The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-08-16

Washington, Aug. LBS the negro
population of the cities of the United
States. except as it is recruited by new
arrivals from the country. decreasing
as n result of an excess of deaths over
births?
This is "a question that has been an
swered ahirmatively in some Of the
recent discussions OF the race prob
lem. bur i'm no case have statistics been
given lending to support the answer.
All that has been written on the sub
ject seems to have been based on as
sumptiol and personal observation
which WoujG necessarily betharrow in
scope. 1t is unfortunate that no abb
solutely reRble statistics bearing on
the question can be obtained.
In many OF the cities efforts are
made to secure accurate statistics of
births and deaths. The death Stats
tics are in many cases approximately
accurate. but in no case can implicit
reliance be placed upon the birth sta
tistics. The reason for this is obvious
In the case of a death there is a corpse
TO be disposed of and the public health
authorities require the filing of a prop
er report before it can be removed or
buried. There is no such way of com
pelling the filing of birth reports.
Many Deaths in City.
Such statistics as there are, how
ever, seem to point in the direction of
confirming the theory that the death
rate among cOlored people who reside
in cities is considerably in excess of
the birth rate. The vital statistics of
the twelfth census are the most relia-
BILE Of the kind that have yet been
compiled, but it is recognized and ad-
mitted by the census officials that
comparatively little reliance can be
placed on the figures for birth. They
are given for only those parts of the
country, and those cities, that have
registration systems.
The census office has able to check
the registration figures and supple
ment them to some extent by adding
together the number of children of
less than one year of age found by the
enumerators and the numbers of
deaths. during the census years, of
children under one year of age If
the enumerators had been able to
gatehr exact statistics under these
two headings the number of births in
the census year could have been ac-
curately reported.
Allowing for the imperfection of the
figures, when il is found that a great
mass of statistics, collected in widely
separated parts of the country, and
based on different systems of registra-
ton, all point in one direction, there
would seem to be justification for
basing conclusions upon them.
If this is true there is no doubt that
the negro population of the cities, if
not recruited by new arrivals from the
country, would rapidly diminish. Out
of fifty-siX cities reported by the cen
sus, in all parts of the country, North,
South, East and West-the death rate
among the negroes is found to be
greater than the birth rate in fifty
cities. The remaining six cities are
nearly all places with very small ne
gro populations, where the small ex-
cess of the birth rate reported might
be accounted for by an accidental fall
ing off i'm the death rate for that par
ticular year.
Figures for Boston.
There is no part of the country in
which the registration of vital statis-
tics is so nearly perfect as in New Eng
land. For this reason the figures for
Boston are particularly interesting,
They show that during the census year
there were 1891 births and l1,277
deaths among the white population,
making an excess of 2,714 births.
Among the negro population of Boston
in the same year the births numbered
240. and the deaths 327, making the ex-
cess of deaths 81.
In Greater New York there were &c.
164 births and 7O229 deaths among the
white population, making the excess