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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



Table III. Proportion of the Congenitally Deaf who have Deaf -Mute Relatives. 



These tables show that, of 2,262 congenital deaf-mutes, more than 

 half are known to have had deaf-mute relatives, and that, even in the 

 case of those pupils who become deaf from apparently accidental 

 causes, more than 13 per cent had other members of their families deaf 

 and dumb. 



In answer to the second question, Do deaf-mutes marry ? Professor 

 Bell gives a number of tables, one of which shows that, out of 1,259 

 pupils at the American Asylum and the Illinois Institution who were 

 born before 1840, 571, or nearly balf (45"4 per cent), are recorded 

 as married. The records for later years show a much smaller num- 

 ber of marriages in proportion to the total number of pupils ; but 

 this would necessarily be the case, because most of them are as yet 

 children. 



In order to determine how many of this 45 per cent of deaf per- 

 sons who marry chose deaf-mutes for their partners, Professor Bell has 

 compiled the following table from the records of five of our largest 

 institutions for the deaf and dumb : 



Table IV. Proportion of the Deaf and Dumb who marry Deaf- Mutes. 



This shows that nearly 80 per cent of the deaf-mutes who marry 

 at all marry deaf persons ; but it does not follow that 80 per cent of 

 the marriages were between deaf persons, for it is probable that nearly 

 all of the 856 pupils who married deaf persons married pupils, so that 

 there may possibly have been only 428 weddings ; while the 1,089 

 minus 856, which equals 233 who married hearing persons, may repre- 

 sent only 233 weddings, so tbat, out of 661 marriages, only 428, or 65 



