Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 August 1885 — Evolution of the Red-Headed. [ARTICLE]

Evolution of the Red-Headed.

An habitual frequenter of the principal streets of the large cities of this country cannot fail to have been struck by the gradual, but steady, increase of the proportion of red-headed persons to the total of persons met. The climatic conditions of America are apparently favorable to the development of red hair, and there is more than one reason to anticipate that we shall become a nation of strawberry blondes in the not very distant future. The diverse foreign elements that are gradually fused into a new national character are such as corroborate rather than weaken this expectation. We have, on the one hand, the blonde type of the Saxon races, and on the other the brunette type of the latin races, with Celtic re-enforcements of both types. What is more natural than that the union of these types in a nation as in a married couple should result in a red-headed progeny. The red head is notably associated with a sanguine temperament, and the expression “red-headed and hopeful” has become a classical phrase of local political literature. Whether redheadedness causes hopefulness or hopefulness red-headedness is irrelevant, so long as the two qualities are found to be associated with a frequency that proves the existence of some sort of logical relation. Now the American national temperament is pre-eminently hopeful, and every patriotic heart must wish that continue to be a leading characteristic, as it is generally productive of a degree of energy that accomplishes important results. Our national hopefulness is therefore likely to be encouraged. The logical result will be a corresponding evolution of red-headed people, unless some strongly marked reenforcements should arrive from foreign shores for either blondes or brunettes. Fears of miscegenation are likely to prevent any darker races from making an impression, and there are no lighter races than those which have already entered into the amalgamation. Moreover, the tide of immigration has tqrned, and immigrants who find themselves noT’wanted here are going back and telling their friends not to come, so that we shall before many years have received and assimilated the principal ingredients that go to constitute our Rational character. The evolution of the red-headed, therefore, bids fair to continue with unerring heel and head of increasing redness. — Philadelphia Times.