Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-09-16
Total. $50


This shows gain of 23s boys on girls in
seven months, but while the rate is abnor-
NAL, if compared with that of a nation, it is
not much out of the way as regards Pitts
burg, where the births of males exceed those
of females, as q rule, about 200 q year, and
for the last month computed there was but
one majority on the male side.
Statistics kept up for q long series of
years in France showed that births were 81
male to 20 female, thus proving inductively
what theologians had been laboring for
thousands of years. attempting to prove de-
ductively, in an effort to show that polyg-
amy was wrong and contrary to the law of
nature. Science agrees with theology, that
monogamy is the correct thing
so far as humanity is con-
cerned and in a country where the
male hazard is not unduly great the sexes in
the absence of war will be nearly the same
in number, the normal excess of males being
offset by the ordinarily greater hazard of
their occupation.
MORE MEN ARE NEEDED HERE
This hazard is much greater in Pittsburg
and vicinity than through the country at
large, SO that 1t does not appear that nature
proposes either to enforce polyandry or a
life of single blessedness on the excess of
males born. Ordinarily women are not
killed in rolling mills, blast furnaces, glass
houses or crushed under wagons. They are
less exposed to the elements and conse-
quently greater portion reach maturity
than of males.
Pittsburg doctors, so far as they could be
found, did not appear to have paid any par
ticular attention to the present rate of in
crease of either sex. DR.. S. B. jackson
said he had not noticed the discrepancy, but
was inclined to think it was not abnormal,
merely a coincidence He said that at
births of one sex would be noted, but
thought on the whole there was no great
variation from the rule, which is a slight
preponderance of male births. In his hos
pital practice he had noted considerable
preponderance of male births.
Several doctors, among them w. T.
English stated that their4ine of practice of
late had not been obstetrics and in conse-
quence they could not say whether or not
the preponderance of male births was
noticeable. Young DR.. Shaw, of Penn
avenue said very energetically that he knew
nothing about the matter and opened the
tor to depart.
1t is said one East End physician has
presided this year at the birth of sixteen
boys, and in all his practice has not come
across girl baby this year,
WHAT IT MEANS FOR WOMEN.
Should Pittsburg experience prevail gen.
orally for half a century, women will secure
all the rights claimed for them by the uni
versal suffragists, as they will become so
valuable as to be the subject of sharp COM
petition. In 80 years they have taken the
places of half million men in departments
of labor previously considered exclusively
masculine. Except in the outlying country
districts nearly all school teachers are now
women, whereas 80 years ago there were
only exceptional boards of school directors
who thought women fit to teach. In this
country alone there are over 5000 women
engaged as book-keepers type and short
hand writer's, SO that even without
an increase in the male birth record, it be-
gins to look as though the time is not far
distant when men must turn themselves to
laundry, kitchen and other domestic labor,
or find some new field of operation where
woman cannot compete. 1t seems that
aged civilizations produce this state of
affairs, for in all old communities there is
an excess of women. Massachusetts has
been suffering thus for years and the wall
of the old maid resounds from Martha's
Vineyard to Fitchbu.g. In Europe the ex-
cess of women is also great, but there they
carry bricks and mortar, break stones on the
roads and do many other things that Mas
sachusetts woman would scorn to do The
Chinese overcome the difficulty by killing
the surplus girl babies, but civilization will
hardly reach that remedy in this country
T. 80 l. u
nation follow the. example set by Pitts
huro