The American Census Bureau has just issued a Report which
contains some curious figures. It appears that the disparity between the sexes is even greater than in England, but it is the other way, the males exceeding the females by 1,513,000—one reason among others for the great court paid to women in America. The cause is, of course, mainly immigration, though it is possible that in the West, where the women are apt to overwork themselves, they die more rapidly than in England. Of the males 11,205,000 are married, and of the females 11,126,000, the difference of 80,000 being left unaccounted for. The number of divorced persons, though large, is very much less than one would gather from the
literature of the subject, being only 120,996 or 0-20 of the population. The number of divorces is perceptibly less in the
towns than in the country, a fact curiously at variance with popular opinion, and arising probably not from any superior viciousness in the rural districts, but from couples living there getting more bored with each other, or finding fewer alleviations for domestic unhappiness.
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