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"Matters of employment" vary less in relative importance as between the different nationalities, and the same is true of "accident" and "physical defects." Under the very important heading of "sickness" we find one decided variation. The average for this cause is 22.27 per cent, and all the largely represented nationalities conform quite closely to this average with one exception: the cases of colored people show a percentage for sickness of 39.63, a rate that comes near to being the double of the average, and is the double of the percentage for this cause among the Irish.

Those who know the colored people only casually or by hearsay may be surprised to find the misconduct causes running so low among them, while sickness as a cause is of greater relative importance than in any other nationality. But to one who has worked in Baltimore or Washington it seems a natural result, and indeed a confirmation of the reliability of the statistics. The colored people are weak physically, become sick easily, and often die almost without visible resistance to disease. At the same time they have a dread of being assisted, especially when they think an institution will be recommended; and this, together with a certain apathy, will often induce them to endure great privations rather than ask for help. Besides this, there are many associations among them for mutual help, and the criminal and semi-criminal men have a brutal way of making their women support them. That the percentage for "lack of work," 17.42, is the lowest, and that for "insufficient employment" is the highest, under these two heads, per-haps reflects their hand-to-mouth way of working at odd jobs rather than taking steady work.

In order to find out whether the differences we have noted between the nationalities are constant for different places and according to different observers, the same figures were arranged by causes and cities for each nationality. On the whole, there were no variations that need destroy our confidence in the general average.

A classification in Table XI. of 4176 Boston and New York cases according to the number of persons in a family, and by nationality, confirms the indication of Table IV., that large families is a relatively unimportant cause of destitution.

Unmarried persons with no one dependent upon them are not included in this table. The largest single family is found among the colored people; but the largest proportion of relatively large families, those numbering from five to nine persons each, is found among the Italians and the Poles and Russians. The families of paupers or semi-paupers usually average smaller than those of the population as a whole, partly because the number among classes degenerate enough to be dependent is not as large as is ordinarily supposed, partly because of a high infant mortality, and partly because the families of these classes tend to disintegrate rapidly, children drifting away from parents, and aged parents in their turn being shaken off by adult children. (47) The "family," therefore, which applies for relief is often only the fragment of a family. That large families are not a principal cause of dependence is still further illustrated by the experience of the Associated Charities of Boston: (48)

(48) Twenty-third Annual Report, 1902, p. 62.

TABLE XI.
4176 Boston and New York Cases, Classified According to Number in the Family and Nationality.
1890-1892.

MARRIED COUPLES: BOTH MAN AND WOMAN BETWEEN 20 AND 40 YEARS OF AGE.