376 The National Geographic Magazine 



Outline Map No. VI. — Number Colored Population for Each Colored Insane, 



Census it 



Ratio for United States 1,069 



Ratio for Southern States 1,277 



Ratio for United States miuus Southern States. 542 



negroes, not to mention idiots and im- 

 beciles, is already fully up to that of the 

 Caucasian races, with whom they are 

 associated, and bids fair to surpass it." 



*" The negro has been thrown upon 

 his own physical and mental resources 

 and has entered the strife for existence 

 as an inferior ; he is syphilized, alco- 

 holized, his food is ofttimes unsuitable, 

 * * * his surroundings are usually 

 unhygienic, and tuberculosis finds in 

 him an easy prey. No wonder it is that 

 under these circumstances we have in 

 our asylums an ever-increasing number 

 of idiots, of imbeciles, and of all types of 

 the dementias from the colored race." 



There are, however, some extremely 

 interesting facts relative to this in- 

 crease. The percentage of colored in- 

 sane increases rapidly as we leave the 

 * A Treatise on Mental Diseases. 



natural home of the negro and go in any 

 direction. In other words, as soon as- 

 the negro goes North and enters int& 

 active competition with the white, who 

 is mentally his superior, he succumbs to 

 the unequal struggle. So in Georgia, 

 where we find the greatest number of 

 negroes, there was 1 insane negro to 

 1,764 of the colored population in 1880, 

 while in New York the ratio was 1 to 

 333, or almost exactly the same ratio- 

 as for the white population. (See out- 

 line maps Nos. V, VI.) 



Then, again, if we take the Southern 

 States alone, viz., Alabama, Arkansas, 

 Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisi- 

 ana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South 

 Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Vir- 

 ginia, we find the ratio of colored insane 

 1 to 1,277, while for the whites in the 

 same territory it is 1 to 456. For the 



