character; unfortunately this circumstance in no wise diminishes the facility with which such opinions are formed, their prevalence, or the tenacity with which they are entertained.

The United States Census returns for 1850, '60, '70 make the average annual death rate 1.25 per cent of the aggregate population. The same returns make the death rate for South Carolina 1.21 per cent. There being no reason to suppose that these returns were more defective in the one case than in the other, it may be assumed that the ratio of these percentages to each other expresses with tolerable accuracy the comparative mortality of the two populations.

The following statement touching the same matter is derived from the census returns of 1860. It shows the order in which South Carolina stands among the other States of the Union in regard to the greatest mortality resulting from certain principal classes of disease.

It will be observed that this State, ranking then as 18th in population, ranked as 32d in the number of deaths from those diseases which destroy about one-fourth of mankind; and 29th for diseases destroying more than one-tenth. For the less fatal diseases, where the variations are necessarily less between different communities, her position was higher.

The comparison may perhaps be more accurately made by another method. If a people were perfectly healthy, and free from all the accidents of life, death would only result from old age, and the population would form an unbroken column from the cradle to the grave, except that if it were increasing, the base of the column, representing those under one year of age, would be larger than the other diameters, and if it were diminishing the base would be smaller. Of course no such condition of perfect healthfulness is ever found, and the numbers of the living at different ages so far from being represented by a parallelogram actually assume the form of a pyramid, with a very broad base for the early periods of life, rapidly diminishing as years advance, and terminating towards old age in a very slender and attenuated apex. Nevertheless, that population would be most healthful which showed the greatest

similarity between the numbers living at each age. To institute a comparison between South Carolina and the country at large, in this regard, the diagram on the opposite page has been prepared. The number of living persons at the five ages specified were obtained from the 7th, 8th and 9th United States Census, and their percentage of the aggregate population of the United States and of South Carolina was calculated. A perpendicular line, A B, was marked off in lengths corresponding with the number of years in each period of life from one to one hundred. The scale used was too small to show the relative height for those under one year of age, and this class are represented higher than it should be. The percentage of the population found in each period was divided by the number of years included in the period, and the quotient gave the breadth of the block representing the living of that period.

It will be remarked that while the number under one year old is greater in the country at large than in South Carolina, the decrease and consequent mortality from one to fifteen years is much more marked for the whole country than for South Carolina. In the working period of life, from fifteen to sixty, the numbers for the country at large considerably exceed those in South Carolina. This, however, is unfortunately not due to greater healthfulness, but to the large accession of foreign immigrants, persons mostly between those ages, very few of whom come to South Carolina. In fact, South Carolina lost heavily by emigration, the emigrants being largely of the working age, (see Chapter on Population). Naturally it would be expected that the greater numbers between these ages would give the United States a marked superiority over South Carolina during the succeeding period of life, from sixty to one hundred. It is observed, however, that such is not the case. The explanation is found in the exceptionally large death rate of foreigners exposed to the vicissitudes and rigors of the northern climate, where the large majority seek homes. This death rate is estimated in the census of 1860 as 4.261 per cent, for the males who preponderate, while the death rate for the whole country is put at 1.75 per cent., and for the white population of the eleven largest cities at 2.75 per cent.

It appears that the black spaces, which represent the dead, are less in South Carolina than in the country at large. Still they are of appalling magnitude, and if the health of a people be a matter of the first consequence it would seem that government, alone able to effect it, is called on to collect and preserve vital statistics to the end that some light at least might be thrown on this great darkness, so pregnant with human woe.

I.—The proportion of white and colored in the aggregate population of South Carolina is summarized in the following table, taken from the records of the United States Census;

II.-MARRIAGES.-In the 4 years, 1856-9, there were registered 6,537 marriages among the white population, estimated at 287,000, or an average of 5.71 annually to each 1,000 of the population.

The following table gives the ages at which each sex was married during the same period:

6,537 406 2,718 1,429 858 318 160 77 24 547

6,537 2,626 2,173

613 374 138 31 12 2568