448 



KEPORT — 1897. 



the number of children in Oakland, Cal., according to the order of their 

 birth, and found th3 following result : — 



It appears from this table that families in Toronto are much larger 

 than those in Oakland, Cal. There are 26-4 per cent, of first-born children 

 in Oakland as compared to 22-6 per cent, of hrst-born children in Toronto, 

 while fifth- and later-born children form only 22 per cent, of the total 

 population in Oakland, and in Toronto they form 30 per cent. This 

 indicates that the size of the families is considerably smaller in Oakland 

 as compared to those in Toronto. It is difficult to judge what the social 

 causes of this phenomenon may be. The general conditions of life and 

 the nationalities composing the population certainly have a great influence 

 upon the size of the families. In order to investigate this question I 

 have tabulated the Toronto girls according to their order of birth and the 

 nationalities to which they belong. The i-esults of this tabulation are 

 given in the following table : — 



Nationalities of Grandparents of Toronto Girls. 



That is to say, the percentage of Scotch, Irish, American, German, 

 French, and miscellaneous grandparents remains the same for all the 

 children, no matter what the order of their birth may be. There is, 

 however, a fundamental difference in the distribution of English and 

 Canadian children. Among the first-born children 39 per cent, of the 

 grandparents are of English birth. Among the later-born children 47 

 per cent, are of English birth. This indicates that in families whose 

 grandparents are of English birth we find a greater number of children 

 than among the other nationalities. The reverse is the case among the 

 Canadians. There is a decided decrease in the number of grandparents 

 of Canadian birth among the later-born children. This indicates that 

 the families of Canadian descent are small. It is very peculiar that 

 these differences are found only among the English and Canadians, and 

 that there are no differences in distribution among all the other nation- 

 alities. 



