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6 As I was going to America to see the Americans I took the
first opportunity which presented itself- that of the voyage to America- for weighing & measuring the specimens of that very compound race who happened to be on board the ship in which I was sailing. About half the Passengers, forty five in all, were of German extraction; & about half of this half were of the Hebrew persuasion. One young fellow among these latter, who I suppose might be regarded as a representative of the broad Synagogue, delivered it as his opinion, that the time had come when the Jews sd give up all their peculiar practices which modern knowledge has proved to be founded in misconception & mistakes He instanced their abstinence from Pork, & from the blood of the animals they used for food, & their method of killing animals. One of these Teutonic Americans, a youth with such a width of shoulders & massiveness of neck & head that no one cd look upon him without being reminded of a Buffalo, was an Indian trader from the borders of Kansas. His practice was to give the Indians four dollars' worth of goods for such a Buffalo robe as sells in London for fifty or sixty shillings. It was his opinion that Indians were vermin which sd on every opportunity have a dose of lead administered to them. When asked if this was justifiable "Well", he replied, "they are a set of bloodthirsty treacherous skunks; & they must all die out,