occurATioNS. 565 



l-)arison with the otlier leading classes of occupations, agriculture has 

 suftered a decrease of four per cent., and this is the only decrease anj^- 

 where to be noted. In the United States at large there is also the same 

 decrease of four per cent, in agriculture, which, relatively to the num- 

 bers concerned, is much greater than the decrease in South Carolina. 

 For, while agriculture employs nearly one-half of the aggregate working 

 population of the country .at large, and double the number engaged in 

 any other of the leading classes of occupation, still the proportion of agri- 

 cultural laborers in the United States is not two-thirds of the proportion 

 so employed in South Carolina. In this decrease South Carolina follows 

 the general tendency throughout the country, and it might be said 

 throughout Christendom. For there seems to have prevailed with in- 

 creasing power, during the present century, a proneness among the popu- 

 lations everywhere to abandon the open country, and to flock to cities 

 and towns, and laying one side rural pursuits, to adopt urban occupa- 

 tions. England strikingly illustrates this tendency ; there, side by side 

 with the development of enormous wealth in commerce and manufac- 

 tures, has been a decline in agricultural prosperity to such an extent, 

 that, it is said, some of the landholders find it more profitable to lease 

 their lands to sportsmen for hunting and fishing than to cultivate them. 

 There has been in South Carolina, during the decade under considera- 

 tion, an increase in the number of independent farmers of 110 per cent., 

 while the increase in the country at large in this regard has only been 

 40 per cent. Among the classes engaged in 



PROFESSIONAL AXD PERSONAL SERVICES, 



a marked increase has taken place in Carolina. It amounts to 87 per 

 cent, on those thus engaged in 1870, while the same increase for the 

 country at large amounted to only 51 per cent. This class of occupations 

 shows in this State a gain of 4 per cent, upon the others, being identical 

 with the loss just remarked regarding agricultural pursuits. Clergymen 

 have increased 110 per cent., or at the same rate as the small farmers. 

 Lawyers, on the other hand, have decreased 46 per cent., there being less 

 demand for their services since the establishment of peace and good gov- 

 ernment in 1876. Physicians have increased only 14 per cent., and are 

 still 17 per cent, less than they wer£ in 1860, notwithstanding the great 

 increase in the population. This enormous falling off is due to the fact, 

 that the colored population are no longer able to pay for the services of 

 physicians, as they were during slavery. Teachers have increased 95 

 per cent., but this increase amoinits to only 49 per cent, on the number 

 of this class in 1860, an increase wholly disproportionate to the great 

 increase of the school population by the introduction of the colored race. 



