There's an interesting article over at Neurophilosophy about ' the peculiarities of the Negro brain.' - Which of course don't exist ;) But in any case... I figured I would see what I could turn up in the NY Times before 1900. I didn't find anything that connected with the previously mentioned article (well I really didn't look that hard...), but I did find these horribly gruesome descriptions of murders which are gruesome on certainly more than one level.

The first is from Feb. 4th, 1854:

The second is from Sep. 29, 1852:

There's a great Flickr slide show with some brilliant LOL Philosophers right here.

Here's one of my favorites: