158
VII.
THE MATERIAL CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE OF
MASSACHUSETTS.[1]
REPRINTED FROM THE “CHRISTIAN EXAMINER.”
We intend in this article to write of the material
condition of the people of Massachusetts. In detail we shall
treat of the number of the people; of their marriages,
their births, and their deaths; then also of the property
of the people; of idiocy, insanity, blindness, and sickness;
of the means of education, and the means for the repression
of crime. At the end of all we shall offer some hints
as moral, not to a fable, but to a fact. For convenience'
sake, we put the statistics into tables, apples of gold in
vessels of silver.
I. Of the Persons in the State.—On the first day of
June, 1855, there were in Massachusetts 1,132,369
persons. To-day the number is doubtless greater; but let it
be considered as still the same.
1. They are thus divided in respect to race:—9767 are black men, of the African race; whereof 6923 are pure negroes, 2844 are mixed. 139 are red men, of the American or Indian race: of these, six only are pure Indian, the rest are mixed with the blood of other races. This is the poor remnant of the great savage population
- ↑ Fifteenth Report to the Legislature of Massachusetts relating to the Registry and Return of Births, Marriages, and Deaths in the Commonwealth, for the Year ending December 31, 1856. By Francis de Witt, Secretary of the Commonwealth. Boston, 1857. 8vo, pp. xvi. and 287.
