National life and character.

  • Charles Henry Pearson
Date:
1893
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: National life and character. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    2. The census authorities of the United States say that the increase of the white race in the South since 1830 has not been effected by the aid of immigration, except in Kansas and Missouri. As, however, the whites in the South have increased at the rate of 17 per cent, while the average rate, independent of immigration, has been 14 per cent, it seems as if immigration cannot be dis- regarded. 3. The great increase of railways in the Southern States since the war of 1862-66 has been accompanied by an increase of towns as distributing centres, and has therefore been favourable to the growth of the white population. 4. Taking the Union all round, the increase for the last ten years—exclusive of immigration—has been 13*90 for the blacks against 14 for the whites. It is claimed that the blacks increased faster only when they were recruited by the slave-trade; and that white immigration has completely turned the balance since then. On the other hand, the diminution of increase among the blacks from 34-82 in 1870-80 to 13*90 in 1880-90 is so vast, even if we allow the preceding census to have been incomplete, as to suggest a doubt whether the negro population has been completely numbered at the last census. 5. Assuming the facts of the last census to be unimpeachable, it seems to result that whites and blacks increase in nearly the same ratio, but that there is in the United States a perceptible tendency southward of the coloured people. In this case the result will still be to make a belt of States predominantly negro. 6. If we reduce the increase of the whites in the Black Belt by 3 per cent so as to bring it to the normal American rate, their gain upon the negroes during the last ten years will appear to be very trifling.