482 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of the oldest countries to still maintain a slight increase. But, ulti- 

 mately, these growing communities must reach a condition in which a 

 very considerable part of the population will remain unmarried. 



Is it possible to change any part of this by artificial methods, 

 such as law or preaching, to increase the number of marriages ? I 

 think not. And, if it were possible, no matter on what grounds of 

 morality or expediency urged, I firmly believe it would result in a 

 decrease of the average happiness, and ultimately in a social degen- 

 eracy. Those philanthropists who lament with such frequency the 

 relative decrease in marriages may justly rest for a season from their 

 jeremiads. It is not the extravagance of women, the selfishness of 

 men, nor yet the ambition of parents and the dissipation of conteni- 

 poraneous society, that causes the decline. A decided majority of 

 those men who remain single till late in life, or permanently, are 

 among the most prudent and economical, often carrying both quali- 

 ties to an extreme. " Stingy old bachelor " has passed into a proverb. 

 The single man who follows some legitimate business is filling his 

 place in an old community as well as the married man. He adds one 

 to the producers. From this evil, if it is an earil, there can be no 

 artificial remedy in an old society ; it is to be borne as a necessary 

 consequence of the constitution of Nature, and alleviated only by each 

 individual's mental cultivation. This principle may also be modestly 

 commended to those enthusiastic patriots who calculate our probable 

 population in the year 1900. One and all, they expect the percentage 

 of increase to continue the same, which cannot possibly be. It was 

 less from 1860 to 1870 than from 1850 to 1860; and will be still less 

 from 1870 to 1880. The best places are seized upon, and population 

 must now go back and fill up the odd corners left by those who had 

 the first pick of Nature's wealth. The phenomenon of rapidly-grow- 

 ing States, like Illinois and Iowa, will never be witnessed again in 

 this nation ; for no such bodies of land are to be found anywhere west 

 of longitude 96. 



It is fitting that I should here notice one powerful corrective to 

 the natural tendency of polygamy in Utah the non-Mormon popula- 

 tion. It now numbers about 15,000, and includes at least four men* 

 to one woman. It is customary to divide the people of Utah into 

 two classes, but it should be three : the Orthodox Saints, the " Hick- 

 ory Mormons," or Liberals, and Gentiles. The second class consists 

 mostly of the native young Mormons, born in the Church, but almost 

 universally freethinkers ; for Mormonism in a family never outlasts 

 one generation. The Orthodox may safely be set at 60,000, still more 

 than one-half the whole population men and women devoted to 

 Brigham Young and the priesthood, and ready to go into polygamy 

 or anything else at his bidding. The " Hickory Mormons " are about 

 half as numerous ; and in the various proportions of the sexes between 

 these three classes is the most curious feature of Utah. The Liberals 



