Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

SECT. XXXIX.

OF DARKNESS.

As a due degree of ftimuli is neceffary to the maintenance of firm health, we now fee the reason why confinement in dungeons, independent of dampnefs, is fo injurious to the health of prisoners: and why the meaner fort of houses in this country, fince they have been darkened in confequence of the heavy window tax, have been obferved to exhibit a race of more pale and fickly inhabitants. Finally, why the gloomy chambers of the fick, labouring under afthenic diseases, are rendered more unwholesome, and acquire additional horrors, by indifcriminately shutting out the cheerful beams of day: and why the effects of all diseases of this class are in

The fact was repeatedly noticed in his different journeys by the philanthropic Ma HoWARD; and it is notorious to every eye, that the fervants who are stewed in dark chambers deprived of fresh air and the morning light, exhibit the most fickly appearance. It requires another How ARD to point out the evils inflicted by the governors on the governed, and to ftir up HUMANITY in the cause of suffering Nature; and, fince even a bad government is, comparatively speaking, a bleffing, to occafion it to be fo adminiftered as to make it the FIRST OF BLESSINGS.

creased

creased by thus imprudently depriving the patient of one of the most exhilarating cordials in nature.

"That the absence of LIGHT accumulates IRRITARILITY in the fibre," is fhewn from the following experi

ment.

I enveloped, fays GIRTANNER, the leaves of the mimofa, or fenfitive plant, in an opake body, fo that the air might have free accefs, while the light could not penetrate, and I found that all these leaves became confiderably more irritable than the rest.

Animals deprived of LIGHT, or living in DARK PLACES, lofe their colour and become white, as is obfervable in arctic animals during the long nights in the countries near the pole: I have obferved it also in the animals that inhabit the Alps, and which conceal themselves the greatest part of the year in fubterraneous dwellings. Mice kept in a cage in a very dark room produce white mice.

If we confider the complexion of different countries, we shall find them dark in proportion to the nature of the climate. In general it may be afferted, that, as we approach the line, we find the inhabitants of each country grow browner until the colour deepens into perfect blackness.

blackness. All EUROPE, almoft the whole of ASIA, and the temperate parts of AFRICA, are occupied by men of a fair complexion. All the torrid zone in AFRICA, fome of the warmer regions adjacent to it, and a few countries in ASIA, are filled with people of a deep black colour. If we trace the nations of our continent, making our progrefs from cold and temperate countries towards those parts which are expofed to the influence of vehement and unremitting heats, we shall find the extreme whiteness of their skin foon diminish, and its colour deepen gradually as we advance; and, after paffing through all the fucceffive gradations of shade, terminate in an uniform unvarying black. Thus, taking our standard from our own country, we find the FRENCH, who are more fouthern, a flight fhade deeper than we; going further down, the SPANIARDS are browner than the French; the inhabitants of Fez darker than they; and the natives of NEGROLAND the darkeft of all. The irritable principle in the fibre is alfo found to correfpond with thefe fhades.

In all regions the children are born fair, or at least red, and grow darker or black as they advance in life. The foft flaxen hair inclining to red, and the blue eye, denotes

denotes an IRRITABILITY of temperament, whereas the curled black and strong hair, with a black eye, thews a stronger fibre, with LESS IRRITABILITY.

Blanched plants lofe their green colour and become white, and are not then capable of fupporting a great quantity of LIGHT. In the white Negro, born of black parents, exhibited in LONDON, the hair was of a filver white; the eye had a ferrety appearance, and was fo impatient of the ftimulus of LIGHT, that it was almost in conftant action. Thefe accidental varieties in the human fpecies are properly called MOON-EYED, for they cannot endure the glare of light from the fun, and though they enjoy his reflected rays from the moon, they are not able to behold that luminary. The nofe in this white negro was flat, exactly resembling that of a black, and the lips were thick, and the skull prominent from behind. No doubt, therefore, remained of this woman having been born of negro parents*; and the perfon who fhewed

*She was at this time giving fuck to an infant whofe father was a white, but the child had all the appearance of a mulatto.

There is now at EXETER CHANGE a man, born of black parents, who is black and white, directly pie-balled.

Ift. Query. Would the TRADERS IN HUMAN FLESH feel fome conscience in felling this white negro woman?

2d. Query. On which fide would the balance of opinion preponderate with them with regard to the pie-balled man? 3 L

VOL. II.

It

it had atteftations to convince the most incredulous. This variety of the human species has been particularly obferved in three different diftricts of America. Their skin is covered with a fine hairy down of a chalky white, the hair of their heads, their eye-brows, and eyelashes, are of the fame hue. They are univerfally defcribed by all travellers as a race of low STATURe, of a feeble MAKE, and incapable of enduring the flightest FATIGUE*.

It is melancholy to obferve the pains fome white men have been at to reprefent the black race as a lower fpecies of animal, to confound them with the monkey; or if men, to degrade them into beings deftined by a benevolent and fuperintending PROVIDENCE to become the flaves of fuch as boast the names of Chriftian and European!

If they are uncivilized, it is you who have plunged them deeper in their darkness. If their country is unfruitful, it was once the chief resource of Rome. If barbarous in the extreme, you have set them a still more barbarous example. And if it shall be said, that the 18th century was an enlightened period, your deeds will be adduced to difprove the affertion. Vide Part 1. page 54; alfo note †, page 56.

* See ROBERTSON's Hiftory of America.

SECT.

« ForrigeFortsæt »