Alexandria Gazette

The floor of the Tabernacle was completely occupied on Thursday night to listen to a demonstration from Dr. McElheran on "the physiognomy of the American race."

Upwards of one hundred large cartoons of the human head and face were cleverly used in support of his position that the strongly marked Yankee physiognomy is absolutely and purely Celtic. Great interest and laughter was excited. A sketch of a Paddy with his short pipe and battered hat was unmistakable. The Doctor removed his pipe, clapped on him a goatee and, presto, he was a Frenchman. Away with the beard and his military cap, and there stood revealed the noble features and brow of Washington. So the resemblance of Henry Clay was made out of a drawing of an old Irishman—the long oval head of Napoleon the third, of Palmerston and Russell were similarly elicited. And an undoubted old Welshman started up into a Southern planter. Some hideous Anglo-Saxon faces were drawn from the colliery districts in England: correct, certainly. He showed that there never was an Anglo-Saxon who had a head and face that could be mistaken for that of the Celtic Emmett or Daniel O'Connell. He maintained that the Virginians are all Celts, not Saxons: that their progenitors came from the South and West of England, the neighborhood of Wales. The Anglo-Saxon head and face, said he, are those of the North American Indian, bating the color; and the resemblance between the lower class peasantry of the mining districts and the Indian physiognomy is certainly striking. He observed that climate alters some things, but not the type. The lecture gave great satisfaction.—New York Times.