Smyrna times., 1890-09-10
WHOLE NO. 1910.
The new Census Surprises.

The new census, as far as abstracts
of the population have been given out
Is full of surprises. In the first place,
1t has baff1ed all the calculations of
persons of a statistical turn of mind
with respect to the increase of popula.
ton during the past ten years. If the
natural rate of increase had been the
same that prevailed between 1870 and
1880, we ought to have had in 1890 a
population of sixty-six millions. The
new census in round numbers puts it
at sixty-fOur millions. The loss of
two millions is attributed to the fact
that the natural increase among native
American families has declined during
the last decade. The tendency of the
native stock to multiply less rapidly
applies particularly to the New Eng
land states. The census shows that in
Vermont the birth and death rate
were about equal; that in Massachu-
sets and Rhode Island the increase
was about One-half of one per cent,
and in New Hampshire as low as seven
thousands of one per cent. Indeed,
all the New England States, have
shown a remarkably low rate of in.
crease since the war. The cause of it.
in great part is attributed, and per.
haps not unjustly, to the migration of
younger generation to the States
West and South, but it does not &C.
count for the fact that taking the whole
Ofthe States and Territories covered bv
the census there has been a decline in
the natural rate of increase, as COM
pared with the rate ofincrease between
1870 and 1880. Stated in another wav.
the increase of population from all
sources between 1870 and 1880 was
thirty per cent. From 1880 to 1890
the increase was but twenty-seven per
cent
Another surprise is this. 1t has been
frequently asserted that the col O red
population at the south was increasing
so much faster than the white popula-
ton of that section that it would not
take many years before they would take
practical possession of some of those
States. The new census does not bear
out those speculations. 1t shows that
the colored people have not increased
so rapidly as was anticipated or in an
equal ratio with the whites. The
census of Mississippi has not yet been
made public, but enough has been as
certaned to indicate that there has not
been a large decrease of the negro pop
ulatiOn in the central and billy region
of that state and a considerable de-
crease in the Yazoo district, it is not
believed that throughout the State
there has been a net increase. In
Louisiana and North Carolina there
has been both an actual and a rela-
tive decrease of the negro population"
Some of this decrease may proba bly, be
accounted for by the migration of a
large number of cOlored people to the
new Territory of Oklahoma. We have
no definite accounts as yet from Ala
bama and Florida, but from South Car
Olina which has scarcely been affected
since the war by any increa se from
outside of the State, we find that while
the general increase in the State dur
ing the past ten years has been rather
over nineteen percent, the increase in
the seven counties comprising the
black belt has been about eleven per
cent. Further comparisons, we are
told, lead to the conclusion that the
increase in the white counties had been
at least twenty-five per cent" That is
to say, "the natural increase of the
white over the black population in that
State has been in the ratio of more
than two to one. 1t does not follow, of
course, that there is not still an excess
of cOlored population in Louisiana,
and South Carolina, but it
indicates that the whites are steadily
gaining in natural increase over the
colOred race even in the States where
the latter most abound, and that if not
Interfered with the question of white
will in course of time
naturally and quietly adjust ITSELF
Baltimore Sun.