Arizona silver belt., 1895-05-25
AMERICAN FARM HOMES.
Interesting Data Summed Up for
 the United States
Difference Between the Urban and Rural Population in tho Respect d Pro prietorship-R Race and SIX
 Percentages.

There are in the Uuited Sts tes l2,- 600, 152 families. Of these 522O sr cent. hire the farms or homes which they oc- eupy, while ALSO per cent. own them. Of the farms or homes owned ly their oceupicrs 27.07 per cent. are mortgaged and 72,0S per cent. are free iron mort gage. To put the facts in auothev way, let us take 100 families. We fint that on an average 52 hire their farms or homes, l3 own with ineumbrancc and S5 own without incumbrance, Of the farms and homes which are both owned by the occupiers and incumbered, the liens amount to S2,lS2, ,a49, ,56S, which aggregate represents 37.5O per cent. of the value of the mortgaged premises. The debt bears interest at the average rate of 0,G5 per cent, We should note, further, that many more farms than homes are owned by the occupying families. Thus, among 100 farm fami- lies, on theaveragc 84 hire their farms 10 own them with inoumbrancc and 47 without incumbrancc, Of 100 average home families, on the other hand, 63 hire their homes, 10 own them with in cumbrance and % without iucum- bTapce.
 Let us look next, says the New York Sun, at the difference between the ur- ban and the rural population in respect of the proprietorship of homes. For the purpose of comparison the compiler of the census bulletin takes the whole country outside of cities and towns having each 5000 inhabitants or over. Of 100 home occupying families within this non-urban region there arc on the average 90 that hire their homes, 10 that own them with incumbrance, and S4 that own them without incum- brance. We turn to the 42O cities and towns that each have population of 5000 to 100000 Of 100 home fami- lies in these urban centers we find that 64 hire their homes, and 12 own with incumbrance and 24 without incum- brance. Passing to the 2S cities that have each population of 100, GOO or up- ward, we observe that out of 100 home families, 77 on an average hire their premises, own with incumbrance and l4 without incumbrance. fin the city of New York no fewer than 03.67 per cent. of the families hire the homes they occupy; these figures may be com pared with those officially returned to Berlin, where in 1890 it appears that 96.65 per cent. of the families lived in hired homes As New Yorl, is the high ly congested part of large urban region what, for the purpose of this inquiry, may be fairly tcrr . the r~sater New York should be taken into consideration, In New York and ir nineteen other cities, each hayins population greater tEan 5000, and situated either in New York state or in New Jersey, all of the nine teen being by interest and situation virtually parts of the commercial me tropolis, SG.37 per cent, of the whole number of families hire the homes they occupy. This percentage, large as it is, does not greatly exceed that pre- sentcd by Boston, where 1t is s1.57. Next 10 Now York Boston is the city in which the fewest families own their homes.
 The effect of race upon proprietor ship is distinctly traceable in these sta tisties. Of white persons occupying farms or homes 5l, 4Sper cent. own their premises; of negroes but 17,50per cent. of Chinese and Japanese only I3.T3 per cent. Sex also makes difference The percentage of ownership is slightly higher for women occupiers than for men; the percentage of unincumbered ownership is likewise higher among women, whose instinctive caution leads them to avoid mortgages. We remark, lastly, that of the farm or home occu- piers who have both parents native born, 5i.GG per cent. are owners, where as of occupicrs who have one or both parents foreign born only 4S.S1 per cent. own the homes they live in, Mir. Wright cautions us, however, toremember that in comparing these two classes of occu- piers those whose parents were native born are older than those whose par. ents were born in foreign parts. Many of the foreign.born parents are not old enough to have children that have passed beyond the earlier years of life, and consequently large portion of their children are too young to have accum- ulated the capital requisite for owner ship.