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and legs in an oblique position, must tend to give them that gibbous form which is thought to be peculiar to the African race, but which is often seen among the poorest classes in other countries. But I must remark here, as I have already done concerning other characteristics of this race, that, whether the causes which have produced them be justly assigned, or not, certain it is, that, in the United States, they are gradually throwing off this gibbous deformity of the leg. Many of them, of the third or fourth descent, who have been trained in genteel families, and have not been pressed by excessive labors, are distinguished by straight and well turned limbs, and by those easy and graceful movements which can never be exhibited where the person is crooked or deformed. And this change is becoming daily more conspicuous. On the other hand, in those states in which an extensive slavery exists, and great numbers are collected on the respective plantations in small villages of huts at a distance from their masters' mansions, these field slaves, living chiefly by themselves, and being, in general, dirty, ragged and badly fed; having, in consequence, little concern about personal beauty; and being urged at the same time by constant labors, and obliged, therefore, to abandon their children very much to themselves, even in their earliest infancy, the peculiar deformities of the African race continue to subsist much longer, and in a much greater degree, among their descendants than among those slaves who always serve near the persons of their masters. 

This fact, which is obvious to all Americans, serves to confirm the opinion, that many of the peculiarities of the African person, and especially, the gibbous shape of the leg, are to be ascribed to neglect, and the wretched habits of living of those savages, not less, and perhaps more, than to any direct influence of the climate on the constitution.*

The size of the feet, in the next place, although affected in some instances by climate, as has before

*It has been remarked by some respectable voyagers that a small gibbousness of the leg, and probably arising from a similar cause, is a pretty general characteristic of the aboriginal inhabitants of the islands of the Caribean sea. 

And in all the great manufactories of Europe, in which young children are necessarily very much neglected, there is always a large proportion of crooked and deformed, person[strikethrough]a[/strikethrough]. This is true also of many persons in all the classes of extreme poverty in that country. On the other hand, in the United States of America where extreme poverty at present hardly any where exists, except in a few hospitals and alms-house[strikethrough]s[/strikethrough],a crooked limb, or a maimed person is rarely to be seen.