ordinary stature and character .

    As to form and feature , I take the liberty of emphatically denying that these children possess any of the special characteristics of the Amerieanfamily , while they do possess others which most decidedly and obviously distinguish them from all known t ) 'pes of that family , ancient or modern . A projecting face , sloping forehead , prominent nose , and dark complexion , are not , either individually or collectively , special characteristics of the American family : they exist and co-exist in Africa , Asia , and in the islands of the Pacific and Indian Oceans . The races of America have various and very different forms , complexions , temperaments , &c , one from the other ; yet in all cases they have an indescribable something which binds them into one group , and separates them from all the rest of the world ; and this

    something , which an experienced eye at once detects , is easily overlooked by , or remains altogether imperceptible to , a superficial or unpractised eye . Who does not distinguish at a glance a Frenchman from an Englishman , when each has the national peculiarities well marked ? Yet who can give a formula of the difference that will suit all cases ? The same maybe said of all great nationalities . It is on this principle I assert that these children do not present to me the faintest trace of Americanism , while they do present the plainest impress of widely different types of humanity . With the exception of a possible tinge of European blood , they belong , in my opinion , to A sia and Africa exclusively . Long , straight , lank , and usually coarse hair is , as far as I am aware of , a universal attribute of all the native races

    of America , ancient and modern . I do not remember ever to have read or heard of any fact of a contrary nature , and should be glad to be set right if such facts exist . Now , the boy has the silky , curled hair , common in Europe and Western Asia ; while the hair of the girl is precisely that of Mulattoes and other half casts of Negro race . Similar hair is represented in the pictures and sculptures of Ancient Egypt , and exists also among the modern Nubians , and probably many other tribes of Eastern Africa . It is

    dense , wiry , and falls round the head in small , close , firmly-curled ringlets . All this is the very opposite of American hair . In temperament , also , these children are wholly un-American . They are excessively excitable , volatile , and mobile , mentally and physically ; while the American races , though greatly varying among themselves , in this , as in most other respects , are all relatively grave , cold , and undemonstrative . The child must shadow forth the man : even the idiot must evince the peculiarities of his race .

    I now come to what I have not the least hesitation in considering the true affinities of these children . In cast of features , and especially in expression , they are pre-eminently Jeioish , —not Jewish in any ordinary sense , but even Jewish in the style which most differs from the usual European cast of features . The Jews , like all other races , differ a good deal in form and feature , but there is , relatively to European forms , an extreme type—an ultra ideal to which nil true Jews more or less approximate . It is rare , in this part of the world , to find so close an approximation to this type ns these children present . In fact , they are a caricature of the ordinary Jew . I except , of course , in ttys description , the recession of the chin , which is especially excessive in the hoy ; hut then it must be remembered that the children arc cases of malformation and arrested

    growth—that they are idiots , in fact , and that the recession of the chin is n peculiarity often observed in idiotcy . In all other respects , however , the Jewish character is so unequivocal in them , that numbers of persons have spontaneously remarked it , notwithstanding the prevalent belief in their Americanism , and no one , I think , can fail to recognise it when pointed out ; it breaks forth , in fact , in the whole play of ' the features . Fearing to trust to my first impressions , I repeated my visit , after an interval of several days , and was more convinced than ever of the reality . On the latter occasion , I particularly remarked , at intervals , a very distinct

    Ncgroism in the ; expression of the girl , though the general character is decidedly Hebrew . Indeed , so obvious is this character in both , and in the boy especially , that the tale itself has been forced to recognise it , thou gh , of course , indirectly . Hence these children are descendants of the sacred Kaana , who migrated from the " Assyrian plains" some 4000 years ago ; hence Leprosy was treated in Iximaya much in the same way as in Ancient Jerusalem ; hence the Eastern character of the architecture , and so on . Finally , I must remind those scientific men who have perceived in these children a new race , or a Mexican character , that on this occasion they have had for an instructor in ethnology and areh ; i >< tloo-v tlw . iuo-ouWmu «* ..

    cocter of the wonderful history of Ixirnuya and the Aztec Lilliputians . The foregoing description readily suggests the true genealogy of these children . Their , remarkable general likeness to each other proves them to be brother and sister , their special differences show that their parentage is of mixed blood , Let us apply to them a fact of which every observer miiy

    discover instances within the range of his own experience — viz . th f children often take predominantly after the father in features , while th * take after the mother in temperament , as in complexion , colour and qualt of hair , &c . ( Sometimes the case is found reversed , the mother givin * \ h features , the father the temperament ; but I have always „ bbseryedfth <• where races widely , different intermarry , the males are most like the father and the females like the mother . ) - Let all this , I say , be applied in th '

    present case—let us assume for a moment that the father of these children was a Jew , the mother a Mulatto , the offspring of a Negress and a S paniard or of a Negress and a Jew even , and everything becomes at once plain ' the boy approaches more to the father , the girl to the mother . The W has the Jewish hair complete , the girl the Mulatto ^ while the region from which they are said to have been brought presents us in abundance all the elements required by the problem — Jews , Spaniards , Negroes , and

    Mulattoes . I may observe , too , that the projecting face and receding chin and forehead are by no means out of character with a Negro derivation Let the reader accept this theory , and he will not , I think , be very far removed from the true genealogy of these divine Kaana—these pigmy representatives of the great Pontiff Kings of Ancient Mexico ! Luke Burke .

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    THE BALLAD OF THE KING'S DAUGHTER . Part I . She twisted up her royal lengths Of fallen hair , with a silver pin ; Her eyes were gleaming molten depths , Which stirred to flame when I looked within . — Dressed in a gown of velvet black , With a diamond clasp and a silver band , Walked from the door with a stately step , And our young son held by his mother ' s hand . Walter ran by his mother ' s side , In eyes more like to her than me ; The Queen would have bartered her ivory throne For such a blossom of royalty . Heavily over the far hill tops Booms the bell in the minster tower , From city to city between the hills , Boom the bells at the burial hour . Amen ! saith the bough in the ten-mile forest , Amen ! saith the sea from its cavernous bed , — Amen ! saith the people , when bowed at the sorest ; Who is dead ? said the rooks ; Who is dead ? Who is dead ? The young man is dead , in his strength , in his beauty , His curls lie loose on his white-fringed pall , Loud cry the people and priests at the altar , Loud wails the requiem over them all . Low in the midst of the church of the Merciful Lieth the young man , gone to his rest , His sword is sheath'd and his coronet broken , Flowers of yesterday cover his breast . " Babe , child , brave youth , " wept the Queen in her closet , " Heir of my name , " sighed the King on his throne , " Who leads us to battle ? " cried they of the market , " My lover , " looked one face , as cold as a stone . Slow tolled the bell from the north to the southern sea , Winds caught them up with a desolate cry , Solemn he lies under darkening arches , The hand of eternity pressed on each eye . Part ii . The market cross , with its sculptured Christ , 'Mid the crush and the trample stood sternly and strong , The welded masses of voiceless folk As a sea at midnight rolled along . Booming bells as they struck the ear , Died nwrty in the silent skies , Gossiping women were dumb with fear , And each gabled house was alive with eyes . But lo ! in the distance a shadowy file , They move to the beat of a muffled drum , The waves recede , as for Israel ' s inarch , And the thick crowd mutters , " They come , they come . " When the bier was borne by the central fount , She stood as still as the enrven stone , Saying , " O King , behold , \ ioy > Ilia smile is the Dead ' s , nnd his eye is your own . " From my broad domain in a trim man ' s heart . From the home I chose of mine own fret ; will , I give you my jewel to wear in your crown . " Then , snatching him back for one luat long fill

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    830 THE LEADER . [ SAtffjitiuy ,

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 27, 1853, page 836, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2001/page/20/