Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 64.djvu/556

552 the whites are more fecund, and the successive censuses appear to prove that during the three and a half centuries which have elapsed since the settlement of the country, the comparatively few white immigrants have multiplied at a far more rapid ratio than the multitudes of negroes brought over from Africa, or the Indian aborigines.

In 1890 an enumeration was made of the married couples in the city of Rio de Janeiro; the race and color of each partner was ascertained and reported, and also the number of children born of each marriage. The average number of children in families where both parents were white is given as 3.507, while the black families produced only 2.987, and the intermarriages of blacks and mulattoes, 2.908. Of all the children 75.2 per cent, were the offspring of parents who were both white, leaving 24.8 per cent, for children of mixed or colored blood. The total white population was returned as 62.7 per cent, and of the other races at 37.3. Taking the four races separately, the whites, numbering 62.7 per cent, of the total population, took part in only 6.9 per cent, of the marriages and only 6.1 per cent, of the children had one or both parents black. The Indians were 3.4 of the population and furnished 2.4 per cent, of the marriages and children. Those reported as mulattoes composed 21.6 per cent, of the population, but took part in only 13.9 per cent, of the marriages, which produced 13.2 per cent, of the children. Irregular unions producing children are reported as marriages, and therefore the differences indicated above can not be explained by assuming that negroes, mulattoes and Indians live in concubinage more than the whites. A considerable number of those reported as 'white' have a small amount of negro or Indian blood in their veins, but this fact does not affect the conclusion that fecundity increases with the predominance of white descent.

Leaving out the mixed marriages, the superior fecundity of the whites is still more apparent. Of the children of unions where both parties belonged to the same race, 81.6 were white; 11, mulatto; 5.3, negro, and 2.1, Indian, while the respective percentages of total population were: white, 62.7; mulatto, 21.6; negro, 12.3, and Indian, 3.4.

It is therefore clear that even in Rio, a seacoast city whose climate is reputed particularly fatal to Europeans, whites now show a greater propensity to marriage than the black or mixed races, and that their unions are more prolific. Comparative mortality statistics are not available, but it is probable that the acclimatized whites are longer lived than the other components of the population, and that this has cooperated with their superior fecundity in bringing about a more rapid increase as compared with other races. The various censuses of the city of Rio de Janeiro taken in the last hundred years show the result that was to be expected from the above figures. The percentage of whites increased from 45 per cent, in 1799 to 55 per cent, in 1872,