The Descent of Man

and mulattoes, have a maxim that mulattoes
should not intermarry, as the children are few
and sickly. This belief, as Mr. Reade remarks,
deserves attention, as white men have visited
and resided on the Gold Coast for four hundred
years, so that the natives have had ample
time to gain knowledge through experience.) In
the United States the census for the year 1854
included, according to Dr. Bachman, 405,751
mulattoes; and this number, considering all the
circumstances of the case, seems small; but it
may partly be accounted for by the degraded
and anomalous position of the class, and by the
profligacy of the women. A certain amount of
absorption of mulattoes into negroes must always
be in progress; and this would lead to an
apparent diminution of the former. The inferior
vitality of mulattoes is spoken of in a trustworthy
work (13. 'Military and Anthropological
Statistics of American Soldiers,' by B.A. Gould,
1869, p. 319.) as a well-known phenomenon;
and this, although a different consideration