the Board of Health of the District of Columbia. In 1876, the death-rate for the District was 19.54 for whites and 40.78 for blacks; in 1900, it was 17.03 for whites and 30.31 for blacks, the improvement being great for both races, but much greater for the latter than the former. In a recent year, we found the negro death-rate to be 27.56 in Baltimore, 26.93 in Atlanta, and 26.06 in Richmondexcessive, indeed, in every case, but diminishing. For the rural districts, unfortunately, we have no data.

In the following States and Territories the negro population suffered an actual diminution during the decade: Vermont (11.8 per cent.), North Dakota (23.3 per cent.), South Dakota (14.0 per cent.), Nebraska (29.7 per cent.), New Mexico (17.7 per cent.), Nevada (44.6 per cent.), Oregon (6.8 per cent.), California (2.4 per cent.). In the following, the increase was abnormally small: Delaware (9.0 per cent.), Virginia (4.0 per cent.), North Carolina (11.3 per cent.), and Kentucky (6.2 per cent.), in the South; and Ohio (11.2 per cent.), Michigan (3.9 per cent.), Wisconsin (4.0 per cent.), Missouri (7.4 per cent.), and Kansas (4.6 per cent.), in the North. The only territorial divisions in which the increase has been above the average for the race, 18.1 per cent., are the North Atlantic (42.6 per cent.) and the South Central (19.9 per cent.). The particular States where the increase has exceeded the average (omitting certain Northern States, and Oklahoma and the Indian Territory) are West Virginia (33.1 per cent.), Georgia (20.5 per cent.), Florida (38.8 per cent.), Alabama (21.9 per cent.), Mississippi (22.2 per cent.), Texas (27.2 per cent.), and Arkansas (18.7 per cent.). In Arkansas, Mississippi and Florida, the blacks have increased more rapidly than the whites of native parentage, but elsewhere in the South Atlantic and South Central divisions the reverse has been the case, the ratio for the two races in the former being 20.5 to 14.3 and in the latter, 29.2 to 19.9. "The native white element of native parentage has increased since 1890 relatively three times as fast as the negro element in Kentucky, more than twice as fast in Louisiana, and not quite one and one-half times as fast in Texas." It is an interesting fact, though bearing on another topic, that in both the South Atlantic and the South Central divisions, the whites of native parentage have increased a little more rapidly than the whole body of whites, showing the slight and diminishing influence of immigration in the South.

The greatest relative growth of the black population has been in the North and West. The percentages are, 44.4 for Massachusetts,

23 for Rhode Island, 23.8 for Connecticut, 41.6 for New York, 46.6 for New Jersey, 45.8 for Pennsylvania, 27.2 for Indiana, 49.2 for Illinois, 34.6 for Minnesota, 37.9 for Colorado, 45.8 for Idaho, 56.9 for Washington, and 36.2 for Arizona. From 1880 to 1890, the negro population of the States comprising the Black Belt, though by no means coterminous with it (South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas), increased by nearly 19 per cent., while the increase in the remainder of the South was only three and one-third per cent.; during the last decade the increase in the former territory was 20 per cent., as against 8 per cent. in the latter. Thus, it will be seen that the negro is still moving in two directions, southward into the low, moist, hot, cotton- and sugarraising lands, and northward into the cities, but apparently the southward movement is less brisk, and the northward more so than formerly. How unequally the blacks are distributed through the South may be seen in the fact that in 1890, Graham County, North Carolina, had only one black to every 125 whites, while Beaufort County, South Carolina, had almost twelve negroes to each white.

It is also interesting to know that during the last decade the Japanese have increased, in the United States proper, from 2,039 to 24,326, and in Hawaii from 12,360 to 61,111, or 497.2 per cent., while the Chinese have diminished from 107,488 to 89,863 on the continent, though they have increased in Hawaii from 15,301 to 25.767-a net loss of 6.1 per cent. The Indians have also suffered a loss of 2.5 per cent.

W. F. B.

From recent

Government

The Immigrant Population. reports, we derive the following facts: The native-born constitute 86.3 per cent. of the population, being an increase over 1890 of 22.5 per cent.; the foreign-born constitute 13.7 per cent. of the population, being a gain during the decade of 12.4 per cent. Native whites of native parentage constitute 53.8 per cent. of the population as against 54.7 per cent. in 1890, and native whites of foreign parentage 20.6 per cent. as against 18.3 per cent. in 1890-that is, the children of foreigners have multiplied nearly twice as fast as those of native whites, and have made an absolute gain, while the latter have suffered an absolute though trifling loss, as a constituent element of the population. Those of foreign birth, however, have increased less rapidly than the entire population, the ratio being 12.4 to 21. The

percentage of increase of the foreign-born in the whole countryomitting Alaska and Hawaii-and of the several geographical divisions during two decades is shown in the following table:

Thus, in the South Central States, where the foreign-born population increased least of all from 1880 to 1890, it has increased during the last decade more rapidly than in any other part of the country save in the Northeastern group of States, whereas there has been a marked falling off in the North Central and Western groups. The unfortunate tendency to congestion of immigrants along the North Atlantic seacoast has been decidedly increased during the decade, the Eleventh Census crediting that section with a somewhat smaller increase of the foreign-born element than obtained in the country at large; the Twelfth Census with an increase nearly twice the average. The only States or Territories in which the foreign-born increased more rapidly than the native-born were Maine (18.2 to 3.3), New Hampshire (21.8 to 6.3), Massachusetts (28.8 to 23.8), Rhode Island (26.5 to 22.9), Connecticut (29.7 to 19.1), New Jersey (31.3 to 30.1), and North Carolina (21.3 to 17here, however, there were only 4,492 foreign-born in 1900), Oklahoma (472.3 to 405.2) and Hawaii (116.8 to 31.4), In 16 States and Territories there was an actual diminution in the number of foreign-born; viz., South Carolina, Alabama, Maryland, Kentucky, and Tennessee, in the South, and Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wisconsin and Nevada, in the West, and Alaska. It is interesting to note that in New York the relative increase of the native-born and foreign-born has been equal, and almost precisely the same as the average increase of population for the country. In at least six States, those of foreign birth and parentage constitute more than 60 per cent. of the total population; viz., North Dakota, 77.1 per cent.; Minnesota, 74.9 per cent.; Wisconsin, 71.2 per cent.; Rhode Island, 64 per cent.; Massachusetts, 61.9 per cent., and South Dakota and Utah, 60.9 per cent. As to the sources whence this immigration is mainly drawn, Census Bulletin, No. 103, groups together Canada, New

foundland, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Norway and Sweden, on the one hand, and Austria-Hungary, Italy and Russia, on the other, and shows that whereas the first group sent us 91.2 per cent. of all our immigrants in the decade 1851-60, and the second group only 0.3 per cent., the second group sent us during the last decade 50.1 per cent., and the first only 40.4 per cent. We may add that in the year ending June 30, 1900, nearly 70 per cent. of all our immigrants came from the second group of countries, viz. 305,769 out of a total of 448,572. And in several respects, at least, they constitute a less desirable element of the population than those from the northern countries of Europe; they are more alien in blood, in language, and in political and social tradition, they are more illiterate, they have less professional and manual skill, they bring less property, their religious faith is such as makes it more difficult to blend them with the general population, and a larger proportion of them have no intention of becoming permanent residents and citizens of the country.

W. F. B.

The School of Social Sciences and Institute of Sociology founded by M. Solvay in Brussels has recently been reorganized and formally connected with the University, and a pamphlet has been published containing an outline of the courses of study and views of the proposed sociological laboratory. The reorganization, however, has not taken place without some friction between MM. de Greef, Denis, and Vandervelde on the one hand and M. Solvay on the other, and the two parties to the controversy have united in issuing a pamphlet containing the statement of each side. The gentlemen in question, who have been associated with M. Solvay since 1894 as Directors of the institution supported by him, made, as they supposed, January 17, 1901, a formal contract, according to which M. Solvay was to contribute 21,000 fr. a year for twenty-five years, towards the support of the establishment. In June, however, M. Solvay issued new by-lays, creating a single director in the person of M. Waxweiler, and thus excluding the three original directors from the work of administration. The legal question seems to turn upon the one point, whether M. Solvay is bound by an agreement not signed by him but signed by a gentleman whom the professors supposed to be his representative. The practical result is that the socialist element will be less potent than it has been hitherto in the Institut de Sociologie.

BOOK REVIEWS.

Studies in History and Jurisprudence. By James Bryce, D.C.L. Oxford University Press, Am. Branch, N. Y., 1901. 926 pp. $3.50.

Every historical scholar has by necessity a large way of looking at things. A few of them, and all too few, have also the faculty of stating their conclusions clearly and with a just sense of proportion. Mr. Bryce is one of this number.

His spurs were won by an essay written as an Oxford student, on the Holy Roman Empire, published in 1864, and his studies in Roman law, continued through his life, have profoundly affected the character of all his literary productions. They furnish the thread which, though somewhat loosely, binds together the papers which make up this volume. Its title would perhaps have better indicated their character had it been Studies in History as illustrated by Law. He truly says in the preface that few English historians have dealt. seriously with the legal aspects of their subject. Only those of them who were professional lawyers could, and it is rare to find a professional lawyer who can fairly be ranked among historical scholars.

The volume opens with contrasting the Roman Empire and the British, that is, the British Empire in India. One principle is mentioned as common to both (p. 47), and one which at this period in American history has a special significance for us: "Speaking generally, it may be said that the English have, like the Romans, but unlike the Spaniards, shown their desire to respect the customs and ideas of the conquered peoples. Indifferentism has served them in their career of conquest as well as religious eclecticism served the Romans."

No Englishman has ever grasped the theory of American government as fully as Mr. Bryce. Yet occasionally he makes an observation to which it is difficult for an American lawyer to give his assent. In discussing the distinction between "flexible and rigid Constitutions," he remarks (p. 196) that our "Supreme Court has refused to pronounce upon the action of Congress in 'purely political cases,' i. e., cases where the arguments used to prove or disprove the conformity to the Constitution of the action taken by Congress are of a political nature." It is one of the defects of this volume that the foot-notes are so few. This is probably incident to the fact that