railways was 2841.59 m. (2233.85 m. being first main track). The Cape Cod canal, 12 m. long, from Sandwich on Barnstable Bay to Buzzard’s Bay, was begun in June 1909, with a view to shortening the distance by water from Boston to New York and eliminating the danger of the voyage round Cape Cod.
Population.—The population of the state in 1910 was 3,366,416, the increases in successive decades after 1790 being respectively 11.6, 11.6, 10.9, 16.6, 20.9, 34.8, 23.8, 18.4, 22.4, 25.6, 25.3 and 20%.[1] With the exception of Rhode Island, it is the most densely populated state in the Union, the average number to the square mile in 1900 being 349 (in 1910, 418.8), and the urban population, i.e. the population of places having above 8000 or more inhabitants, being 69.9% in 1890 and in 1900 76.0% of the total population (in places above 2500, 91.5%; in places above 25,000, 58.3%). The female population is greater (and has been since 1765, at least) than the male, the percentage being in 1900 greater than in any other state of the Union (51.3%; District of Columbia, owing to clerks in government service 52.6%). In 1900 less than 1.3% of the population was coloured; 30.2% were foreign-born (this element having almost continuously risen from 16.49% in 1855), and 62.3% of all inhabitants and 46.5% of those native-born had one or both parents of foreign birth. Ireland contributed the largest proportion of the foreign-born (29.5%), although since 1875 the proportion of Irish in the total population has considerably fallen. After the Irish the leading foreign elements are Canadian English (18.7%), Canadian French (15.8%) and English (9.7%), these four constituting three-fourths of the foreign population. Since 1885 the natives of southern Italy have greatly increased in number. Of the increase in total population from 1856–1895 only a third could be attributed to the excess of births over deaths; two-thirds being due to immigration from other states or from abroad. Boston is the second immigrant port of the country. A large part of the transatlantic immigrants pass speedily to permanent homes in the west, but by far the greater part of the Canadian influx remains.
According to the census of 1910 there were 32 incorporated cities[2] in Massachusetts, of which 6 had between 12,000 and 20,000 inhabitants; 3 between 20,000 and 25,000 (Gloucester, Medford and North Adams); 11 between 25,000 and 50,000 (Maiden, Haverhill, Salem, Newton, Fitchburg, Taunton, Everett, Quincy, Pittsfield, Waltham, Chicopee); 7 between 50,000 and 100,000 (New Bedford, Lynn, Springfield, Lawrence, Somerville, Holyoke, Brockton); and 5 more than 100,000 (Boston, 670,585; Worcester, 145,986; Fall River, 119,295; Lowell, 106,294; Cambridge, 104,839).
Taking quinquennial periods from 1856–1905 the birth-rates were 29.5, 25.3, 26.0, 27.6, 24.2, 25.0, 25.8, 27.6, 27.0 and 24.2 per 1,000; and the death-rates 17.7, 20.7, 18.2, 20.8, 18.8, 19.8, 19.4, 19.8, 18.0 and 16.4.[3] Pneumonia and consumption, approximately of equal fatality (15 to 18 per 10,000 each), exceed more than twofold the diseases of next lower fatality, cancer and cholera infantum.
Of males (1,097,581) engaged in 1900 in gainful occupations 47.1% were engaged in manufacturing and mechanical pursuits (77.9 in every 100 in 1870 and 73 in 1900), 27.1 in trade and transportation, 14.2 in domestic and personal service, 7.4 in agricultural pursuits and 4.2 in professional service. The corresponding percentages for females (1,169,467) were 46.4 in manufacturing (in 1890, 52%), 32.3 in domestic and personal service, 13.6 in trade and transportation, 7.1 in professional service and 0.6 in agriculture. Formerly farmers’ daughters of native stock were much employed in factories; but since operatives of foreign birth or parentage have in great part taken their places, they have sought other occupations, largely in the manufacture of small wares in the cities, and particularly in departments of trade where skilled labour is essential. Household service is seldom now done, as it formerly was, by women of native stock. The federal census of 1900 showed that of every 100 persons employed for gain only 37.5% were of native descent (that is, had a native-born father). Natives heavily predominated in agriculture and the professions, slightly in trade, and held barely more than half of all governmental positions; but in transportation, personal service, manufactures, labour and domestic service, the predominance of the foreign element warranted the assertion of the state Bureau of Statistics of Labour that “the strong industrial condition of Massachusetts has been secured and is held not by the labour of what is called the ‘native stock,’ but by that of the immigrants.” After the original and exclusively English immigration from 1620 to 1640 there was nothing like regular foreign immigration until the 19th century; and it was a favourite assertion of Dr Palfrey that the blood of the fishing folk on Cape Cod was more purely English through two centuries than that of the inhabitants of any English county.
With foreign immigration the strength of the Roman Catholic Church has greatly increased: in 1906 of every 1000 of estimated population 355 were members of the Roman Catholic Church (a proportion exceeded only in New Mexico and in Rhode Island; 310 was the number per 1000 in Louisiana), and only 148 were communicants of Protestant bodies; in 1906 there were 1,080,706 Roman Catholics (out of a total of 1,562,621 communicants of all denominations), 119,196 Congregationalists, 80,894 Baptists, 65,498 Methodists and 51,636 Protestant Episcopalians.
Reference has been made to “abandoned farms” in Massachusetts. The desertion of farms was an inevitable result of the opening of the great cereal regions of the west, but it is by no means characteristic of Massachusetts alone. The Berkshire district affords an excellent example of the interrelations of topography, soil and population. Many hill towns once thriving have long since become abandoned, desolate and comparatively inaccessible; though with the development of the summer resident’s interests many will probably eventually regain prosperity. Almost half of the highland towns reached their maximum population before the opening of the 19th century, although Berkshire was scarcely settled till after 1760, and three-fourths of them before 1850. On the other hand three-fourths of the lowland towns reached their maximum since that date, and half of them since 1880. The lowland population increased six and a half times in the century, the upland diminished by an eighth. Socially and educationally the upland has furnished an interesting example of decadence. Since 1865 (at least) various parts of Cape Cod have shrunk greatly in population, agriculture and manufactures, and even in fishing interests; this reconstruction of industrial and social interests being, apparently, simply part of the general urban movement—a movement toward better opportunities. What prosperity or stability remains in various Cape Cod communities is largely due to foreign immigrants—especially British-Americans and Portuguese from the Azores; although the population remains, to a degree exceptional in northern states, of native stock.
Government.—Representative government goes back to 1634, and the bicameral legislature to 1644. The constitution of 1780, which still endures (the only remaining state constitution of the 18th century), was framed in the main by Samuel Adams, and as an embodiment of colonial experience and revolutionary principles, and as a model of constitution-making in the early years of independence, is of very great historical interest. It has been amended with considerable freedom (37 amendments up to 1907), but with more conservatism than has often prevailed in the constitutional reform of other states; so that the constitution of Massachusetts is not so completely in harmony with modern democratic sentiment as are the public opinion and statute law of the state. The commonwealth, for example, is still denominated “sovereign,” and education is not declared a constitutional duty of the commonwealth. One unique feature is the duty of the supreme court to give legal advice, on request, to the governor and council. Another almost equally exceptional feature is the persistence of the colonial executive council, consisting of members chosen to represent divisions of the state, who assist the governor in his executive functions. Massachusetts is also one of the few states in which the legislature meets in annual session.[4] Townships were represented as such in this body (called the General Court) until 1856. Religious qualifications for suffrage and office-holding were somewhat relaxed, except in the case of
- ↑ The population of the state was 378,787 in 1790; 422,845 in 1800; 472,040 in 1810; 523,287 in 1820; 610,408 in 1830; 737,699 in 1840; 994,514 in 1850; 1,231,066 in 1860; 1,457,351 in 1870; 1,783,085 in 1880; 2,238,943 in 1890; and 2,805,346 in 1900. In 1905, according to the state census, the population was 3,003,680, or about 7.7% more than in 1900.
- ↑ In 1910 the following townships each had populations of more than 15,000: Revere, Leominster, Westfield, Attleborough, Peabody, Hyde Park.
- ↑ The birth-rates every fifth (census) year up to 1895 varied for natives from 14.48 to 19.49; for foreigners from 45.87 to 66.68. The marriage rates in quinquennial periods up to 1905 were 19.6, 18.6, 21.0, 19.8, 15.6, 18.6, 18.6, 18.6, 17.4 and 17.4; the ratio of marriages to the marriageable population was for males (above 16 years) 61.5, for females (above 14) 46.0; the fecundity of marriages seemed to have increased, being about twice as high for foreigners as for natives. See Annual Report of the Board of Health (1896), by S. W. Abbott; and Sixty-fourth Report of Births, Marriages and Deaths in Massachusetts (1906).
- ↑ The number of representatives from 1832 to 1908 varied from 240 to 635, and the length of session from 58 to 206 days (since 1867 none of under 100 days), with an almost continual increase in both respects.
