418 



VITAL STATISTIC?. 



Furthermore, the death rate among negroes appears to be much greater 

 in localities considered most subject to malarial influences than in those 

 less so. Thus, up to ISGO, the returns of the eleven largest cities of the 

 United States show an average annual death rate among negroes of 3.47 

 per cent. In malarial districts, as New Orleans, it was 5.82 ; in Memphis 

 it was 5.74 ; while in Charleston it only reached 2.0G per cent. 



Since this chapter has been in press the compendium of tlie 10th 

 United States Census has been published, giving a portion of the Vital 

 Statistics collected by the enumeration of 1880. The general results are 

 exhibited in the following table : 



Table A. — Percentage of Deaths in the Population of the United States and 

 South Carolina, and in the Pojyulation of the Upper, Middle, and Lower 



Country of the latter. 



It is estimated the number of deaths not reported do not exceed thirty 

 per cent, of those reported. The average mortality for the whole country 

 is given, when thus corrected, at 18.2 per thousand, as against 20.5 per 

 thousand in England, and 21.5 per thousand in Scotland. The slightly 

 higher death-rate above given for South Carolina, may be due to a more 

 accurate enumeration, or it may be accounted for by the preponderance 

 of the colored race, whose death-rate is always higher than that of the 

 whites. In this census these respective rates, as given by the enumera- 

 tion, are 17.28 per thousand for the colored population against 14.74 per 

 thousand for the white population. This difiference is chiefly due to the 

 diflerence in infant mortality. Both reasons above mentioned co-operate 

 to produce the heavy death-rate in the Lower Pine Belt and Coast region, 



