many of the so-called Ladies' Journals published in England and America
advertisements appear regularly vaunting chemical preparations for the
disguising of the odour of perspiration which, it is alleged, mars the
attractiveness of women. If this is so it would seem that the nostrils
of the modern European are rather too easily offended by the natural
smell of his kind. However this may be there is no evidence for
believing that the African's bodily smell is more animal-like than that
of any other race.

If there is one thing which the white man of South Africa is sure about
it is the comparative thickness of the "nigger skull," but this notion
also would appear to be one of the many which have no foundation in
fact.

The opinion of medical men, based upon actual observation and
measurement, is to the effect that there is no evidence to support the
contention that the Native skull is thicker than that of the
European.[5] That the thick, woolly hair of the Native may account for
his supposed comparative invulnerability to head injuries has not
occurred to the layman observer who is more often given to vehement
assertion than to careful enquiry.

The supposed arrest of the brain of the Bantu at the age of puberty
owing to the closing of the sutures of the skull at an earlier age than
happens with Europeans is another popular notion for which a sort of
pseudo-scientific authority may be quoted from encyclopædias and old
books of travel. The opinion of modern authorities on this subject is
that those who say that the closure of the sutures of the skull
determines brain growth would or should also say that the cart pulls the
horse, for, if the sutures of the Native skull close at a somewhat