large? Luckily the census of 1880 gives a complete answer to
this question. The death rate of the United States in 1880 was 15.09 per
1000; South Carolina 15.80; Alabama 14.20; Mississippi 12.89; Georgia
13.97; Massachusetts 18.59; New York 17.38; Pennsylvania 14.92; New
Jersey 16.33. This shows plainly that the Southern states with the
largest Negro contingent do not show any higher death rate than the
Northern states where the Negro is not a considerable factor. There is
no evidence, certainly none brought forward by the author, to show that
the death rate of the Negro in the country at large is much in excess of
that of the whites. "In the rural districts the mortality of the Negro
is not excessive; it is in the cities and towns where he is brought into
close contact with the evils and vices of civilization that he dies so
rapidly."[24]

3. Is the death rate, even in the cities, so great as to foreshadow
extinction? Nothing is great or small except by comparison. The death
rate among the Negroes in the large cities at present is not as great as
it was among the whites forty years ago; that is, if we may rely upon
the statistics which Mr. Hoffman himself has presented.

_Mortality among Whites in Southern Cities._[25]

City. Period. Death rate.

Mobile, Ala. 1852-1855 54.39
Charleston, S. C. 1851-1860 29.79
Savannah, Ga. 1856-1860 37.19
New Orleans, La. 1849-1860 59.60

Under improved sanitary regulations these rates have been lowered until
at present they are not at all alarming. May not the same improvement in
his environment effect similar changes in the death rate of the Negro?

Let us compare the death rate of the Negro race with that of the Germans
as presented in the census of 1880.

Colored
City. death rate. City. Death rate.

Washington 32.60 Konigsberg 31.50
Baltimore 32.81 Munich 33.40
Richmond 28.48 Breslau 31.60
Louisville 30.73 Cologne 27.00
New Orleans 30.42 Strasburg 29.60

This high death rate of the American Negro does not exceed that of the
white race in other parts of the civilized globe. If race traits are
playing such havoc with the Negroes in America, what direful agent of
death, may we ask the author, is at work in the cities of his own
fatherland?

4. Does the death rate among Negroes show a