VI 



INTEODUCTORY. 



little less, being four men and three hundred and thirteen thousandths of a man per 

 thousand examined. * 



The value, then, of the ratios given cannot be overestimated, because without 

 them the whole work would prove to be practically valueless. The labor of com- 

 puting all these ratios has, of course, been very great ; over a hundred and thirteen 

 thousand calculations, in which the decimal was carried out four places, having been 

 made and carefully verified by the ordinary method and by the addition of the results 

 ob1;ained, which, if correct, would agree with a larger ratio obtained in another way. 

 A further statement of the labor required to bring the statistics into their present shape 

 may be di interest. For convenience in estimating, the tables may be put into six 

 classes, as follows : the first class consisting of Tables 1 , 2, and 3 ; the second, of 

 Tables 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 ; the third, of Tables 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15 ; the fourth, 

 of Tables 16 and 17; the fifth, of Tables IS, 19, and 20; and the sixth, of Tables 21, 

 22, and 23. To produce the tables of the first class in their present form, three 

 thousand five hundred preliminary tables had to be made. These preliminary tables 

 contained, in the aggregate, three million five hundred thousand sets of figures, or 

 independent numbers, and were condensed into twenty-four intermediate tables — one 

 for each nativity — which contained one million four hundred and forty thousand 

 sets of figures, exclusive of eleven thousand ratios ; and these twenty-four intermediate 

 tables were condensed so as to form Tables 1, 2, and 3, presented in this report. The 

 subjoined tabular statement, which recapitulates the foregoing, and shows the work 

 performed on the other classes, will give, with less verbiage, a better idea of the labor 

 necessary for the preparation of the statistical matter : 



It should be bonie in mind that this statistical matter does not relate to soldiers 

 already in the service — picked men, in no wise representing the masses — but to the 

 people; the men engaged in every occupation ; the professional man and the man of 

 letters, the trader, the merchant, the clerk, the artisan, and the unskilled laborer ; the 

 rich man and the poor man • the robust and the crippled ; in short, to the citizens of 

 the United States, both native and foreign-born, and does, it is believed, illustrate the 

 physical aptitude of the nation for military service. The tables in which nativity is 

 an element of the comparison show the physical condition of foreign-born citizens of 

 various nativities in relation to each other and in relation to native Americans, both 

 white and colored. 



' Sec Table 17. 



