Arizona republican., 1900-08-10

analysis of the Porto
 PORTO Rican census according
 REGAIN to age, sex, race, liter
 CENSUS acy and conjugal con
 FIGURES. ditions, portrays the is
 flanders as singularly il- literate. and so ignorant of or indiffer- ent to sanitary laws that they have failed utterly to acquire the habit Of old age" In a total population of J5S.- 243, as returned by the present census, there were 659, ,294 persons of 10 years or over. and of these 509 49S, or over v per cent. were unable to read. Of the whole population S3 per cent could not read, and, in order to match this percentage of illiteracy, the statistics of Guate- mala must be cited. The number Of children on the island of school age, which is given as between and II years, was 322, ,393, and only per cent attended school in 1899. While the illit- eracy indicated by S3 per cent is very low. it shows an improvement over past conditions In 1887 the illiterates formed S6 per cent of the total, and In 1860 they were over 91 per cent of the whole population. Persons under 10 years of age constituted 31 per cent of the total, against "A per cent in the United States by the census of lS9o, and persons over 45 years of age in Porto Rico were less than F per cent of the population. In the United States per sons over 45 years were over F per cent of the total, and the census bulletin says:
 '"This small proportion of elderly per sons in Porto Rico is an indication of the short average duration of life, caused by inferior vitality and un- healthy and unsanitary conditions"
 About 6S per cent of the people are rated as single, which is more than 10 per cent higher than in this country. and the abstention from legal marriage is even higher than the figures indi- cate:
 Yet the proportion of persons in Porto Rico lawfully married, under Spanish law, is much smaller than these figures indicate, for in the present census there has been recognized q class of persons living together as hus- band and wife by mutual consent. Un- der the censuses of the island taken by Spain all such persons were classed as single. and for comparison with prior censuses. therefore, this group should be add ed to the single. On that basis the Ter cent of single in Porto Rico bv successive enumerations has been as follows: 1860, TAI; 1887, 76; 1899, 7S.6."
 The census bureau finds the cause for this laxness in increasing poverty and inability to pay the fees" and also in the change in social opinion" regard ing the need for legal union. Porto Rico has 5e,S90 negroes, 3O4.352 persons Of mixed blood and 75 Chinese, making d total colored population of 363,S17, or B per cent, which is about the same pro- portion as in Virginia. The increase in the colored population between 1887 and 1889 was only 10000, or 1214 per cent, while the whites increased 114, ,493, UT nearly 25 per cent. The females on the island exceeded the males by only 5000, or less than l per cent, and the report says:
 'As a marked inequality of the two sexes is usually a result and evidence of considerable migration into or away
 
 so an approximate equality in the num- Der of the two sexes, both in the island as a whole and in its several depart ments, is probably connected with the slight amount of immigration, emigra- tion, or migration within the island. and also with the small urban popula- tion, since an urban population usually contains a decided excess of females"