The total sum of white lives upon which the above calculations are based is as will be observed, upward of 37,000,000; of colored lives upward of 3,000,000; while the deaths among whites are over 1,000,000, and among the colored over 100,000. The general inference from records on so large a scale may be taken as substantially correct, even if we admit the probability of partial inaccuracies in some of the returns.

Thus we reach several interesting facts. The rate of annual deaths among the whites is less than 2 3/4 per cent. or about one to every 37 of the living; among the colored about 3 1/2 per cent. or one in very 28 (or, exactly, one in 37.57 whites against one in 28.54 colored.)

We remark, further, that the mortality diminishes as approach our own time in Boston especially. In that city, between 1725 and 1774, the average annual mortality was among whites one in 29.10, and among colored one in 14.9; whereas, from 1855 to 1862, it was but one in 43 among whites, and one in 31 among colored. This accords with the well-known fact that the average length of life in the United States is greater in this century than it was in the last.

Again the table shown that the mortality among blacks in the Northern cities is considerably greater than among whites, while in the Southern cities in averages about the same.

As the returns from which this table is compelled do not distinguish between blacks and mulattoes, it gives us no information as to the relative mortality among these tow classes. On that point it behooves us to abstain from confident generalizing in the absence of more exact and more extended statistical data. This, however, we may say: It would appear that there are certain races of men, the cross between which produces a race quite equal to either of the progenitors. This is said to be true of the Turk and the African. It may be that the Anglo- Saxon and the African, extreme varieties, are less suited to each other, and that the mixed race degenerates. Indeed, so far as a limited range of facts go, there seems a probability in favor of the opinion expressed by a member of the Commission that "the mulatto, considered in his animal nature, lacks the innervation and spring of the pure blacks and whites, " and that "the organic inferiority is shown in less power of resisting destructive agencies; in less fecundity and less longevity." a

If this be so, then amalgamation of these two races is in itself a physical evil injurious to both; a practice which ought to be discouraged by public opinion, and avoided by all who consider it a duty, as parents, to transmit to their offspring the best conditions for sound health and physical well-being. Like other evils of the kind, however, this is beyond the legitimate reach of legislation.

The Commission believe that the effect of general emancipation will be to discourage amalgamation. It is rare in Canada, and public opinion there, among blacks as well as whites, is against it.

Bishop Green, of the Methodist Church, Canada, deposed:

You do not see any of our respectable people here marrying any persons but their own associates.

John Kinney, an intelligent colored man, said:

The majority of the colored people don"t like the intermarriage of colored and white people.

Colonel Stevenson said:

The colored people don"t like to have one of their color marry a white woman.

Such marriages do occur in Canada, but they are rare. b

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a Supplemental Report A, p. 27.

b Supplemental Report A, pp. 30,31.

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