Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1890-09-18
Census S%nrprise.
THE aROwTH OF THE SOUTHERN
NEGRO LESS THAN THAT
OF THE SOUTHERN
WHITE.

WHITE.
baltimore Sun. 81 nj
The now census, as far as abstracts
of the population have beon given
out, is full Of surprises. In the first
place, it has bafled oil the %calcula-
lions Of persons OF a statistical turn
of mind with respect to the increase
Of population during the past ten
years. If the natural rate Of In
Grease had been the same that pre-
vailed between 1870 and 1880, we
ought to have had in 1890 a popula-
ton Of sixty-six millions. The new
census, III round numbers putt, it at
sixty-four millions. This loss of two
millions is attributed to the fact that
the natural increase among native
'Amerioan families has declined du-
ring the last decade. This tendency
of the native stock to multiply less
rapidly applies particularly to the
New England States. The census
shows that in Vermont the birth and
death rate were about equal; that iii
Massachusetts and Rhode Island the
increase was about II hall. If one
per cent, and in Now Hampshire as
low az sever thousandths of one per
cent. Indeed, all the New England
States have shown a remarkably low
rate Of increase since the a The
cause Of it, in great part, is attribu-
ted, and perhaps not unjustly, to the
migration of the younger generation
to the States West and South, but it
does not account for the fact that,
taking the whole of the States and
Territories covered by the census,
there has been a decline in the natural
rate of increase, az compared with
the rate of increase between 1870
and 1880. Stated in another way,
the increase of population from all
sources between 1870 and 1880 was
30 per cont. From 1880 to 1890 the
illcrease was but 81 per cent.
Another surprise is this. 1t has
been frequently assorted that the
c%olored population at tho South was
increasing so much faster than the
white population of that section that
it would not take many years before
they would be numerically so strong
that they would take practical pos
session Of some of those States.
The new census docs not bear out
these speculations. 1t shows that
the colored people have not increased
so rapidly as was anticipated or in
equal ratio with tho whites. The
census of Mississippi has not yet
been made public, but enough has
been a%scertaincd to indicate that
~ihiio there has been II large de.
crease of the negro population in
the central and hilly region of that
State and a considerable increase 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 relative de-
crease OF the negro population
Some of this decrease may probably
be accounted for by the migration OF
a large number of colored people to
the new Territory of Oklahoma. We
have II definite accounts as yet from
Alabama and Florida, but from,
South Carolina, which has scarcely
been affected since the war by any
increase from outside Of the State, we
find that while tho general increase
in the State during the past ton
years has been rather over nineteen
per cent, 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 in
crease in the white counties had
been at least twenty-five per cent
That Is to say, "the natural increase
of tho mh;fn nyor fbo hlooL ,,n,,I,