THE FUTURE AUSTRALIAN RACE.

West Coast Times, Issue 2741, 14 January 1878, Page 3

THE FUTURE AUSTRALIAN RACE.

This is a title of a pampnlet, written by Mr Marcus Clarke, in which he builds up a speculative theory as to the physiological develoj eirient of young Australia, feeginning with our ancestors, he asserts that Gain-bprbugb, Reynolds, and Laurence have depicted them as they, lived, .that «',jHogartb, Rowlatidsou, and G^lrqy have taught us, how to n cognise them, Lavater how to talk with them." Although these men and women were our ancestors, Mr Claike holds that we are no more like them as a race, than they are like the men and women of the Puritan days, than the Puritans were like the Elizabethans, or than the heroes of the Armada and the Spanish main resembled the feudal barons or the knights of, chivalry. As regards ourselves he contends thai; a considerable amount of sturdy Anglo-Saxon stuff exists in , the Australians, and that by immigration Bathurst, Ballarat, and Bendigo became possessed of the best borle and sinew of Cornwall, the best muscle of Yorkshire, the keenest brains of Cockneydom. He mentions that one has only to sail up Sydney Harbor, ride over a Queensland plain watch trie gatherings of a Sonth Australian harvest, or mingle with the orderly crowd of a Melbourne .Ciijirpce, to see that in Australia there is the making of a great race. After dilating upon what food, climate and habit do for Australians, Mr ' Clarke sums up the probable characteristic of " Our Children" as follows;—" There is plenty of oxygen in Australian air, and our Australians will have capacious chests, also, ccete7'is paribus, large nostrils. The climate is unfavorable to the deveippeinent of a stnimbus diathesis ; therefore we cannot expect iii'en of genius linless we beget them by frequent intermarriage. . . . For their faces. The sun beating oh the' face closes thp eyes; puckers the cheeks, and contracts the muscles of the orbit. Our children will have, deep set eyes with over-hanging brows ; trie lower eyelid will not melt into the cheek, b'ufc will stand out en profile, clear and well defined. This, though it may add to character, takes away from beauty. There will be necessarily a strong developement ot the line leading from nostril to moutb. The curve between the centre of the upper lip and the angle of the moth will be intensified ; hence the upper lip will be shortened, and the whole mouth made fleshy and sensual. , The custom of meateating will square the jaw and render the hair coarse but plentiful. The Australasian will be .a square-headed, masterful man, with full temples, plenty of beard, a keen eye, a Bte,rn and yet sensual mouth. His teeth will be bad, and his lunjjs good. He will suffer from liver disease, and become prematurely bald ; average duration of life in Ih'e unmarried, fifty-nine ; in the married, sixty -five and a decimal. The conclusion of fch'is is therefore that in another hundred years' the average Australasian will be a tail, coarse, strong-jawed, greetly^ pushing, talented man, excelling in Bwimmihg and horßeinahsnip. His religion will be a forth of Presbyte'rianism ; his national policy a Democracy tempered by the rate of exchange- His wife will be a thin, narrow woman, very fond of dress and idleness, caring little for her children, but without sufficient brain power to tin with zest. In five .hundred years — unless recruited from foreign nations — the breed will be wholly .extinct ; but in that five hundred years it will have changed the face of nature and swallowed up all our contemporary civilisation."