Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 19.djvu/813

UNITED STATES. other divisions of States in which the females are equal in number to the males, and in the three States Montana, Wyoming, and Nevada the females are less than 40 per cent. of the total, while in Alaska they constitute only 27.9 per cent. of the total population. The following table shows the proportion of the sexes by nativity and color in 1900:

. The agricultural industry still continues well in the lead with respect to the number of persons engaged. There has been, however, a marked relative decrease since 1880, as will be seen in the table below. In the period 1880-1900 there was a larger absolute gain in the number engaged in trade and transportation, and in manufacturing and mechanical pursuits, respectively, than there was in agriculture. The increase in trade and transportation has been especially noteworthy. The number of females engaged in occupations more than doubled in the twenty-year period. The percentage of females engaged in domestic personal service decreased, while there was a large gain in the percentage engaged in trade and transportation. The following table shows the number and percentage of persons engaged in the different occupations in 1880 and 1900. The group ‘manufacturing and mechanical pursuits’ includes those engaged in fishing (16,177 in 1900). and mining and quarrying (581,221), in addition to the number engaged in those pursuits (6,436,594). The number engaged in mining and quarrying much more than doubled between 1880 and 1900.

. In 1900 there were 1,403,212 per- sons over 10 years of age who could not speak English, considerably over half of them being females. The majority, 1,217,280, belonged to the

census group ‘foreign white,’ constituting 12.2 per cent. of the total number of persons in this class. Only 0.6 per cent. of the native whites of foreign parents could not speak English. There were 38.2 per cent. of the Chinese, 61.6 per cent. of the Japanese, and 42.3 per cent. of the Indians who could not speak English.

. For a general discussion of immigration and its problems, see article on . The statistics given here are based upon the report of the Commissioner-General of Immigration for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1903.

The number of immigrants for 1903 (857,040) exceeded that of any previous year by 105,043, and represented an increase over 1902 of 190,517. Italy and Austria-Hungary, it will be seen, contributed more than one-half of the total from Europe. The aliens debarred during the year numbered 8769, or 1.2 per cent., a percentage greater than for any preceding year, with the exception of 1898 and 1899. Paupers and contract laborers constituted the greater part of the number rejected.

The following table shows the principal races represented, and the number each contributed to the sum total of steerage immigrants:

Of the total number (857,046) 102,431 were less than fourteen years of age; 714,053 were between the ages of fourteen and forty-five; while 40,562 were forty-five years of age and upward. Of all the immigrants 3341 could read but not write, and 185,007 could neither read nor write.

The following table shows the total number and sex of the immigrants and aliens who arrived during the fiscal year ending, June 30, 1903, and the countries from which they came: