68 Progress of Population and Wealth 



is to be ascribed to the roving habits of the males ; yet, as this cause 

 operates chiefly with the young and middle aged, the increasing ex- 

 cess of females after fifty-five can be attributed only to their greater 

 longevity. 



The period between thirty-six and fifty-five, in the two last enu- 

 merations, presents an exception to the supposed greater mortality, 

 as the excess of females, which, between the ages of twenty-four 

 and thirty-six, had been as much as eighteen per cent, had, in the 

 period from thirty-six to fifty-five, declined from eight to ten per 

 cent. 



This single instance of a decrease in the proportion of females 

 might be caused either, 1st. by a greater number of males emanci- 

 pated than of females between thirty-six and fifty-five ; 2d. by the 

 return of a part of those males who had gone abroad before the age 

 of thirty-six; or, lastly, by a greater mortality of females at this pe- 

 riod of life. There seems to be no ground for presuming the ex- 

 istence of the first cause ; but the census, both in 1830 and 1840, 

 affords some evidence of both the others. Thus, if the free coloured 

 males between thirty-six and fifty-five be compared with those be- 

 tween twenty-four and thirty-six, the former will be found to be 

 only twenty per cent less ; whereas, if the male slaves at the same 

 periods of life be compared, the diminution is from thirty-five to 

 forty per cent. This difference between the two portions of the 

 coloured race, so greatly exceeding any supposable difference of 

 mortality, must be referred to a return of a part of the free coloured 

 who had roamed abroad. We are also warranted in attributing a 

 part of the difference to the greater mortality of women about this 

 period of life, because we perceive the same falling off in the pro- 

 portion of females between the ages of thirty-six and fifty-five in the 

 class of slaves, in which none of the males who leave the country 

 ever return to it ; and because, also, we have some evidence of a 

 falling off in the proportion of white females about the same time of 

 life. 



In the slave portion of the coloured population, there seems to be 

 but little difference in the chances of life between the sexes. From 

 the age of ten to twenty-four, the males retain the small excess of 

 from one to two per cent, which they had under ten years of age ; 

 from twenty-four to thirty-six, the number of females slightly pre- 

 ponderates ; from thirty-six to fifty-five, the males gain on the 

 females ; from fifty-five to one hundred, the females gain on the 



