The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1884-12-12

himself away on a ten-thousand-dollar
girl, and vice versa. Each wishes to
better his or her condition. I read q
few days ago Of o lady who said she had
met sixty girls this summer who would
never marry because they thought they
could not wed a large quantity Of mon
ey. Isn't it ridiculous? Yes, society
IS getting into o strange state, and /
sigh for these good old days when love
in a cottage was quite enough for the
young people. Love is the only source
OF true happiness, and these money
matches cause more unhappiness than
anything else in the world"
THE FAMILY IN THE CENSUS.
Interesting Facts Cleaned From the Gem
sus Tables.
The Current.
One Of the most instructive, consis-
tent and reliable tables supplied by the
census of 1880 is that showing the ave-
rage size of families in the United
States, and in each of the states, at
that date and in the three preceding
decades. 1t illustrates the effect upon
WIG h1tuAtl 1tlClGdSS VI our DUpulu-
ton, of the progress of settlement,
and of other changes of conditions.
1t points us to some of the causes which
govern the numerical advance of q peo-
pie. 1t shows strikingly the epara
tory forces which come into play upon
the heels of q destructive war. 1t COM
pares, succinctly, the history of the in
dividual family for thirty years in forty
seven communities, united under one
general government. yet in their inter-
nal political life almost as Independent
as an equal number of European States,
and embracing q greater diversity OF
soil and climate than can be found on
that Continent. The single paper upon
which this exhibit is presented is q con-
densed volume.
The number of persons to a family
n In 1850, 5.56; in 1860, 5.2S; in
1870, 500, and in 1880, 5.04. This shows
a steady decrease in the United States,
as a whole, OF 0.52. or about 81 per
cent. But the rate of decline was not
steady. In the first decade it was al
most exactly 5 per cent, or more than
half of the entire loss. In the second it
was 3 CLIO per cent, wilhelm the third it
further fell to q little under l per cent.
For the principal explanation of this
iuctuation we must look to the war.
The fact, long ugo established by statis-
%ticians, of the impulse given to the
rate of natural increase by great
cataclysms, such as war;, pesti-
lence and famine, is exemplifed by
a comparison among the several
States according to the degree
in which they relatively suffered
from the devastations of 1s61-65. In
the Southern States. which were the
seat of operations, Or which lost most
heavily 81 proportion, in men and pro-
perty, the normal strength of the fam-
lily, which declined in the first decade
at about the same rate with the rest of
the Union, in the third, from 1870 to
1880, when recuperative power first be-
gan to show itself, actually increased.
This positive reversal of the downward
movement does not, it is true, appear
in all the States of the late Confedera-
cy, but We may say, roughly speaking,
in avoidance Of a detail of figures,
that the check is far more marked in
each and all of those States than in
any of the Northern States east of the
Mississippi. In Georgia, for instance,
the family rose from 4.98 to 500. in
South Carolina from 4.67 to 4.93 in
Mississippi from 1856 to 5.93, in Vir-
ginia from 500 to $50 and so on.
Tennessee shows a slight loss, from
5.44 to 5.38, and North Carolina from
$40 to SIT; but Louisiana, Florida,
Arkansas and Alabama all show
heavy gains, and Texas o slight one.
In each and all the old Northern
States the decline is greater than the
average in the whole Union, showing
that at the South has been arrested
the tendency of the family to fall off
in number. There is a slight decline
of the rate at the North also, taken as
q unit, due, doubtless, to the same
cause. Some Northern States, on the
other hand, show an increase in the
rates, the average family in Illinois,
for example, being $40 in 1880, against
5.35, 5.43, and 5.1I at the three preced-
ing enumerations. New York, Ohio,
and Massachusetts,, again, have some-
what checked the rate of their decline.
The effect of the war in this regard
may now, perhaps, be saidt 10 have been
nearly discounted" That influence
eliminated, for the future-and for the
present as relates to those States which
so far as we have thrown out of our cal
culations-we must seek other causes
as governing the members of the house-
hold.
In the mining States of the far West,
the family at first was hardly known.
The "Forty-niners" we're as desolate in
their domestic surroundings, as the
builders Of Rome; although their dance
around q cast off bonnet was a more
decorous, if a less romantic, expression
of their lonliness, than the raid on the
Sabines. The California family, be-
ginning in 1850, at 3.77-say three
tifths of the average in the Union-rose
in 1860 to the very slight improvement
of 3.85, and then as society rapidly
gained in stability and culture, to 4.35
and 4.87 in 1870 and 1880. Mon
tana had, in 1870, even q hum
3.94 in 1880. We observe some
thing like this, in a less marked degree,
throughout the new states of the far
west; the solitary pioneers being gradu-
ally REINFORCED by emigrating house,
holds, among whom they we're them-
selves absorbed by alliance. The case
of Utah is exceptional. The average
Mormon family, thirty years ago below
the ratio Of the Union, rose steadily,
unaffected by malice, domestic or for
eign levy" from 4.@ to 5.O7 in the
latter figure slightly exceeding the rest
OF the country, Besides Utah, Califor-
MIA, Idaho. Washington and Wyoming,
are the only ones Of the forty seven
state. territory or district-to show
an absolute gain within the period for
which returns are gwen. The loss. dur