630 Sheet – American State Trials 1918 Volume X Leo Frank Document

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Here is the translated text as follows:

598. AMERICAN STATE TRIALS.

There remains but one topic of the evidence to discuss. Cases have been related and assented to by Doctor Mitchill, that where there has been a rapid succession of intercourse between a white and a black man, twins have been born, each resembling the respective incumbent to whom he owes his origin. Upon this ground, we are at length enabled to make a proposition which will meet the justice of the case, and of course, the approbation of the Court. It appears here that there has been a rapid succession of intercourse in the very terms of the evidence; but of the twins, only one is yet come to light, which is evidently that of the white man. The black man’s twin is not yet born; but if the lady be as slow in bringing forth as she was quick in conceiving, it will be time enough two years hence to look for it. Let her satisfy the Court that she has lived chaste since April 1806, and will continue to do so for two years more, and then if there comes a black child bona fide the fruit of our connection, we pledge ourselves to maintain it.

THE DECISION.

The Mayor: This is an appeal from the police magistrates. It appears that they were divided in opinion respecting charging the defendant as the father of an illegitimate child, and that the Commissioners of the Almshouse and Bridewell, acting as overseers of the poor, have applied to the Sessions to review the case.

The defendant is a negro—the mother a mulattress—and the child has the hair and most of the features of a white, the color indeed somewhat darker, but lighter than most of the generality of mulattoes.

The oath of the woman is positive as to the father; and it is not pretended by the defendant that he has not been connected with her; but he relies upon the appearance of the child to destroy the evidence of the mother.

This case, involving a most important question in physiology, has been reviewed by the most respectable medical gentlemen in the city.

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