50 Hattie Plum Williams 
born, and in 40 per cent. of the families, from ten to fifteen 
children.2° The average number of births was 8.0 per family.”4 
The percentage of sterility among these 265 women was 6.8. 
The only rate with which this figure can be compared is that 
given in a study of the population of Massachusetts where, among 
married women from 50 to 59 years of age, 14.8 per cent. of the 
native-born were without children, and 9.3 per cent. of the 
foreign-born.*? 
In these same 265 families, the number of children living was 
as follows: 
o children in 19 families ; 7 children in 27 families; 
1 child in 16 families ; 8 children in 23 families; 
2 children in 20 families ; 9 children in 11 families; 
3 children in 29 families; 10 children in 2 families; 
4 children in 46 families ; 11 children in 2 families; 
5 children in 37 families; 12 children in 1 family. 
6 children in 32 families; 
According to this method of reckoning, there was an average of 
4.7 children per family, or 6.6 persons as compared with 5.03 
persons in the whole settlements. While in 80 per cent. of these 
families, six or more children had been born, in only 37 per cent. 
are six or more children living; and while in 4o per cent. ten or 
more had been born, in only 1.9 per cent. were ten or more living. 
In 34 families, 12 or more children had been born but in only one 
20 In one instance a man of 34 married a girl of 14, and in twenty-five 
years she bore him eleven children, of whom eight are living. 
21 The average number of children in the normal American family at 
the present time is slightly above two. See Ripley, “ Race Progress and 
Immigration,” in Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social 
Science, XXXIV, number 1, 135. In Russia in 1896 the number of births 
to ten marriages was 65 or 6.5 children per marriage. New International 
Encyclopedia, IX, 804. Tables showing the number of children born per 
marriage are given for various countries and groups of population in 
Newsholme, The Elements of Vital Statistics,64-70. However, the method 
of computation is not known and hence the figures cannot be compared 
safely with those given above. Cf. also “The Fecundity of Immigrant 
Women,” in Reports of Immigration Commission, XXVIII, 731-826. 
22 Kuczynski, “The Fecundity of the Native and Foreign Born Popula- 
tion in Massachusetts,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, XVI, 158. 
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