The Warner weekly sun. (Warner, Brown Co., Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1885, 1885-01-30
TIE FAMILY I'm THE CENSUS.

One of the most instructive, consls-
tcnt 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
the natural increase of our popula-
ton, OF the progress of settlement,
and of other changes OF conditions.
It points us to some of the causes which
govern the numerical advance of a peo-
pie. 1t shows strikingly the repara-
tory forces which come into play upon
the heels of a destructive war. 1t COM
pares, succinctly, the history of the in
dividual family for thirty years III 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 a greater diversity of
soil and climate than can be found on
that Continent. The single paper upon
which this exhibit is presented is con-
densed volume.
The number of persons to a family
was: In 1850, $3.50; in 1860. 5.28; in
1870, 800, and in 1880, 5.O4. This shows
q 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 6-10 per cent, while in the third il
further fell to o little under l per cent.
For the principal explanation of this
fuctuation We must look to the war.
The fact, long ago established by statis-
t~icians, of the impulse given to the
rate OF natural increase by great
cataclysms, such as war, pesti-
lence and famine, is exemplifed by
q comparison among the several
States according to the degree
in which they relatively suffered
from the devastations of 186f-6b. In
the Southern States, which were the
seat of operations, or which lost most
heavily in 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 q 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 60 4.93 in
Mississippi from 4.96 to 5.93, in Vir-
ginia from $40 to 5.36 and so OH.
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 q 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 q 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 5 20 in 1880, against
5.35, 5.43, and oil 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 wa- in this regard
may now, perhaps, be saidto 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 fthe house
hold.
In the mining States of the far West,
the family OF first was hardly known.
The "Forty-niners" were as desolate in
their domestic surroundings, as the
builders of Rome; although their dance
around a cast off bonnet was a more
d~ecorous, if q less romantic, expression
of their lonliness, than the raid on the
Sabines. The California family, be-
ginning in 1850, at 3.77-say three
ifths of the average in the Union-rose
in 1860 to the very slight Improvement
of 1856, and then as society rapidly
gained in stability and culture, to Abs
and 4.S7 in 1870 and 1880. Mon
tana had, in 1870, even q hum
bier start, rising from 2.92 to
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 re-enforced by emigrating house,
holds, among whom they were 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
L a.~.. laxrx. - l.a.aA 90 - ( or - AIo