Vernon County censor. [volume] (Viroqua, Wis.) 1865-1955, 1903-03-11
LIVE TO frvE-scoRs.
Census Departments Figures SHOW
Many Centenarians.


The ready .reckOner of the bureau of
vital statistics in the census department
has finished his formidable task Of piling
up yeritable mountain of figures con-
corning everything about life and death
in the United States that anybody could
possibly desire to know under almost any
circumstances, and although what he has
TO relate lacks the charming form that it
might have in poetry or ordinary prose,
there is still meat for much thought and
speculation in the stately columns of bald
numerals that march up and down his
pages. One of the most important facts
that he has logically deducted from his
comprehensive material is that which
proves that there are more centenarians
accommodating in this country during ev-
cry decade. and the natural corollary
that the average length of life within our
boundaries is appreciably increasing.
First of all, we find in this report the
statement that there are, or were in
1900, 1886 persons in the United States
who are 100 years Of age or upward
This may not seem particularly impresc-
i've as an indication of growing vitality
when it is placed beside the item that
puts our population at 100000, but 1t
means something altogether different
when one is told that it gives us twice
as many centenarians as there are in
Germany, England, France, Scotland and
Servia, with a combined population of
1876, 100000
Incidental food for argument is af-
forded by further examination of the
figures in the cases of the foreign coun-
tries mentioned in this connection by
the ready reckoner, and In but one in
stance do they rob us Of any glory. He
says that Germany. with a population
of 100000, has 77S cen1enarans; that
England. with 32.000,000 has 1916: that
Scotland with 100000, has IS: that
France, with 100000, has 213. and
that little Servia, with only 2,230.000
people. has list of SO who have passed
the century mark.
Turning again TO our own centena
rians, we find that out of the 1886 al
most two-thirds of them are women, the
exact roster being 2.247 women and 1889
men, and that out of the 3,117 that are
native born 1,09S are men and 2,09S
are women.
There are, it appears, lis Indian CEN
tenarians two Chinese and one japanese,
and 72S per cent cf the whole number
are negroes-SS6 males and 1867 fe-
males. The ready reckoner of the census
bureau says, however. that a considera-
BILE grain of salt should be taken with
these figures regarding Ethiopian longev-
ity, as the older negro grows the more
vivid his imagination becomes.
One noticeable oddity in all~statistics
concerning centenarians is that showing
how steadily the proportion of the sexes
is maintained among them from one CEN
sus to the next. More than half of them,
too, are always colored.
OF the foreign born centenarians in the
United States, the census man sets down
a. per cent as Irish, 1874 per cent as
German, 81 per cent as Canadian, 6.6
per cent as English, 2 per cent as Jap
anese and 1 per cent as Chinese.
The average length of life in the Unit
ed States ten years ago was, according
to the ready reckoner, only thirty-one
years. Now, according to the same au-
thority, it is thirty-two years This isn't
much TO become enthusiastic over, so far
as the present generation is concerned,
but it means something to the child born
a hundred years hence, granting that the
same proportional increase continues.