tion is arrested, and either remains stationary, as in China, or sinks back into barbarism. In India, for example. the inhabitants of Malabar are divided into the following castes:
1. Brahmans, who are called Namburis.
2. Nayrs of various denominations; these are the rajahs or great lords.
3. Tiars,—free cultivators.
4. Malears, musicians and conjurors.
6. Poliars, who are serfs or bondsmen attached to the soil.
A Nayr may approach but must not touch a Brahman. A Tiar must not come within thrty-six steps of a Brahman, or within twelve of a Nayr. The lower orders have their fixed limits of approach.
Had these or similar castes existed in the fifteenth century, the art of printing could not have been accomplished;[1] and if Great Britain during the last seven hundred years, had been the field of similar castes, had her Peter been irrevocably separated from her Peasant, her Yeoman from her Artisan, she would not have advanced one footfall in that great path of civilization which she has so gloriously trod. It has been in proportion as one caste after another has been broken down, and as international hatred has merged into a unity of feeling, and of effort, and of intercourse, that she has led the world along towards new and important advances. Our own Republic, no unworthy offspring of that great Empire, has, in a great measure, emulated her noble example. Enjoying equal, nay, superior advantages, in a more various admixture of differently endowed men, comprised of, as our motto indicates, e pluribus unum, we have kept pace with our prototype.
From many nations—from the dogged energy of the Englishman, from the cold, abiding intellect of the Scot, from the fresh, buoyant spirit of the Irishman, from the keen analytic skill of the Gaul, from the far-searching, subtle genius of the German, from the mild, nomad aborigine, and, though last not least, from the all-suffering, the all-enduring, the all-surviving and ever-despised negro—from all these varieties of the human family, are made up the unity of the American People. The largest, the most frequent and freest intercourse of the most variously endowed men that the world has yet seen assembled together, make up the physical character and constitute the intellectual being of the American Nation. No wonder then that we surpass all the world beside in the rapidity of our growth, and the promise of our advancement.
Blessed furthermore with a territory the largest portion of which lies within the range of temperature most favorable for physical and mental labor; a territory, moreover, sufficiently diversified by geographical position,—constantly to reproduce variously endowed men; and having, in the Steam Engine, a means of keeping alive the intercourse between the various sections of this terrritory, all the elements of Progress lie within our grasp and must multiply with the duration of Christianity and of Union amongst us.
The only drawback in our prosperity is the caste which slavery has thrown in our midst, and which is chief minister to the continuance of slavery. The retrograde movement of States in which slavery and caste have greatest influence, compared with the advancement of other States comparatively uncursed with these isolaters, are abundantly known.
The destruction of this caste and slavery will remove the last barrier in the way of our national advancement: it is therefore a labor incumbent on every American citizen who holds dear the cause of Human Progress. More especially does this duty devolve upon the colored American. For the first time, within record of
- ↑ Petrus Ophillio Gernsheim, (then a servant of the first inventor, J. Faust,) an ingenious and shrewd man, discovered a superior method of casting type, and carried the art to its present perfection.—Lombinet, 1,100.
