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836 THE LEADER. y [Saturday ,
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; THE BALLAD OF THE KING'S DAUGHTER. Par...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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U^Silsxxj^A Uf$O Tffl'qv'dj If Ib La S^&...
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 American family , while they do possess others which most decidedly and obviously distinguish them from all known types 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 may be 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 Asia 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 Jewish , —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 all true Jews more or less approximate . It is rare , in this part of the world , to find so close an approximation to this type as these children present . In fact , they are a caricature of the ordinary Jew . I except , of course , in this description , the recession
of the chin , which is especially excessive in the boy ; but then it must be remembered that the children are eases of malformation and arrested growth—that they are idiots , in fact , and that the recession of the chin is a 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 au 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 Ncgroisnt 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 ( ale itself has been forced to recognise it , though , of course , indirectly . . Hence these children are descendants of the sacred * Kaaua , who migrated from the . " Assyrian plains" some 4000 years ago . hence Ijcprqsy was treated in Ixiniayti much in the same way as in Ancient . Jerusalem ; henee the Eastern character of the architecture , and so on
. Finally , I must remind those scientific men who have perceived in thes < children a now race , or a Mexican character , that on this occasion the \ have had for an instructor in ethnology and ardueology the ingenious coneocter of the wonderful history of Iximayiv 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 w'liich every observer may
discover instances within the range of his own experience —viz ., th f children often take predominantly after the father in features , while the take after the mother in temperament , as in complexion , colour and quali / of hair , & c . ( Sometimes the case is found reversed , the mother giving tl / features , the father the temperament ; but I have always observed that 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 m the 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 boy 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 .
836 The Leader. Y [Saturday ,
836 THE LEADER . y [ Saturday ,
; The Ballad Of The King's Daughter. Par...
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 J'oung 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 ij . The market cross , with its sculptured Christ , 'Mid the crush ami the trample stood steady and strong , The welded masses of voiceless folk As a sea at midnight rolled along . Booming bells as they struck the ear , Died away in the silent skies , Gossiping women were dumb with fear , And each gabled house was alive with eyes . But lo ! in the distance si shadowy file , They move to the beat of a lnuflled drum , The waves recede , as for Israel ' s irmrcli , And the thick crowd mutters , " They come , they come . " When the bier was borne by the central fount , She stood as still as the earven stone , Saying , " () King , behold my boy , His smile is the Dead ' s , and his eye is your own . " From my broad domain in ai true man ' s heart , From the home I chose of mine own free will , I give you my jewel to wear in your crown . " Then , snatching him back for one lust long fill
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 27, 1853, page 20, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_27081853/page/20/
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