[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—In a recent article
by Mr. Julian Huxley, in the Spectator, the following statement is made regarding the population of the United States : "Roughly ten per cent, of 1i .e whole population are Negro, only about twenty per cent. Anglo- Saxon." This estimate varies widely from the conclusions by other authorities.
I do not pretend to be an authority on statistics, or to pronounce on the correctness or incorrectness of different estimates, but if ten per cent. is the limit of the Negroes, and sixteen per cent. is the limit of Southern and Eastern European, and other miscellaneous stocks, as appears to be reasonably well established by the recent census returns, it seems difficult to account for more than a limited portion of the remaining seventy-four per cent., without attributing a larger number to Anglo-Saxon origin than Mr. Huxley allows. , Racial origins, except for the period antedating most of our immigration, have been calculated with reasonable accuracy- by taking the immigration returns ; and, with the help of census figures giving parentage, studying the increase of- various kinds of immigrants in their new environment. These studies have shown that the old stock, most of which remained in the country until recently, has continued to multiply while
the second generation of city-dwelling immigrants does not reproduce so rapidly. It is deduced from this that some forty-five million of the present inhabitants appear to be descendants from the old stock of 1790, which was largely British and Scotch Irish.
In a- preliminary study of-census results, Mr. John B:.
Trevor estimates the national origins from North-Western Europe as follows : Great Britain and Ireland, 56,174,000;. Germany, 13,577,000; Netherlands, 1,647,000; Norway, 1,500,000; Sweden, 2,285,000; France, 1,704,000; Switzer- land, 481,000; Deamark, 673,000.
Giving all possible credit to the excellent power of multipli- cation possessed by the Celtic Irish, and deducting the resulting estimate from the fifty-six million whose origin is attributed to the British Isles, leaves little but British origin to account for the rest of us. We have got to come from somewhere, and are, in fact, racial orphans unless some of you in England will concede to us British origin with a little more liberality than has been shown by Mr. Huxley.—I am, Sir, &c.,
R. M. BRADLEY.
60 Stale Street, Boston. December 4th.
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