in the United States in Fifty Years. 21 



The males of the whole white population exceeded the females 

 in the proportion of 100 to 95.3, but there is great diversity in the 

 proportion between the sexes at different ages. Thus, 

 Of those under ten years of age,* the proportion of ( 



r c 100 to 94.9 



males to females was as 



" between ten and sixteen " 94.3 



" between sixteen and twenty-six . . . " 102.1 

 " between twenty-six and forty-five . . " 95.4 



" over forty-five " 94.5 



It appears from the preceding statement, that, notwithstanding 

 the greater number of males born, yet from the greater number 

 also who go abroad as travellers or seafaring men, or who die from 

 casualties, the females between sixteen and twenty-six exceed the 

 males between the same ages; and it may be presumed that they 

 would maintain the excess in the after periods of life, but for the 

 foreign emigrants, who consisted, at that time, far more of males 

 than females. The small gain of the males on the females between 

 ten and sixteen is probably to be referred to the same cause ; 

 though a part may be ascribed perhaps to the greater mortality of 

 females at that period of life. 



Although in every State of the Union the males under ten, and 

 between that age and sixteen, exceed the females, yet in the subse- 

 quent ages there is a great diversity among the States. In all the 

 New England States, except Vermont, the excess of females over six- 

 teen is so great as to outweigh the excess of males under sixteen, 

 whereby the whole number of females exceeds that of males, thus : 

 In Maine the white males were 74,069, the females 76,832 



In Vermont, however, the males of every age exceed the females. 

 This diversity is doubtless owing principally to the seafaring ha- 

 bits of the people in the five first-mentioned States, and partly to 

 the great number of emigrants which they send forth to the States 

 south and west of them, who are or were mostly males. Vermont, 



* Dr. Seybert, in his Statistics, p. 44, states, that of the persons under ten, the females 

 exceeded the males. It is due however to him to remark, that while his computations 

 appear to be accurate, according to the data he possessed, he has often been misled by 

 the errors in the first publications of the first and second census, which a more careful 

 revision of their returns has subsequently shown. 



