62 Progress of Population and Wealth 



given to navigation from 1806 to 1815, by which the number of 

 boys formerly going to sea, or on board fishing-vessels and coasters 

 being diminished, augmented the proportion of males. 



Let us now compare the proportion of males to females in the 

 different races, which we can do only under the two last enumera- 

 tions : /„ 1830. In 1840. 

 The white males under ten were to the females as 100 to 95.3 95.4 

 The free coloured males " " " 97.2 97.4 

 The slaves " " " " " 98.4 99.7 



For the greater excess of males at this early age, in the white 

 population, than in the coloured race, I am able to assign no reason, 

 unless it be that there is a disproportion of boys, as well as men, 

 among the European emigrants, or that slave boys, near the age of 

 ten, being put to work out of doors, are more exposed than girls to 

 accidents and diseases, whereby their original excess is more 

 diminished than with the whites. 



But why is it that the proportional excess of males in all the 

 classes has been progressively diminishing ? If we suppose that 

 the excess of boys over girls, among the emigrants from Europe, is 

 gradually decreasing in its relative influence, that would apply only 

 to the whites, and leaves the difficulty as to the coloured race un- 

 solved. The only solution that occurs to me, as applicable to both 

 races is, that those occupations by which the lives and health of 

 boys are more exposed than are those of girls, have been slightly 

 but gradually increasing ; and it may be remarked, that the excess 

 of males under ten is less, in the New England States, which are 

 most maritime, than in the southern and western States, which are 

 least so. 



It deserves notice, that in the slave population, although the 

 females between fourteen and twenty-six, in the fourth census, ap- 

 proach to or exceed the males, yet after twenty-four, the prepon- 

 derance of the males is restored. In the fifth census, too, of the 

 slaves between twenty-four and thirty-six, the females slightly ex- 

 ceed the males, but both with all those at both the earlier and later 

 periods of life, the males exceed the females ; from which it would 

 appear, that the diversity in their respective employments, which 

 takes place in the vigour of manhood, abridges life with males more 

 than with females ; but that in subsequent periods, the chance of 

 life is in favour of the male sex. According to the sixth census, the 

 two sexes approach to equality in the slaves between ten and 

 twenty-four, but at all other ages the males exceed the females. 



