BIZARRE VENTURE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 27 July 1925, Page 10

BIZARRE VENTURE.

EXP ERIMENTINII WTI H 11A BiES

GERMAN SCIENTIFIC EXPEDITION

All impending Get man scientific expedition into East Africa intends to solve the question; “Do humans revert to animal tvpes jt they develop without contact with other members of mankind?” While William Jennings Bryan in America is fighting out the batt.e against the evolution theory. Rudolph Requadt, author and soldier of fortune, intends to test out whether there is a counter evolution—or reversion to tvue —under certain conditions.

Before setting forth to Delagoa Bay, in Portuguese East Africa, this autumn, he plans, to go to America, hoping there to recruit one or two American for his bizarre venture.

Requadt will experiment on negro babies.

Until adolescenc € they will have no contact with others of their kind, and their every move will lie checked in the name of science. -

In a lonely spot along the coast, twelve riiacle-in-Afriea pickaninnies will be taken from their mothers’ breasts and completely isolated. Corralled in a little settlement, technically equipped for the unusual experiment and safeguarded against accidents and illnesses, they will be “devolution analysed.” Unlike the Simian Tarzan, they will not even have the companionship of apes.

Bequadt wants to find out if these babies thus isolated will develop a spoken or sign language, whether they will invent tools and spontaneously discover the pioducts of modem civilisation, or whether they will retrogress to th© stage of apes or the level of cavemen.

Will they lemain mentally and spiritually dwarfed? Or will they at least rise to the level of the F.ast Africans? The answer to these questions, Bequadt believes, will be of value not only to evolutionists, but to psychologists the world over. After that period of test these “specimens” will be brought into contact with modern civilisation and provision will be made for taking care of them.

Bequadt intends to establish his “incubator” colony on a coast plateau, separating tbe experiment station from dwellings of the scientists by several hundred yards. He has arranged for special observation posts around the baby enclosure, which will resemble the old American blockhouses. There, with the aid of special mirrors, dictaphones, and ‘movie cameras, the observers will la? able day and night to observe the babies’ movements.

A long, mechanical arm will be devised for reaching out and shifting the babies from time to time. 'The isolation of the babies will not mean neglect. Bequadt declared, for nh.vsioians will be present to see that tin, charges are properly Dented if ill -Iml properly fe,| (mechanically, however) when well.