The victims of the diseases of civilization do not
balance the casualties, &c. of a ruder state of society, as may be seen
by inspecting the tables of the rates of mortality for a century past.
"I will suggest to you the propriety of improving this opportunity for
setting the public right on one point, and that is the effects of
aboriginal manners upon the physical character. For my part, I have long
since ceased to believe that they are indebted to their mode of life for
the vigor, as a race, which they exhibit, but that the naturally feeble
are destroyed by the vicissitudes to which they are exposed, and which,
in part, gives them an appearance, hardy and athletic, above their
civilized neighbors."
_Erroneous impressions of Indians_.--Maj. Whiting, of Detroit, says
(27th inst.): "I dare say I may find many things which will suit our
purposes well. Something new and genuine is what we want, and the source
gives assurance these things all bear that character. It is time the
public should know that neither ladies nor gentlemen who have never
crossed the lakes or the Alleghany, can have any but vague ideas of the
children of the forest.
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