Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1903-03-07
LIVE TO FlvE-SCORE.
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 veritable 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 ms
pages. One of the most important facts
that he has logically deducted from his
comprehensive material is that WhlcA
proves that there are more centenarlans
accommodating in this country during ey-
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 III
1900, 1886 persons in the United States
who are 100 years of age or upward
This may not seem particularly impress
i've as an Indication of growing vitality
when it is placed beside the item that
puts our population at 7G,0OOOOO, but 1t
means something altogether different
when one is told that it gives us twice
as many centenarians as there arc IN
Germany, England, France, Scotland and
Servia, with combined population OF
49,, 100000.
Incidental food for argument is at
forded by a further examination OF the
figures in the cases of the foreign coun-
tries mentioned in this connection by
the ready reckoner, and i'll but one in
stance do they rob us of any glory. He
says that Germany, with population
of 100000, has 77S centenarians; that
England, with 100000, has 146; that
Scotland, with 100000, has 46; that
France, with 100000, has 213, and
that little Servia, with only 2,250,OOO
people, has list of 575 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 1.2S9
men, and that out of the 3,117 that are
native born 1,09S are men and 2,O9S
are women.
There are, It appears, 11S Indian cen
tenarians, two Chinese and one Japanese,
and 1913 per cent of the whole number
are negroes-SSG males and 1867 fe-
males. The ready reckoner of the census
bureau says, however, that considera-
bic grain of salt should be taken with
these figures regarding Ethiopian longev-
ity, as the older Il negro grows the more
vivid his imagination becomes.
One noticeable oddly 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 i'll the
United States, the census man sets down
45 per cent as Irish, 1874 per cent as
German, S.4 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.