The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1891-03-23
MILLS ON THE CENSUS.
HIS FORTHCOMING ARTICLE ON
TIE ENUMERATION ( F 1890.

He Claims That the Percentage of In
crease is Out of Harmony with That
of Other Decades-He Thinks a Mis-
take Has Been Made, and Gives His
Reasons.
NEW York, March 21.-Roger Q. Mills
believes that some gigantic mistake has been
made by the census enumerators of 1890, and
in the February number of he Forum,
which will be published on March %, he
presents some fresh and interesting argu-
ments in support Of his position. He lays
down the proposition at the outset that the
announcement Of the population was gen.
uine surprise, not alone to those who were
looking for the dark side of the picture, but
to those whose faith in the census bureau
had never wavered. The increase which it
denotes of q. Sc per cent is, according to
Mr.. Mills, wholly irreconcilable with the
advance of other decades. He will saw.
From 1910 to 1860 our deem ial in
crease ranged between So .38 aud 1888 per
cent. At no period outside the war period
has our increase gone SO low as "a So per
cent. To account for this extraordinary
fall in the ratio of increase, nothing short
of war, pestilence or famine could be re-
ceived as at all satisfactory. Mr.. Porter
SAYS that the general law governing the in
crease of population is that ut goes on at a
constantly diminishing rate" That is true
generally. but not universally. From
1890 to 1870 the percentage was
35 10; in the next decade it was
36.3S. Here was an increasing
rate, not a diminishing one. =
In decades where the immigration is larger
the percentage Of increase is larger. and
- - 49, =
additions and subtractions by immigration,
wars, pestilence and famines are left out of
the compu alton, the inceease of population
will be by constantly diminishing rate;
but the rate of diminution will be gradual
and the proportionate rate of its decline
will be as certain as the decline itself. 1t
will not be volcanic or spasmodic in its
movements, as the report Of the eleventh
census shows it to be.
''In order that we may get nearer to the
law that governs the increase of population,
we should eliminate immigration from our
estimates. Its presence only tends to oh.
scure the problem and make 1t more difficult
of solution. In the decade from 1910 to 1850.
when we had 35H per cent increase, we had
more than q million of immigrants ia excess
of those of the preceding decades, and from
1850 to 1860, when we had 35.5S per cent.
increase, we again had a million more
immigrants than in the decade immedi.
Rtely preceding. But from 1860 to 1870.
when our increase was at the rate Of 2263
per cent, we had a decrease of immigration
as well IS a tremendous civil war. From
1870 to 1880, when our increase was at the
rate of 30.08 per cent, the lowest we had
ever had outside of the war period, our i'm
migrat exceeded that Of the preceding
decade by only 40, 900. Our Immigration
from 1870 to 1890 was 5,246,6l3, without in
Guiding accesslons from Mexico and the
British possessions since 1885, which the
bureau of statistics estimates, from Cana
dian records, at SAC, 900, making the total of
immigrants for the decade 5, 786,613. This
is the largest we have ever had in any
decade and more than twice as many as in
any former decade, aud yet tire
percentage of increase falls from
30.0S to 1885, Where does this
enormous shrinkage of population come
froms Certainly not from the falling off
of immigration, or from wars, residences
and famines, for we have not been visited
by any Of these scourges during the last an
years By 5ubtracting the number of i'm
migrants received in each decade we may
ascertain the rate of natural increase in
each. From 1920 to the present we have
the official report of immigrants, and SUBJ
tracing them from the totals in each de-
cade, we find that the rate Of increase in
each decade has been as follows: