TEE JEWS: FACE AND ENVIRONMENT 43 



In the former the excess is large, while in the latter it is small. This 

 is seen from the table given above. 



In Algeria, the only oriental country where vital statistics of the 

 Jews are published, the natural increase is very great. The social 

 conditions of the native Jews in that country are purely oriental. 

 Early marriages are the rule, and celibacy almost unknown. This 

 brings about a high rate of fertility; their birth rate was 44.67 per 

 3,000, with a correspondingly high mortality rate of 20.58. But after 

 all the excess of births over deaths is large, reaching annually 24.09 

 per 1,000. In European Eussia, where social conditions of the Jews 

 are more occidental, the excess of births is smaller, only 17.61; in 

 Austria, 16.63 ; in Hungary, 14.90, and in Eoumania, 12.34. All these 

 eastern European Jews show rates of natural increase characteristic of 

 eastern people. Proceeding to western Europe we find a different con- 

 dition of affairs. The rates of proliferation are low, owing to the low 

 marriage and birth rates; even their favorable mortality rates are in- 

 sufficient to leave a substantial excess of births over deaths. Thus in 

 Bavaria the natural increase was during 1900 only 4.60, while among 

 the non-Jewish population it was nearly three times as large, 12.6; in 

 Prussia the natural increase was in 1904, Jews 4.49, and christians 

 16.4; in cities it is even lower, only 3.70 in Berlin (10.24 among chris- 

 tians) and in Prague 2.59 (11.29 among christians). The influence of 

 social and economic conditions on the natural increase of the Jews is 

 well displayed in the various provinces of the Austrian Empire. In 

 Galicia, where the majority of the Jews live in poverty and want, and 

 are rigidly devoted to their religion, the natural increase was during 

 100, 17.92 per 1,000 (christians, 16.61) ; in Bukowina, where condi- 

 tions are about the same, it was 12.66 (christians,15.83) ; but in Lower 

 Austria where their social, intellectual and economic conditions are 

 much superior, it was only 7.69, while in Bohemia, where the majority 

 of the Jews are well-to-do and are socially comparable with the western 

 European Jews, the natural increase is very low, lower even than in 

 Berlin, only 1.35 per 1,000 (christians, 10.76). There are good rea- 

 sons to believe that in Italy, France, England and the United States, 

 the same conditions prevail among the native Jews. 



These conditions are only a recent phenomenon among the Jews 

 in western Europe. During the first half of the nineteenth century 

 the excess of births over deaths was equal, and even superior to that 

 of the christians. In Prussia, for instance, the average annual birth 

 rate during 1822-40 was 35.46; the death rate, 21.44; leaving an 

 excess of births over deaths of 14.02 per 1,000, as against only 10.40 

 among the christian population (births 40.01 and deaths 29.61). This 

 excess began to sink gradually but regularly, as can be seen from the 

 following figures : 



