JF Ptak Science Books Post 1759
This pungent bit appeared in Punch magazine 8 February 1862, and was a vicious attack against the Americans (almost entirely directed at the Union North) in the second year of the U.S. Civil War. What Mr. Punch saw in "his" editor's mind was a "sinking" of the American race to the level of the "Red Indian", the whole of the nation reverting to some previous developmental state, far removed by their actions to a more primitive people, a different sort of "evolution"--in fact, what the spoofing (?) and chiding editors saw in the Americans' actions was a reverse of Darwin's theory. These same people were already uncomfortable with Darwin (at this point three years past the publication of the Origin1) but so long as using the book to a comfortable goal was concerned it seemed a perfect fit, a proof for the reverse of the Origin. As we see in the second short article:
"If there is any truth in the theory of the Origin of Species there may be an inversion of the originating process..."
Chief (and first) among the complaints was the blockade action against the Confederate port of Charleston (South Carolina). The "stone fleet" is incorrectly described in the wonderful "Science in 19th Century Periodicals" website as being of Confederate origin. The Stone Fleet was actually part of a Northern action, being a large contingent of ships brought south and sunk in the waters off Charleston Harbor in the hopes of preventing Confederate blockade runners from escaping the ring of Federal ships already present there. There were also a number of ships sunk off the coast of beautiful Tybee Island, there to be used as breakwaters and landings for Union ships operating just south of Savannah.
The behavior of the United States, so far as Mr. Punch was concerned, just wouldn't "do".
"SEVERAL scientific observers of late years have noticed the fact that the physiognomy of the American of the United States is beginning to exhibit a resemblance to that of the Red Indian.The barbarous act of sinking a stone fleet at the entrance of Charleston Harbour and the ferocity with which the permanent ruin of that port and city was anticipated by the Northern Press indicate an internal and moral change corresponding to that of the exterior Vindictive war is as characteristic as lankiness of features or a sallow complexion. It may be that when LORD MACAULAY'S New Zealander alter having visited London Bridge shall extend his peregrination to New York he will find the site of that once populous city to have reverted to hunting grounds their inhabitants hunting grounds their living in wigwams wearing top knots and mocassins and having their coloured faces tattooed. The representatives of the present Yankees will then be armed with tomahawks, rush to the tight with war whoop, scalp their enemies slain in battle, and torture their prisoners at the stake. Such is the level of humanity to which the people who have outraged civilisation by a crime against the commerce of the world are too evidently descending. Their posterity when about to go forth to battle will put on their war paint and even now perhaps the Government of MR. LINCOLN might supply a powerful stimulus to valour by issuing some pots of that ornamental material to the Federal army."
Later in the year Mr. Punch again addressed "Brother Jonathan", (a reference from Revoutinary War days to Americans in general, but more so during the Civil War, when "Brother Jonathan" and "Johnny" were both used...its also intersting to note the use of "Johnny Red" and also the appearance in "When Johnny Comes Marching Home") and again invoked Mr Darwin and the Origin, and again using the "Indian type" as the state to which the "model Republic" was sending itself towards, with Americans "descending to the very lowest place", an "inversion of the originating process".
"Thus Jonathan you see you are sinking from bad to worse from savage to lower savage and your manifest destiny at that rate of decadence is the zero of humanity."
It is a rather bad letter, brother-to-brother, so to speak., Mr. Punch claiming that Americans will descend to gorillas, "Apes with foreheads villainous low". Surprisingly (to me, anyway) Mr. Punch slips easily into very vile characterizations of other types of human beings in use by metaphor--these don't need to be singled out here but can be found in the original, below. And so the Manifest Destiny of American--"declared" or at least the phrase originated just 17 years earlier by John O'Sullivan in the Democratic Review in an article "Annexation" regarding Texas--so far as England was concerned was to be excruciatingly, intolerably, low; so low inn fact that it is the very proof of the stuff that the Origin of Species theory runs in reverse.
I'm not sure why the editorial cartoonist used the elephant in the hunt scene and how it relates to Mr. Darwin, though I guess it sends the overall message of The Ridiculous regarding the American affair, at least in the eyes of Punch--England still smarting from the Trent Affair, still newly developed.
Notes:
1. The title in full by C.R. Darwin, On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life, would stay so until it was shortened to The Origin of Species in its sixth edition of 1872. By the time these two articles in Punch appeared, the Origin already in its third edition (published in April 1861). In all of this, the enormously popular book was printed in not-large quantities. The first edition of November, 1859 sold out on the first day, and was printed in an edition of 1250 copies, of which about 1170 were for sale. Darwin was immediately put to work on a second edition (rather than simply reprint the first edition), and the work appeared two months later, in January 1860, in an edition of 3000 copies. The third edition appeared in April 1861 in an edition of 2000. The fourth edition appeared in 1866 (2000 copies); the fifth, in 1869 (2000 copies0, and the sixth and last in Darwin's lifetime came out in 1872, in 3000 copies, the largest print run during CD's lifetime. So, the most important book in the history of biology (?) sold a total of 13,170 copies or so as published in England by John Murray.
"Jonathan: Tis now some while since I've heard anything from your Yankee statesmen and stump orators about the manifest destiny of the United States. The destiny of your Model Republic, your go ahead people the freest and most enlightened nation on the globe which seemed manifest to those eloquent and impassioned patriots was that of extending over the whole American continent by the annexation the wise called it of your neighbours territories. The manifest destiny of the cup friend Jonathan is sometimes too confidently presumed to be reaching the lip but as a pra Tupperite philosopher has remarked a casualty frequently occurs between the one and the other so as to prevent the vessel from reaching its destination. The Model Republic that was to chaw up Creation and swallow the universe like an infinite Python or the Great American Sea Serpent is severed in twain and of its two writhing pieces each become an individual snake is now writhing and struggling with all the might of its coils to crush and chaw up the other. The manifest destiny of both North and South is to spill much more blood and become wus as you pronounce the word and spend much more money and one destiny which apparently if not manifestly awaits you is national baukruptcy and the consequent necessity of caving in. The ultimate destiny manifest to mankind at large as that which is reserved for you Yankees is not that of going where all good niggers go. I am sorry to inform you that the general opinion is that the applauders of General Butler will go where they will meet Nana Sahib. On such a subject however I will not be so presumptuous as to talk like Mawicorm and the Pope. But I may and must say friend Jonathan to judge by the way in which you are going on that as regards this world at any rate your manifest destiny a destiny in evident course of accomplishment is that of descending to the very lowest place. It has for some time been said that in form and features your people arc approaching the Red Indian type and I now find you exulting in the worst brutality of Sepoys whilst you also emulate their malignant ferocity in howling for British blood and whooping over British distress manifestly burning to glut your bloodthirst upon this country by way of return for our petting and pampering you humouring your whims and extravagance treating you with the utmost kindness and forbearance and making you every possible concession. Thus Jonathan you see you are sinking from bad to worse from savage to lower savage and your manifest destiny at that rate of decadence is the zero of humanity. But will you stop there Jonathan. If there is any truth in the theory of the Origin of Species there may be an inversion of the originating process--you know Degeneration is as possible as development and American citizens, if they go on raving blaspheming, murdering, burning, and wreaking foul unmanly vengeance may after having passed through the phases of Indian North and East Nigger Bosjesman and Earthman arrive at a point below M du Chaillu's Fans who eat their own kinsfolk. Jonathan cuts the throats of his already. The countrymen of Washington may decline into Gorillas and the future Australian traveller who sketches the ruins of Faneuil Hall may find them infested with grinning and gibbering baboons whose ancestors were citizens of New York. Your manifest destiny unless you return to reason is all of you to be turned to apes with foreheads villainous low You will be up a tree indeed holding on with your feet as well as your hands like the other quadra mana. Already Jonathan you have morally subsided to the undermost moral level. Take care you don't physically degenerate into a Yahoo. Shall I then acknowledge that you are a man and a brother? Oh Spare me the humiliation of having to admit that such a creature as that which you will become is any relation to..."
--Punch
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