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ATLANTA UNIVERSITY PUBLICATIONS, 
No. 2. 

SOCIAL AND PHYSICAL CONDITION 
OF NEGROES IN CITIES. 

REPORT OF AN INVESTIGATION UNDER THE 
DIRECTION OF ATLANTA UNIVERSITY: 

AND 

PROCEEDINGS OF THE SECOND CONFERENCE FOR THE 
STUDY OF PROBLEMS CONCERNING NEGRO CITY LIFE, 

HELD AT 

ATLANTA UNIVERSITY, MAY 25-26, 1897. 

ATLANTA, GA. 

ATLANTA UNIVERSITY PRESS. 
1897. 

 ATLANTA UNIVERSITY PUBLICATIONS. 
No. 2, 

SOCIAL AND PHYSICAL CONDITION 
OF NEGROES IN CITIES. 

REPORT OF AN INVESTIGATION UNDER THE 
DIRECTION OF ATLANTA UNIVERSITY: 

AND 

PROCEEDINGS OF THE SECOND CONFERENCE FOR THE 
STUDY OF PROBLEMS CONCERNING NEGRO CITY LIFE, 

HELD AT 

ATLANTA UNIVERSITY, MAY 25-26, 1897. 

ATLANTA. GA, 

ATLANTA UN1VHRR1TV PRESS. 
1897, 

 CONTENTS. 

PAHfi 

INTRODUCTION ;---------------- 3 

I. RESULTS OF THE INVESTIGATION. 

GENERAL SUMMARY; ------ Butler R. Wilson. Esq. 5 

SOCIAL AND PHYSICAL PROGRESS: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE RE- 
PORTSOFTHE BOARDS OF HEALTH IN ATLANTA, BALTIMORE. CHARLESTON. 
MEMPHIS AND RICHMOND ; ------- Mr. L. M. Hershaw 10 

THE PHYSICAL CONDITION OF THE RACE: WHETHER DEPENDENT UPON 
SOCIAL CONDITIONS OR ENVIRONMENT; - - - - Prof. Eugene Harris 20 

II. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONFERENCE. 
MINUTES; -------------------29 

RESOLUTIONS ADOPTED BY THE CONFERENCE; -------- 32 

III. ADDRESSES. PAPERS. AND LETTERS. 
ADDRESS ;--------- President Horace Bumsiead 35 

PRENATAL AND HEREDITARY INFLUENCES; - Mrs. Adella Hunt Logan 37 
CARE OF NEGLECTED CHILDREN; ----- Rev. J. E. Smith 41 

THE NEED OF FRIENDLY VISITATION; - - -- - Rev. H. H. Proctor 44 

CAUSES OF CONSUMPTION, AND PRACTICAL METHODS OF PREVENTING IT; 
---------------- A. J. Love. M. D. 46 

VENTILATION; ----------- H. R. Butler. M. D. 51 

CARE OF THE TEETH IN ITS RELATION TO HEALTH: J. R. Porter, D.D.S. 53 
ADDRESS BEFORE WOMEN'S MEETING; - - - Miss Lucy C. Laney 55 
FRIENDLY VISITING; - ------ Mrs. Minnie Wright Price 58 

MOTHERS' MEETINGS; ------- Mrs. Georgia Swift King 61 

NEED OF DAY NURSERIES; - - - - - - Mrs. Selena Sloan Butler 63 

NEED OF KINDERGARTENS; - - - - - Mrs. Rosa Morehead Bass 66 

REPORTS FROM CITIES; ---------------69 

EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS; --------------7] 

IV. APPENDIX; SELECTED STATISTICS. ~"1 _ 

A. FROM HOUSE-TO-HOUSE INVESTIGATION; -------- (fj 

B. FROM ANALYSIS OF REPORTS OF BOARDS OF HEALTH; - - - - (II) 

INTRODU TION. 

The papers presented in this report were written exclusively by col 
ored men and women, and are based upon statistical investigations made 
by them under the direction of Atlanta University. 

The investigation was begun by an inquiry on the part of three grad 
uates of Atlanta University into the causes of the excessive mortality 
among Negroes. A conference was held on the subject at Atlanta Uni 
versity in May, 1896, and the facts brought out at that conference 
were so significant that the investigation was continued for another 
year along simihir lines, but on a more extensive scale, and a second 
conference was held in May, this year. The co-operation of gradu 
ates of other institutions was invited. The present investigation, 
therefore, is the result of the joint efforts of graduates of Atlanta Uni 
versity, Fisk, Berea, Lincoln, Spelman, Howard, Meliarry and other 
institutions for the higher education of the Negroes. 

The conclusions which these men and women have reached as a result of 
their investigations are, in some respects, most surprising; especially their 
conclusions as to the effect of environment and economic conditions 
upon the vital energies of the race. Their conclusions were, in sub 
stance, that the excessive mortality of their people cannot be attribu 
ted in any large degree to unfavorable conditions of environment, but 
must he chiefly attributed to the ignorance of the masses of the people and 
their disregard of the laws of health and morality. The significance of this 
conclusion is tersely expressed by one of the writers, who says: 

"This last fact, that the excessive death-rate of the colored people 
docs not arise from diseases due to environment, is of vast importance. 
If poor houses, unhealthy localities, bad sewerage, and defective 
plumbing were responsible for their high death-rate, there would he 
no hope of reducing the death-rate until either the colored people 

 4 STUDY OF NKGKO CITY LJFK. 

became wealthy, or philanthropic persons erected sanitary houses, or m u- 
nieipalities made appropriations to remove those conditions. But since 
the excessive death-rate is not due to these causes, there is reason 
for the belief that it may be reduced without regard to the present 
economic condition of the colored people." 

The attention of the members of the conference seemed to be mainly 
directed to a consideration of the social questions affecting the prog 
ress of the race. The sentiment of the conference was voiced by one 
writer in these words: 

"If we are to strike at the root of the matter, it will not be at sani 
tary regulation, but at social reconstruction and moral regeneration." 
The solution of the problem will be found in the wise direction of 
the numerous charitable, religious and educational organizations of 
colored people already established. As a means towards that end, the 
University will continue the City Problem Investigation along the linei- 
upon which it was begun, and will hold a third conference at Atlanta 
next May. The subject of the next conference cannot now be an 
nounced, but in accordance with the expressed wish of members of 
the last conference, it will be some .subject dealing with the social 
conditions of the people. 

The result of the present investigation has been, on the wliole, dis 
tinctly encouraging. In the opinion of the committee having the in 
vestigation in charge, the Negro lias nothing to fear from a most rigid 
and searching investigation into his physical and social condition, but 
such an investigation can be made most helpful and valuable. 

MORTALITY AMONU NKGKOKK IN riTIKS. 

RESISTS OF THE INVESTIGATION. 

[Note: The three following papers on the results of the investigation were written 
by the three members of the conference who individually collected the most data: 
Mr. Butler B. Wilson, a member of the committee who gathered data relating 
to one hundred families that had migrated from North Carolina to Cambridge, Mass.; 
Prof. Eugene Harris of Fisk University, who made an extensive investigation in 
Nashville; and Mr. L. M. Hershaw of Washington, D. C., who had in charge the very 
laborious work of analyzing tlie reports of the boards of health for the past fifteen 
years.-Ed.] 

GENERAL SUMMARY. 

BY MH. IH7TI.KK R. WIIJ3OX ('#!), BOSTON, MASS. 

In making this investigation of the habits, morals and environment 
of Negroes living in cities, three things have been kept constantly in 
view, viz.: 

First— To obtain accurate information without regard to cher 
ished theories or race pride; 

Second—To make the inquiry practical and helpful, and not merely 
for scientific results; and, 

Third- To induce the people to apply the remedies which they 
have in their own hands for the evils which are found to exist 
and which retard their progress. 

The results to be gained depended entirely upon the intelligence and 
fitness of the investigators, who were selected with great care from the 
ranks of well-knowu colored educators, ministers, physicians, lawyers 
and business men, living among the people covered by the investigation. 
All the data were gathered by this body of trained colored leaders, and 
they are believed to be, perhaps, more than usually accurate because of 
the investigators' knowledge of the character, habits and prejudices of 
the people, and because of the fact that they were not hindered by the 
suspicions which confront the white investigator, and which seriously 
affect the accuracy of the answers to his questions'. 

The work of the investigators was entirely voluntary and was done 
with a willingness and industry higbly gratifying. 

 6 

STUDY OF NEGRO CITY LIFE. 

The cities embraced in the investigation, with a single exception, are 
located in regions of heaviest Negro population, and are fairly repre 
sentative of other cities containing large numbers of Negroes. 

The data obtained were published in the May Bulletin of the U.S. 
Department of Labor, and cover so wide a range of useful information, 
that only a few things can be pointed out here. 

Referriug to the tables of this Bulletin, we find one noticeable fact 
in table 3*, namely, that the size of colored families is much smaller 
than is commonly supposed, the average being 4.17 persons. 

Tables 5 and (i, giving household conditions by families,—the av 
erage persons per sleeping room, and the number of rooms per fam 
ily }—show that the general belief that the tenements and houses occu 
pied by colored people are greatly over—crowded is not founded on 
facts. These tables do not show that any great over—crowding exists, 
on the whole, although for certain individual families and groups the 
averages are somewhat larger. It also appears that the average num 
ber of living rooms is much larger than has been thought to be the 
case. An average of 2. 22 persons to a sleeping room in Atlanta, 2.44 
persons in Nashville, and 1. 96 persons in Cambridge, and 2. 05 per 
son in all the other cities covered by the investigation, is an unex 
pected and important showing, and reverses the idea that the number 
of families having but one room each for all purposes was very large 
and was the rule instead of the exception. Out of a total of 1,137 
families investigated, only 117, or 10. 29 per cent, had but one room 
each for their use for all purposes. 

Table 7, giving number of families and means of support, shows a 
large proportion of females who either support families unaided, or 
who contribute to the support of families. 

Of the male heads only 26.7 per cent were able to support their fam 
ilies without assistance from other members. Of the 1,137 families 
650,or 57.17 percent, were supported wholly or in part by female 
heads. 

In comparison with white female heads of families and those con 
tributing to family supjmrt, there is quite a large excess on the part of 
colored women. 

"Table 3 in appendix A. The appendixes contain selected tablet) from the May 
Bulletin of the Department of Lsibor.-Kfl. 

MORTALITY AMONG NEGROES IN CITIES. 7 

This table calls attention to the enforced absence of mothers from 
their homes, and the daily abandonment, by these mothers who are 
compelled to aid in earning the family support, of their young chil 
dren to the evil associations, the temptations, and vicious liberty of 
the alleys, courts and slums. 

To attempt to prove from the showing of this table that Negro 
men are unwilling to support their families, and that they are lazy and 
shiftless, would be unfair. Careful inquiry by a number of the investiga 
tors indicates very strongly that the comparatively small support 
given by these men to their families is not due to unwillingness, but to 
their inability to get work as readily and constantly as the women. 
At the South white men refuse to work at the bench, in the mill and 
at other employments with colored men, who, for this reason, are de 
nied work, and therefore unable to earn means with which to support 
their families. 

This faot was found to exist in the city of Cambridge, where a large 
per cent of the men in the hundred families investigated, in reply to 
an inquiry, said that they had been refused work because they were 
colored, and a number of them said that they were unable to follow 
their trades, but had to "job around" with unsteady employment for 
the same reason. 

The women in these families find steady employment as domestic 
servants and laundresses, and at the South find but little competition 
from white women. 

The investigation gives a great many data on this industrial side of 
the question, which want of space will not now allow us to consider. 

Tables 8 and 9, giving the number and per cent of persons sick 
during the year, and the number and per cent of deaths during the 
past five years by causes, show that the diseases most fatal to the col 
ored people are consumption and pneumonia. While the average 
length of time of sickness from it is short, malarial fever is shown to 
be one of the most prevalent diseases. iUieuniatisni is also shown to 
be quite prevalent. Both of these diseases, as well as typhoid fever 
and pneumonia, may, to a great extent, be kept in abeyance by the 
observance of hygienic rules and a proper care of the health. 

In the 100 Cambridge families it was found that many of the men 
Work in the water department, and after the day's work eat the 

 8 STUDY OF \EGRO CITY 1,IFK. 

evening nieal without changing their damp clothing, often goiug- to 
.sleep in their chairs tor an hour or more and then going to a lodge or 
"society meeting," remaining not infrequently until 11 and 12 o'clock. 

These tables also show that the difference between the death-rate of 
the white and colored people from diarrhoea, diptheria, scarlet fever, 
malarial fever and typhoid fever, all diseases chiefly affected by envi 
ronment, is very slight.* 

Table 10, giving sickness by sanitary condition of houses, shoXvs 
that while sanitary conditions have a very important bearing, they are 
not important enough to account for the difference of per cent in the 
death-rate between the white and colored people. 

Great caution must be observed in making deductions from this 
table. While it is intended to show the bearing of sanitary conditions 
on the health of the community, the results obtained are not conclu 
sive. It would be erroneous, for instance, to attribute to bad sanitary 
conditions the increased amount of sickness in families, and leave out 
of consideration such factors as irregular habits, indifference to healthy 
living quarters and the intimate relation between poverty and ill 
health. 

By reference to the table it will be seen that the number of persons 
sick in Atlanta was 163 out of a total of 577, or 28.25 per cent, 
where the light and air were good ; and that out of 367 persons liv 
ing where the light and air were bad, 120, or 32.70 per cent, were 
sick, a difference of only 15 per cent between houses with good and 
bad conditions as to light and air. 

One hundred and twenty-eight persons living in houses with good 
light and air lost 5,819 days by sickness, or an average of 45.46 days 
each; while 102, or 26 persons less, lost, under bad conditions of light 
and air, only 4,861 days, or an average of 4 .75 days each, a difference 
of 6 per cent, the average days of siekuess being more in houses with 
good light and air than in those where the light and air were bad. 

This table further shows that out of 537 persons living in Atlanta 
in houses with good ventilation, 153, or 28.49 per cent, were sick 
during the year, losing, for the 124 reporting, 5,927 days, or an aver 
age of 47.80 days each ; while out of 427 persons living in houses with 

*The tables )«>uriiig upon disea<fs mo»t prevalent will be particularly discussed 
in tlio paper following.- En. 

MORTALITY AMONG NEOROKS IN CITIES. 9 

bad ventilation, 154, or 36 per cent, were sick during the year, 133 
of whom lost 6,0-50 days, or an average of 45.49 days each, a difference 
of only 26 per cent between the per cent of persons sick where ven 
tilation was good and where it was bad, the average number of days 
again being greater for those under good conditions than for those 
under bad. 

Table XV,* giving general description of houses, shows that a 
large proportion of the houses occupied by the 1,137 families were 
wooden structures, detached and located in neighborhoods of fail- 
character. Of the 1,031 houses but 43 had bath-rooms, arid 183 had 
water-closets, 95 of which were in the Cambridge houses. In Atlanta 
and Cambridge the houses with bad outside sanitary conditions pre 
dominated. In all the other cities the houses with good outside san 
itary conditions predominated, the latter being greatly in excess for 
the entire territory covered. 

This paper may be summarized as follows: 

First—All the data in the investigation have been gathered by in 
telligent colored men and women living in the communities covered. 
These investigators were not hindered by obstacles which make it 
difficult fora white man to get accurate information of the family life, 
habits and character of the colored people. These colored investigat 
ors cannot be charged with prejudice and designs against the interests 
of the colored people. For these reasons, their work is thought to IK- 
more than usually accurate and reliable. 

Second—Over-crowding in tenements and houses occupied by col 
ored people does not exist to any great extent, and is less than was 
supposed. 

Third—In comparison with white women, an excess of colored 
women support their families entirely, or contribute to the family sup 
port, by occupations which take them much of their time from home, 
to the neglect of their children. 

Fourth—Environment and the sanitary condition of houses are not 
chiefly responsible fbi the excessive mortality among colored people. 

Fifth—Ignorance and disregard of the laws of health are responsi 
ble for a large proportion of this excessive mortality. 

Not in appendix, but in May Bulletin of Department, of Labor - 

 10 

STUDY OF NKOJMl CITY LIFE. 

MORTALITY AMOKU NKOROES IN 

11 

SOCIAL AND PHYSICAL PROGRESS: 

A OOMPAKATJVE ANALYSIS OF THE REPORTS OP THE BOARDS OK 

HEALTH OF ATLANTA, BALTIMORE, CHARLESTON, 

MEMPHIS AND RICHMOND. 

BY MR. L. M. HEKSHAW ('86), WASHINGTON, J». C. 

The study uf vital statistics is one of the most important subjects that 
can engage the attention. The death-rate, taken in connection with the 
birth-rate, determines the natural increase or decrease of population, 
the growth or decline of a people, and the strength of nations. Dr. 
William Farr, late Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages 
in England, states the whole matter in the following language : "There 
is a relation betwixt death, health, and energy of body and mind. 
There is a relation betwixt death, birth and marriage. There is a re 
lation betwixt death and national primacy; numbers turn the tide 
in the struggle of population, and the most mortal die out. There is 
a relation betwixt the forms of death and moral excellence or infamy." 

It has been known for a number of years to health officers and 
students of vital statistics that the death-rate of the colored people 
was larger than that of the white people ; that the colored people were 
dying in larger numbers in proportion to the colored population than 
the white people were in proportion to the white population. Of late 
years these facts have become known to most intelligent persons, and 
great interest attaches to the degree of the excess of the colored death- 
rate, and to the causes of it. 

This paper will deal with the vital statistics of the cities of Atlanta, 
Ga., Baltimore, Md., Charleston, S. C., Memphis, Term., and Richmond, 
Va. Each of these cities contains a large colored population, sur 
rounded by social, economic and moral conditions such as exist in 
other cities where colored people are congregated in considerable num 
bers, if Philadelphia is excepted. The cities selected are, therefore, 
thoroughly representative for the purpose in hand, and the conditions 

found to prevail in them may be fairly presumed to prevail in the 
other cities having a large population of colored people. 

The average annual death-rate per 1,000 of the living population 
in these five cities for the fifteen years from 1881 to 1895 was 20.74 
for the whites and 36.13 for the colored, showing a percentage of ex 
cess for the colored of 73.8. 

The average annual death-rate per 1,000 by race for each of the five 
cities under consideration for the past fourteen or fifteen years is as 
follows: 

Atlanta (1882-95)...,................... 

Baltimore (1880-94)................... 

Charleston (1881-94).................. 

Memphis (1882-95)......... ......... 

Richmond (1881-95).................. 

White. 

...18.60...... 

...20.69...... 

..23.19...... 

...20.58...... 

...20.73..... 

Colored. 

Per cent excess 
of colored. 

.. ....34.71............87.6 

......32.71............68.1 

......44.08............90 

......31.15............51.3 

.......38.02............83.4 

An inspection of the table just given shows that the highest death- 
rate among the colored is in Charleston (which is also true as to the 
whites), and that the lowest death-rate among the colored is in Mem 
phis, the lowest among the whites being in Atlanta, Comparing the 
white and colored death-rates, ft is to be seen that the greatest excess 
of colored over white is in Charleston, where it reaches 00 per cent; 
the excess in Atlanta being 87.6 per cent, and that in Richmond 83.4 
per cent. The least excess is found in Memphis, which is 51.3 per 
cent, Baltimore having 58.1 per cent. These figures seem to justify 
the conclusion that the worst physical conditions among the colored 
people are to be found in Charleston, Atlanta and Richmond, and the 
best in Memphis and Baltimore. 

Having found the average death-rates of the two races in these five 
cities for the past fourteen or fifteen years, and having compared them 
with each other, and drawn a conclusion as to the relative physical con 
ditions of the colored populations in the cities under consideration, it 
will conduce to a better understanding and a fuller knowledge of these 
conditions to divide the fourteen or fifteen years which this investiga 
tion covers into three periods as nearly equal as possible. By pursu 
ing this method we shall be able, in a measure, to decide whether the 
physical condition of the colored is better or worse in 1894 or 189ft 
than in 1880 or 1881. 

 1-2 

STUDY OF NKGltO CITY MFK. 

FIRST PERIOD. 

*'lTIi'>. 

Atlanta........ 

Baltimore..... 

(^harleston ... 

Memphis. ..... 

Richmond.... 

White. 

18.22 

22.60 

25.40 

26.08 

22.12 

' Col- 
ore" 1. 

37.96 

36.15 

H.08 

Hi. 01 

40.:i4 

Per eimt 
excess ot 

colored. 

108.4 

5!).!) 

73.5 

64.9 

7!).!) 

SECOND PERIOD. 

White. 

19.25 

10.46 

22.30 

21.49 

21.:i7 

Col 
ored. 

33.41 

30.52 

46.74 

29.35 

38.83 

Per cent 
excess of 

colored. 

73.5 

56.8 

109.6 

:i6.5 

81.7 

TiiiKii PERIOD. 

White. 

18.03 

20.01 

21.88 

14.17 

18.42 

Col 
ored. 

32.76 

31.47 

41.43 

21.11 

34.91 

Per cent 
excess ol 

colored. 

81.6 

57.2 

89.3 

48.9 

89.5 

Tliu tabular statement contains, in addition to the average annual 
death-rate, the percentage of the excess of the colored death-rate. 
Lest these percentages of exceea mislead somebody. It is necessary to 
explain that, in comparing the three periods, they merely show whether 
«>r not the colored death-rate has decreased as rapidly as the white 
death-rate, and not the actual increase or decrease of the colored death- 
rate. To illustrate: Comparing the second and third periods in Rich 
mond, it is to be ween that the percentage of excess for the second 
period is 81.7 per cent, and for the third period 89.5 per cent. With 
out looking at the matter carefully the conclusion is likely to be drawn 
that the colored death-rate is greater for the third period than tor the 
."ccond, when, as a matter of fact, It is less, the rates being 38.83* for 
the second, and 34.91 for the third. 

An inspection of the above table shows that there has been a con 
stant decrease in the colored death-rate from period to period in At 
lanta, Memphis and Richmond. 

In Atlanta the colored death-rare for the first period is 37.9(5, tor the 
.-ec-ond 33.4j, and for the third 32.76; in Memphis, 43.01 for the first 
period, 29.35 for the second, and 21.11 for the third; and in Rich 
mond, 40.34 for the first period, 38.83 for the second, and 34.91 for 
the third. While Baltimore and Charleston do not show the constant 
decrease from period to period noted in the other cities, they do show 
a lower death-rate for the third period than for the first; the death-rates 

*\OTK.—Tin- death-rule is generally expressed in terms of one thousand. Tin: 
phrase "rate of 38.83" means that there were thirty-eight and eighty-three one- hiin- 
divdtlis deaths per thousand of population. For brevity, the words "per thousand" 
aiv omitted.- Ki>. 

MORTALITY A MONO NtttJItOKS IN <:lTIRs. I if 

in Baltimore being 36.15 for the first period, 30.52 for the second, and 
31.47 for the third ; and those in Charleston, 44.08 for the first period, 
46.74 for the second, and 41.43 for the third. Memphis .shows the 
greatest improvement, the average death-rate at the end of the third 
period being 50.9 per cent lower than at the end of the first, and 
Charleston shows the least improvement, 6 percent. In Atlanta the 
improvement Is 13.9 per cent, in Richmond, 13.4 per cent, and in 
Baltimore, 12.9 percent. 

Of the five cities with which this paper deals, but two have a regis 
tration of births—Baltimore and Charleston.* Richmond had such a 
registration, but it was discontinued some years ago. The registra 
tions of Baltimore and Charleston are admittedly incomplete. No 
view of the vital statistics of a community is complete without a 
knowledge of its birth-rate. The birth-rate is closely related to the 
death-rate. The natural iix-rea.se of population depends upon the ex 
cess of the birth-rate over the death-rate. It would be highly inter 
esting to know what the birth-rate of the colored population in tin 
five cities under consideration is. Is it as great as the death-rate ? Is 
it greater than the death-rate? These questions cannot be answered 
.satisfactorily because the health reports do not supply the information. 
The United States Census of 1890 gives the colored birth-rate of tin- 
United States as 29.07 per thousand, but owing to the incompleteness 
of the records of births by the municipal and state authorities, these 
figures are not reliable, and are probably much too small. Four Eu 
ropean countries have birth-rates which exceed the colored death-rate 
in the cities that we have under consideration. In view of the well- 
known fecundity of the Negro race, it is fair to infer that his birth 
rate is certainly as high as that of the Italian, the ticrman, the Aus 
trian, or the Hungarian. If this is so, then the death-rate in these 
cities has not reached the point where population begins to decrease, 
ft is well-nigh useless to pursue this branch of the subject further, 
because of the lack of data. 

Having established the fact that the average colored death-rate for 
the past fourteen or fifteen years iu the five cities is 73.8 per cent in 
excess of the white death-rate in the same cities for the same period, 
and having shown, by dividing these years into three equal periods and 

See for Baltimore table f, appendix B.—ED. 

 14 

STUDY Of 

<:1TV J,tFK. 

Consumption and Pneumonia........... 

Typhoid, Malarial and Scarlet Pe-1 

vers, Diarrhea and Diphtheria / ' 
.^i«-.. i~.c~~±- " • - 

1'er cent excess 
of colored. 

Colored 

....75.48............130.4 

....26.22............ 30 

.......14,87............39.43............ 165.1 

.81.......... . 4.72............482.7 

comparing the rates of previous with succeeding periods, that the 
colored death-rate shows an improvement over fifteen years ago, it re 
mains to set forth the causes of this excessive mortality. 

The principal causes of the excessive mortality of the colored peo 
ple are the same in all the cities ; therefore, it will serve our purpose 
to know the average death-rate of the three cities, Charleston, Mem 
phis and Richmond, combined, fora period of fifteen years, for certain 
classes of diseases, and to give in full the same facts concerning At 
lanta. The table which follows shows for Charleston, Memphis and 
Richmond, combined, the average death-rate per 10,000, by specified 
causes, for a period of fifteen years, from 1881 to 1895: 

White. 
.......32.76 

.„.„, ^.umico, aim ±7ipnineria ) 
Cholera Infantum, Convul-1 

sions arid Still-born J '" ••••••• 

Scrofula and Syphilis........ ............ ._.......-.....^.. 

It is to be seen from the table above that for all classes of diseases 
the colored death-rate exceeds the white. The greatest excess is found 
under scrofula and syphilis, where it is 482.7 per cent in excess of the 
white death-rate. The next greatest excess is due to infantile dis 
eases,—cholera infantum, convulsions and still-born,—the excess being 
165.1 per cent. The third greatest excess is due to pulmonary dis 
eases, and is seen to be 130.4 per cent. We see also that the least 
disparity between the white and the colored death-rate is found under 
the group of diseases most affected by environment, including typhoid 
and malarial fevers and dipththeria, where the excess is only 30 per 
cent. As to syphilis and scrofula, it is to be observed that the num 
ber of deaths is small. The white death-rate during fifteen years in 
Charleston, Memphis and Richmond has been less than one per 
10,000 of the population, while the colored was somewhat less than five. 
The per cent of the excess of the colored over the white is, however, 
startling, and furnishes much food for reflection as to the morals of the 
colored people. 

The two principal causes of the excessive mortality of the colored 
people are pulmonary diseases,—consumption and pneumonia,— and 

* These death-rate," for specified causes are per ten thousand.—En. 

MORTALITY AMONG NKGROKS IN CITIKS. 

Lft 

infant mortality. The excessive prevalence of consumption and pneu 
monia among colored people is brought out very plainly in the 
foregoing table, where the excess in these cities is shown to be 130.4 
per cent. 

The following table containing the total average annual number of 
deaths, and the average annual number of deaths of children under 
five years of age, with distinction of race, will serve to show the ex 
tent of the infant mortality among colored people: 

Tula,! average annual number 
of deaths. 

ATLANTA, GA. 

Average annual number of deaths under 
5 years of age. 

White. Colored. White. Colored. Per cem of 1'ercent of 

white. colored. 

1882-85... ........470 ..... .. 751............ 172.........313............38.7 ...........41.6 

1886-90............644 ........ 845........;....224.........348............34.7.........—41.1 

1891-95—.........804 ........1086...... ......257 ........386....... —.31.9—.........35.5 

CHARLESTON, S. C. 

1885-89............525......... 1394............. 148......... 558............ 28.0............ 4U.O 

1890-94............529.........1316.............141.........518............26.4—........39.3 

MEMPHIS, TENN. 

1886-90............678...........712.............180.........263...... 

1891-95............619........ ..741........... .145.........232—-. 

......265............35.4 

......23.4...... .....31.1 

There is an enormous waste of child-life among both races, not 
only in the cities under consideration, but in all cities. But from the 
data at hand the conclusion is justified that the mortality among col 
ored children is not alarmingly in excess of the mortality among white 
children, unless it be for children under two years of age. The fig 
ures which we have presented on this subject show that the mortality 
among children of both races has decreased constantly since 1881 in 
Atlanta, Charleston and Memphis. 

Of the diseases which are excessively prevalent among colored peo 
ple, the most important, and the one which should be the occasion of 
the greatest alarm, is consumption. We have seen already that con 
sumption and pneumonia are among the causes of excessive mortality 
of the colored people, the excess per cent of Charleston, Memphis and 
Richmond being 130.4. 

The table following shows the rate, per 10,000 of deaths from con 
sumption in all the cities investigated : 

II' 

 MORTALITY AMONG NKGROK8 IN CITIES. 

17 

U> 

1882-85. 
1886-90.. 
1S91-95. 

STUDY OK NK«RO CITY UFK. 

18,%..... 
1887 .... 
1891..... 
1892 .... 

ATLANTA. GA. 
White. Colored. 
..18.40............... . ...50.20....... 

..18.83........ ............45.88...... 

..16,82....... .............43.48....... 

BALTIMORE, MI). 

..25.65..................... 38.65....... 

..22.23.....................55.42 ...... 

..20.00......... ...........46.32....... 

..20.10 ....................49.41....... 

Per ct. ex of colored 
...........172.83 

...........143.65 

...........158.50 

...........12K.B5 

...........149.30 

..........131.60 

...:.. —.145.82 

JK8I-84 ....... 
I885-H9........ 
IK90-94. ....... 

.............27.52 
............ .20.05., 
...... ...... 17.71 , 

CHARLESTON. S. C. 

....................72.20............ 
.............. .....68.08............ 
........ ............57.66........... 

.........162.35 
.........239.55 
......... 22.r>.:>8 

1886-90.. 
1S91-9G.. 

1881-85... 
18 6-90 .. 

MEMPHIS, TKNN. 

..34.25.....................65.35..................... 90.80 

..24.2!)...—...............50.30..................... 107 OS 

..15.90.....................37.78. ....... ........... 137.61 

RICHMOND, VA. 

..25.57 .....................54.93................ ....114.82 

.21.27.............. ..... 41.63..................... 95.72 

..18.54 ....... ............34.74..................... 87.38 

It is to l>c seen that in all of the eities the death-rate for consump 
tion is high among the colored people, the lowest rate being- 34.74 per 
10,000 in Richmond, and the highest, 72.20, in Charleston. The 
greatest disparity between the white and the colored death-rate for 
this cause is also in Charleston, where the exeess per cent of the col 
ored is as high as 239.5. The important fact must not he lost sight of 
that the death-rate from this cause has constantly decreased in all the 
eities except Charleston, and in Charleston the death-rate for the pe 
riod 1890-94 is lower than for the period 1881-84. There is reason, 
however, for great concern and anxiety as to the excessive prevalence 
of this disease among the colored people. Unless checked and re 
duced to a normal state, it may, in the course of years, be a deciding 
factor in the ultimate fate of the race. The prevalence of tubercular 
and scrofulous diseases, consumption, scrofula, syphilis and leprosy, 
has caused the weaker races of the earth to sncccumb before the rising 
tide of the Christian civilization. The Carib of the West Indies, the 
noble red man of these shores, the natives of the Sandwich Islands, 
and the aborigines of Australia and New Zealand have all disap|>eared 

or been greatly reduced in numbers as the result of the ravages of 
these diseases. It should be an object of first importance, then, to get 
control of these diseases before they reach the point where, control is 

impossible. 

It will be of interest to know somewhat in detail the physical con 
dition of the population in Atlanta for the fourteen years from 1882 
to 1895, and the tables Avhich follow set forth quite fully this fact. 

DEATH-RATE PER 1,000, ATLANTA, GA. 

Period. White. Colored. Per ct. excess of itolored. 
1882-85.......... -—..—-18.21.....................37.96............... .....108.4 

1886-90 ....................19.25.....................33.41..................... 73.5 

1891-95..........-.-......18.03....................32.76.—................ 81.6 

It is seen that the death-rate of the colored population, though 
greatly in excess of that of the white, has constantly decreased, the 
average death-rate per 1,000 for the first period being 37.96, for the 
second 33.41, and for the third 32.76. Relatively, as compared with 
the whites, the death rate of the colored shows much improvement. 
Though the percentage of excess of colored for the third period is 
••reater than that for the second, the percentage for both of these pe 
riods shows a marked decrease from that of the first period. 

The following tables show for three periods, 1882 to 1885, 1886 to 
1890, and 1891 to 1-S95, the average animal death-rate per 10,000, At 
lanta, Ga., by specified causes. 

Period. 
1882-85......... 

1886-90....... 

1891-95......... 

1886-90...— — 
1891-95......... 

TYPHOID, 

1882-85......... 

1886-90......... 

1891-95 ........ 

1882-85........... 

1886-90......—. 

1891-95.—...... 

CONSUMPTION AND PNKUMON1A. 

Colored. Per ct. excess of oolored. 
...................76.89.—— ............180.3 

...................72.14—.................139.4 

...................75.75.....................165.9 

CHOLERA INFANTUM AND STILL-BIRTHS. 
............26,78——................56.09—. ..............109.4 

............24.99..—................53.86.....................115.5 

8CARLKT AND MALARIAL KKVERS, AND DIPHTHERIA. 
............11.58..—................19.31..................... 66.7 

............14.58———............. 17.17..................... 17.7 

.........-10.72.....................12.48......... ........... 16.4 

OTHER CAUSES. 
!43.15 .................a283.44.....................a98.0 

121.05.................. 188.67..................... 55.8 

U6.15.................. 185.50—................ 59.7 

White. 
............27.43. 

............30.13. 

............28.48. 

a Including deaths from cholera infantum and still-births. 

 18 STUDY OF NEGRO «'1TY IJFK. 

It is observed that in all these groups of causes the colored death- 
rate has decreased from period to period, except for consumption and 
pneumonia, where the death-rate for the period 1891—95 is greater 
than for the period 1886—90, though slightly less than for the period 

1882-85. 

The statistics presented in the various tables which this paper con 
tains, viewed candidly and dispassionately, shows results favorable to 
the physical improvement of the colored race. If the mortality rate 
had remained stationary for a period of fifteen years, it would have 
been a lasting evidence of the physical strength and endurance of the 
race. But we have shown that the rate has decreased in that period, 
and that, too, as is well known, in the face of hard, exacting and op 
pressive social and economic conditions. When all of the facts 
in the colored man's case are taken into consideration, the wonder is, 
not that the death-rate is as high as it is, but that it is not even higher. 
The history of weak and inferior races shows that they begin to de 
crease in number after one generation's contact with Anglo-Saxon 
civilization. The native population of the Sandwich Islands a hun 
dred years ago was estimated to be 100,000. The latest census taken 
on the Islands shows the native population to be 35,000. We do not 
witness this decay and decrease in numbers in the colored race any 
where in the Western Hemisphere. 

In studying any phase of Negro life in the United States, the tact 
must be kept constantly in view that the Negro has been subjected to 
degrading and blasting slavery for more than two centuries. While 
slavery did its victims a great wrong in depriving them of the fruits 
of their toil, it did them a greater wrong in denying them opportuni 
ties for moral and mental improvement. Those who sit in judgment 
upon the Negro and study his frailties and shortcomings must not for 
get these previous conditions. 

To recapitulate, it has been shown: 

First—That the colored death-rate exceeds the white, the excess av 
eraging for five cities, during a period of fifteen years, 73.8 per cent. 
Second—That the death-rate of the colored population in five cities 
is lower for the period 1890-95 than for the period 1881-85. 

Third—That the principal causes of the excessive mortality among 
the colored people of five cities arc pulmonary diseases and infant 
mortality. 

MORTALITY AMONG NKGROEM IN OITIKS. 19 

Fourth—That the least disparity between the white and colored 
death-rates is for those diseases due to unwholesome sanitary conditions; 
typhoid, malarial and scarlet fevers, diphtheria and diarrhea. 

This last fact, that the excessive death-rate of the colored people does 
not arise from diseases due to environment, is of vast importance. If 
poor houses, nnhealty localities, bad sewerage and defective plumbing 
were responsible for their high death-rate, there would be no hope of 
reducing the death-rate until either the colored people became wealthy, 
or philanthropic persons erected sanitary houses, or municipalities 
made appropriations to remove these conditions. But since the exces 
sive death-rate is not due to these causes, there is reason for the belief 
that it may be reduced without regard to the present economic condi 
tions of the colored people. 

NOTK.—For further data compiled by Mr. JHershaw. aee appendix B.—Kd. 

 20 

STUDY OF NEGRO CITY LJFK. 

THE PHYSICAL CONDITION OF THE RACE; WHETHER 

DEPENDENT UPON SOCIAL CONDITIONS 

OR ENVIRONMENT. 

KY I'KOF. KUGENE HAKKIS, KlBK UNIVERSITY, NASHVILLE, TKNN. 

The social conditions of the American Negro are two-fold; those 
which he makes for himself, and those which the white people make 
for him. The latter class cannot affect the physical status of the 
Negro except in a very indirect and unimportant way. Separate 
apartments in public conveniences, such as hotels, theatres, or railroad 
trains, social ostracism, exclusion from political preferment and the 
spoils of office, the suppression of his ballot, and the other discrimi 
nations which are made against the black man, have at least no imme 
diate bearing on his health, vitality, or longevity. The Negro may 
eat and wear what he pleases, as much as he pleases, and as often as 
he pleases. The provision shops and dry goods stores do not discrim 
inate against him in the matter of food and wearing apparel. After 
a hard day's work he may carouse at night just as late as he pleases. 
There; is not a black law upon our statute hooks regulating his private 
habits, or importing upon him unsanitary surroundings, or restricting 
him to deleterious occupations, or forcing him to immoderate indul 
gences. 

It is true that in public conveniences the Negro must take .separate 
apartments; but the air in them is just as invigorating, the water is 
just as healthful and pure, and the food is just as nourishing as in the 
apartments for the whites. Regular bathing will throw off dead mat 
ter through the skin, and control of the appetites will contribute 
largely to health in Negro quarters as well as anywhere else. The laws 
of health have no regard for artificial social harriers. They know no 
color line. Civilly, socially, and politically, the Negro of this coun 
try is under many cruel and unjust restrictions; hut he is at perfect 
liberty to be abstemious or intemperate, chaste or licentious, cleanly 

MORTALITY AMONG N KGKOKS IN CITIES. 21 

or tilthy. In the struggle for recognition and preferment he is at a 
great disadvantage ; but in the struggle for life, apart from those im 
pediments for which he himself is responsible, he has almost, if not 
altogether, an equal chance with the whites. 

[t. is true that if the colored people in our larger towns are bent 
upon living near the center of the city, they cannot rent or buy prop 
erty, except in the less desirable or abandoned parts. But it is not 
necessity, it is only convenience that leads them to live over stables, in 
dark, damp cellars, and on back alleys, in the midst of stench and pu 
trefaction. They can, if they would, go to the suburbs, where they 
can get better accommodations for less money. I have been in fami 
lies in Nashville ranging from seven to ten, living on a back alley, 
with a rivulet of filth running before the door of the one room in 
which they bathed and ate and slept and died. Two miles further out 
all of these families might have secured for the same money shanties 
of two and three rooms, with purer air and water, and had a garden 
spot besides. Among the colored people, convenience to the heart of 
the. city often overrides considerations of health, and that the white 
people offer them hot-beds of disease for homes is no excuse for their 
taking them. It is better to live in the suburbs than to die in the city. 
The Negro is induced, but not forced, to accept the bad accommoda 
tions of down-town life. Apart from this apparent exception in the 
matter of rented houses, no race discrimination affects in the least the 
Negro's physical condition ; and it is for this very reason that 1 am 
hopeful of a change for the better in the vital statistics of our peoplt. 
If the large death-rate, the small birth-rate, the susceptibility to dis 
ease, and the low vitality of the race were due to causes outside of our 
control, I could see nothing before us but the "blackness of darkness 
forever." But because the colored people themselves are responsible 
for this sad state of affairs, it is to be expected that time and education 

will correct it. 

The conclusions which 1 shall draw in this paper are based largely 
upon my study of the problem in Nashville. 

111 the first place, then, the, excess of colored deaths over white is due 
almost entirely to constitutional diseases and infant mortality. Accord 
ing to health statistics, the constitutional diseases which are mainly re 
sponsible for our large death-rate are pulmonary consumption, scrofula, 

 •22 

STUDY OF NEGRO CITY LIFK. 

MORTAIJTY AMONO XEUKOKK ]> CITIKS. 

23 

and syphilis, all of which are alike iu being tuberculous. A large 
number of the colored convicts in our state's prison at Nashville are 
consumptives or syphilitics. Out of 92 deaths in a certain territory 
in Nashville, 19 deaths, or over 20 per cent, were due to consumption. 
The other 73 deaths were due to 35 different causes. In the recent 
Atlanta investigation, according to the mortality report of Cambridge, 
\Iass., consumption was the cause of 15 per cent of the deaths. 

DKATHS FROM CONSUMPTION IN NAHHVIIXK FOR THE PRKIOD 1893-95. 

I8!B 1MM IKStt 
White............ 124 ........... . 91......... ..... 82 A reduction of nearly 34 per cent. 

Colored..........177....... .......159...............218 An increase of over23 per cent. 

Alarming as are the facts set forth in the preceding table, they are 
not the whole truth. They would be occasion for serious concern if 
the races were numerically equal; but when we remember that the 
colored people of Nashville are only three-fifths as numerous as the 
whites, it is all the more startling. For the year 1 895, when 82 white 
deaths from consumption occurred in the city of Nashville, there ought 
to have been only -49 colored, whereas there really were 218, or nearly 
four and one-half times as many as there ought to have been. It is 
an occasion of serious alarm when 37 per cent of the whole people are 
responsible for 72 per cent of the deaths from consumption. 

Deaths among colored people from pulmonary diseases seem to be- 
on the increase throughout the South. During the period 1882-85, 
the excess of colored deaths from consumption for the city of Mem 
phis was 90.80 per cent. For the period 1891—95, the excess had 
arisen to over 137 per cent. For the period of 188(5—90, the excess of 
colored deaths from consumption and pneumonia for the city of At 
lanta was 139 per cent. For the period 1891-95, it had arisen to 
nearly 166 percent.* 

From these facts it would appear that pulmonary consumption is 
the "destroying angel" among us, and yet 1 am told that before the 
war this dread disease was virtually unknown among the slaves. For 
tunately Charleston, 8. C., kept even before the war the mortality sta 
tistics of the colored people, and, consequently, we are able to ascer 
tain with some accuracy how their death-rate from consumption before 

the war compares with their death-rate afterwards. What are the facts 
in the case? From 1822 to 1848, the colored death-rate from con 
sumption was a trifle less than the white. Wince 1865 it has been 
considerably greater, and is still increasing. According to F. L. 
Hoffman, the white mortality from that cause has decreased since the 
war 134 per hundred thousand. The colored mortality has increased 
over 234 per hundred thousand.* 

The question arises, How do we account for this change? Is it be 
cause the Negro is inherently more susceptible to pulmonary diseases, 
or is it because of his changed environment,—his different social con 
ditions? [f his tendency to consumption is due to his inherent sus 
ceptibility, what was it that held it in check until after the war? It 
seems that this fact alone is sufficient to fix the responsibility upon the 
conditions which have arisen since emancipation. Mr. F. L. Hoffman 
claims that the Negro's lungs weigh four ounces less than a white 
man's, and that though his normal chest measure is greater, his lung 
capacity is less; and that here we have a cause for the Negro's ten 
dency to consumption which no environment, however favorable, can 
affect. Even if this be a fact, it is hard to see how it began to operate 
as a cause of consumption only since the war. 

Let us turn for the present to another cause of the excessive mor 
tality among us; namely, the increased prevalence of scrofula and 
venereal diseases. For the period 1882—85, the colored death-rate in 
Memphis from scrofula and syphilis was 205.8 per cent in excess of that 
among the whites ; but from 1891 down to the present time, the excess 
has been 298 per cent. For the period 1893—95, there were in the 
city of Nashville 8 white deaths from scrofula and syphilis, and 35 
colored. In proportion to the population, there ought to have been 
only 5. Of course allowance must be made for the fact that, on ac 
count of the scandal and disgrace, white physicians are reluctant to 
report white deaths from these causes; whereas such motives rarely, 
if ever, influence them in reporting colored deaths. 

According to the May Bulletin of the Department, of Labor, out of 
1,090 colored people canvassed this year in the city of Nashville, IF 

Rjwe Traits and Tendencies of tlif American Negro." v>.\ F. \.. HntVinaii. 

See table d, appendix B.—Kd. 

 24 

STUDY OF NEGRO CITY I.IFK. 

were suffering from scrofula and syphilis.* One whose attention has 
not been called to the matter has no conception of the prevalence of 
these diseases among the Negroes of Nashville. I have looked for it 
in both races as I have walked the streets of my city, and to come 
across the loathsome disease in the colored passers-by is not an uncom 
mon occurrence. This state of affairs can be accounted for when I 
tell you that there is probably no city in this country where prostitu 
tion among colored people is more rampant and brazen, and where 
abandoned colored women are more numerous or more public in their 
shameful traffic. 

In the families canvassed by me this year, among 50 sufferers from 
rheumatism, 8 were so badly crippled as to be bed-ridden invalids. 
When we consider the fact that some forms of rheumatism are syphi 
litic- in their origin, and that in these same families there were 18 
suffering from scrofula and syphilis, it would appear that venereal 
poisoning was responsible for a considerable share of the rheumatism. 
There is one obstacle to the race's reproducing itself that has some 
connection with venereal diseases, and hence 1 speak of it now. 1 
refer to the enormous amount of still births and infant mortality, prev 
alent everywhere among colored people. For the period of 1893—95, 
the still and the premature births in (lie city of Nashville were 272 
for the white, and 385 for the colored; or, in proportion to the popu 
lation, 2^ times as many as there ought to have been. This relative 
state of affairs obtains in Memphis and Atlanta, and in all the largo 
cities of the South. From the health reports of all our large Southern 
cities we learn that a considerable amount of our infant mortality is 
due, to inanition, infantile debility, and infantile marasmus. Now what 
is the case in regard to these diseases? The fact is that they are not 
diseases at all, but merely the names of symptoms diu- t<> enfeebled 
constitutions and congenital diseases, inherited from parents suffering 
from the effects of sexual immorality and debauchery. Translated 
into common speech, they are nothing more than infant starvation, 
infant weakness, and infant wasting away, the cause of which is that 
the infants' parents before them have not given them a fighting chance 
for life. According to Hoffman, over 50 per cent of l,he Negro nhil- 

* See table 8, appendix A • -Ki>. 

MORTALITY AMONG NEGHOES IN CtTIKS. "Aft 

dren bom in Richmond, Va., die before they are one year old. 

The number of still and premature births among us is a matter ot 
great alarm, not only because it seriously interferes with the numerical 
increase of the race, but because it involves the fecundity, the health, 
and even the moral character of large numbers of our women. The 
support of the family often falls very heavily upon our poor washer 
women ; and since they find it hard to get the husks to feed and the 
rags to clothe their already large number of little folks, living in one 
room like, stock, rather than to add to their burden, they resort to 
crime. An official on the Nashville Board of Health, who is also 
proprietor of a drug store, tells me that he is astonished at the number 
of colored women who apply at his store for drugs with a criminal 
purpose in view. 

The 16 Atlanta groups in the recent investigation showed that the 
female heads of families are, considerably in excess of the male, and out of 
324 families 31 wore wholly supported by the mother, and 205 were 
supported by the mother altogether or in part.* In such social con 
ditions as these, where the burden of bread-winning is borne largely, 
and often altogether, by the mother of the household, it is not surpris 
ing that poor, laboring women who arc ignorant of its ruinous effects 
upon botli health and character, should resort to prenatal infanticide. 

The average family for the eighteen cities covered by our recent in 
vestigation numbers only 4.1, which means that in these eighteen cities 
the race is doing hardy more than reproducing itself-t The large 
colored families of a few decades ago arc becoming more and more 
scarce. I know a grandmother who was the proud mother of over a 
dozen children ; the daughter could boast of nine ; and not one of sev 
eral granddaughters, though married for a number of years, is the 
mother of more than one. child. This family is but an illustration of 
many others just like it. Such facts go to show that the Negro is no 
longer the " prolific animal" that be once was termed. The race, like 
the women of whom Paul once wrote to Timothy, must be " saved 
through child-bearing." 

I take it that the excess of infant mortality from cholera infantum 
and convulsions means nothing more than that the Negro mothers do 

Sec table 7, appendix A.—Ed. 
t See table 3, appendix A.—Ed. 

 26 

STUDY OP NEGRO CITY LIFK. 

.MORTALITY AMONG NEGBOES IN CITIES. 

27 

not know so well how to feed and care for their offspring. They need 
instruction in infant dietetics and baby culture. 

I have now covered the ground to which our excessive death rate is 
mainly due : namely, pulmonary diseases, especially consumption and 
pneumonia, scrofula, venereal diseases, and infant mortality. If we 
eliminate these diseases, our excessive death rate will be a thing of the 
past. 

Let us now inquire, What is there in the Negro's social condition 
that is responsible for the prevalence of these diseases, and the conse 
quent mortality? In the first place then, be it known by all men that 
we to-day in this conference assembled are not the enemies of our 
people because we tell them tlie truth. We shall know the truth, and 
the truth shall make us free not only from the bondage of sin, but from 
vicious social conditions and consequent physical death. Sanitary 
regulations and the social reconstruction of Israel formed a large part of 
Moses' religious duty, and why may it not of ours? 

While I do not depreciate sanitary regulations, and a knowledge of 
hygienic laws, I am convinced that the sine qua non of a change for the 
better in the Negro's physical condition is a higher social morality. I 
do not believe that his poverty or his relation to the white people pre 
sents any real impediment to his health and physical development. 
Without going into the reasons for it, it is well known that the poor 
laboring classes oftenr enjoy better health, are freer from disease, have 
larger families-, and live longer lives than the rich. 

I am convinced that for the causes of the black man'slow vitality, his 
susceptibility to disease, and his enormous death-rate we must look to 
those social conditions which he creates for himself. What are they ? 
I have already referred to the social causes of our excessive infant 
mortality, namely, the frequency "with which the partial or the entire 
maintenance of the household devolves upon the mother; and especially 
the impaired chance for life which a debauched and immoral parent 
age bequeaths to childhood. The infants in their graves will rise up 
in judgment against this evil and adulterous generation and condemn 
it. 

The constitutional diseases which are responsible for our unusual 
mortality are often traceable to enfeebled constitutions broken down 
by sexual immoralities. This is frequently the source of even pulmo 

nary consumption, which disease is to-day the black man's scourge. 

According to Hoffman, over 25 per cent of the Negro children born 
in Washington City are admittedly illegitimate. According to a 
writer quoted in " Black America," " In one county of Mississippi there 
were during 12 months 300 marriage licenses taken out in the county 
clerk's office for white people. According to the proportion of popu 
lation there should have been in the same time 1,200 or more for 
Negroes. There were actually taken out by colored people just three." 
James Anthony Froude asserts that 70 per cent of the Negroes in the 
West Indies are born in illegitimacy. Mr. Smeeton claims that " in 
spite of the increase of education, there has been no decrease of this 
social cancer." My attention has been called to a resort in Nashville 
within less than two blocks of the public square where a large number 
of abandoned women and profligate men often congregate in the un 
derground basement, which is lighted and ventilated only through the 
pavement grating; and there in debauchery and carousal they make 
the night hideous until almost morning. What are they sowing but 
disease, and what can they reap but death ? 

It is true that much of the moral laxity which exists among us to 
day arose out of slavery. It is due to a system which whipped women, 
which dispensed with the institution of marriage, which separated 
wives from their husbands and assigned them to other men, which 
ruthlessly destroyed female virtue, and which made helpless women 
the abject tools of their masters. This is the correct explanation of 
our social status to-day, but to explain it is not to excuse it. It is no 
longer our misfortune as it was before the war: it is our sin, the wages 
of which is our excessive number of deaths. Always and everywhere, 
moral leprosy means physical death. Wherever the colored people 
are guilty of the immoralities of which James Anthony Froude and 
W. L. Clowes of the London Times accuse them, if they continue in 
them they will be destroyed by them root and branch. Home was 
destroyed because the empire had no mothers, and Babylon was blotted 
out because she was the " mother of harlots." 

A few years ago I said in a sermon atFisk University that wherever 
the Anglo-Saxon comes into contact with an inferior race, the inferior 
race invariably goes to the wall. I called attention to the fact that in 
spite of humanitarian and philanthropic efforts, the printing press, the 

 28 STUDY OF NEGRO CITY 

steam engine and the electric motor in the hands of the Anglo-Saxon 
were exterminating the inferior races more rapidly and more surely 
than shot, and shell, and bayonet. T mentioned a number of races 
that have perished not because of destructive wars and pestilence, but 
because they were unable to live in the environment of a nineteenth 
century civilization; races whose destruction was not due to a perse 
cution that came to them from without, but to a lack of moral stamina 
within; races that perished in spite of the humanitarian and philan 
thropic efforts that were put forth to save them. 

To that utterance let me now add this thought: that where shot, and 
shell, and bayonet, and the printing press and the steam engine, and 
the electric motor have slain their thousands ; licentious men, unchaste 
women, and impure homes have slain their tens of thousands: and I 
speak the words of soberness and truth when T say that If the charges 
of sexual immoralities brought against us arc true, unless there be 
wrought a social revolution among us, the handwriting of our destruc 
tion even now may be seen o» the wall. The history of nations 
teaches us that neither war, nor famine, nor pestilence exterminates 
them so completely and rapidly as do sexual vices. 

If the cause of our excessive death-rate be, in its ultimate analysis, 
moral rather than sanitary, then this fact ought to appear not only in 
our vital, but In our criminal statistics as well. t*rof. Starr, of Chicago 
University, claims that in the State of Pennsylvania, where there is 
little opportunity to assert that the courts arc prejudiced against col 
ored criminals, though the Negroes form only 2 per cent of the popu 
lation, yet they furnish 1G per cent of the male prisoners, and 34 per 
cent of the female. The nice has snch great privileges in Chicago and 
it is dealt with so fairl and justly that the colored people themselves 
have denominated it the "Negroes'Heaven;" and yet, according to 
Prof. Starr, while the Negroes form only 1^ per cent of the population of 
Chicago, they furnish 10 percent of the arrests. 1 am convinced that 
the immorality which accounts for these criminal conditions is also re 
sponsible for the race's physical status; and if svc are to strike at the 
root of the mattci, it will not be at sanitary regulations, but at social 
reconstruction and moral regeneration. 

Note: We regret being unable to print the, whole of Prof. Harris' valuable puper.-Ed. 

SECOND ANNUAI, CONFERENCE. 

PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONFERENCE. 

29 

MINUTES. 

The second Atlanta University Conference on Problems of Negro City Life con 
vened iu the Ware Memorial Chapel on Tuesday, May 25, 1897. at 8 P.M. 

President Horace llnnistcnd, of Atlanta University, opened the conference as 
presiding pfliccr; after which it wna voted that George A. Towns ('91) and George F. 
Smith ('ST) be made recording secretaries. 

A letter was then read from His Excellency Gov. W. Y. Atkinson of Georgia, iu 
which he expressed regret for hip inability to deliver the address of welcome. Presi 
dent Humstead then delivered the opening address. 

The general purpose of the meeting Tuesday night was to Bet forth clearly the facts 
as to the physical and sanitary condition of Negroes iu cities, as brought out by the 
investigation. In accordance with this purpose three carefully prepared papers were 
presented: the first a '' General Summary," by Rutlcr R. Wilson, Esq., of Boston, 
Mass.; the second entitled " Social and Physical Progress : a Comparative Analysis 
of the Reports of the Boards of Health of Atlanta, Daltimore, Charleston, Mempliia, 
and Richmond," by Mr. L. M. Hurshaw of Washington, D. C.; the third entitled 
"The Physical Condition of the Race, whether Dependent upon Social Conditions or 
Environment," by Prof. Eugene Harris of Fisk T^mversity. 

Bishop It H. Holgoy, D.D., who was on the program and present, did not speak 
because of the lateness of the hour and bin physical indisposition. 

Dutler R. Wilson, Ksq., then introduced certain resolutions, which were referred to 
a committee on resolutions, consisting of Butler It. Wilson, Kwq., of Boston, Mans.; 
Prof. Eugene Hnrris of Nashville, Tenn.; Rev. l)r. W. G. Alexander of Atlanta; 
]lev. J. E. Smith of Chattanooga, Tcnn.; and Miss Lucy C. Laney of Augusta. 
The meeting was then adjourned. 

On Wednesday afternoon at 3 o'clock there were two simultaneous meetings of the 
conference. That for men was held in the Prayer Meeting Itoom, and had as its 
general subject: "Consumption; ib Causes, and Cleans to Prevent it." 

The presiding ofRccr was Prol. Wm. H. Crogman ("?()), of Clark University, who 
made suitable introductory remarks. Papers were then read as follows : " Ventila 
tion, Exercise and Physicol Development," by If. II. llutlcr, M.D., of Atlanta; 
"Care of the Teeth in its Relation to Health," by J. 1!. Porter, D.D.S., of Atlanta; 
"Causes ofConsumptiou, andPiuutical Methods of Preventingit," by A. J. Love, M.D., 
of Chattanooga, Tunu.; "A Social Study of 1,000 Atlanta Homes," by Prof. F. A. 
Updyke of the Atlanta Baptist College, read iu his ubsence by Pres. George Sale of 
that institution. A paper was also read by Dr. A. M. Drown of IHrmiugbam, Ala., 
in place of the one that should have been read by Dr. R. F. Boyd ot Nashville, 
Tenn., who telegraphed regret at bin inability to utk-nd on account of sickness. 

 oU STUDY OF NEGRO CITY LIFE. 

This was followed by an animated general discussion, participated in by Butler K. 
Wilson, Esq., Rev. J. E. Smith, Mr. L. M. Hershaw, Rev. II. H. Proctor of Atlanta, 
Dr. 11. R. Butler, Rev, Dr. W. G. Alexander, Prof. W. B. Matthews of Atlanta, Rev. 
Dr. W. J. White of Augusta, Prof. Eugene Harris, Rev. William Plagg of Atlanta, 
and Prof. W. II. Crogman. 

A committee, of which Prof. W. H. Crogman was chairman, was chosen to preparp 
resolutions to be offered at the evening meeting. 

The meeting was then adjourned. 

The meeting for women, held sit the same hour, in Ware Memorial Chapel, had as 
its general subject : " Infant Mortality; ils Causes, and Means to Check it." After 
a preliminary explanation by Butler K. Wilson, Ksq., a suitable intro 
ductory address was delivered by Miss Lucy C. Laney, of Augusta, who presided 
Over the meeting. Papers were then read as follows : "Friendly Visiting," by Mrs. 
Minnie Wright Price of South Atlanta; "Parents' Associations," by Mrs. Dinah 
Watts Pace of Covington; "Mothers' Meetings," by Mrs, Georgia Swift King of 
Atlanta; "Need of Day Nurseries,1' by Mrs. Selena Sloan Butler of Atlanta; 
"Need of Kindergartens," by Mrs. Uosa Morehcad Bass of Atlanta. 

The reading of those papers was followed by an animated discussion, participated 
in by MJss Lucy C. Laney, Mrs. Adella Hunt Logan, Mrs. Georgia Swift King, Mrs 
David T. Howard of Atlanta, Mrs. Thos. N. Chsise of Atlanta, Mrs. Dr, Murray of 
Gammon Theological Seminary, and others. 

A committee, of which Mrs. Dinah Watts Pace was chairman, was appointed to 
draft suitable resolutions for presentation at the evening meeting ; after whieh the 
mooting adjourned. 

The meeting Wednesday night convened in Ware Memorial Chapel at 8 o'clock 
and was presided over by President Burnstead. Prayer was offered by Rev. Calvin 
Lane <>l Marietta. A paper w:is then read by Mrs. Adella Hunt Logau of Tuskcgee, 
Ala., on " Prenatal and Hereditary Influences." Rev. Joseph K. Smith followed 
with a paper on the " Care of Neglected Children." The resolutions prepared by 
the committee appointed at the men's section meeting were then presented by Prof. 
Wm. H. Crogman and adopted by the conference. 

Rev. H. H. Proctor th«n spoke upon tin; " Need of Friendly Visiting," and Miss 
Lucy C. Laney upon the "Care of Children and Methods of Preventing Infant Mor 
tality." The resolutions prepared by the committee appointed at the women's section 
meeting were then presented by Mrs. Dinah Watts Puce, and adopted by the con 
ference.* 

At this point Rev. J. E. Smith spoke concerning the nursery movement in Chatta 
nooga, Tenn. Prof. Wm. K. Holmes, of the Atlanta Baptist College, spoke of the 
work of the Sociological Club of Atlanta. Mr. L. M. Hershaw reported concerning 
the Graduate Club in Washington. D. C, 

* For these resolution* see page 32. 

SECOND ANNUAL CONFERENCE. 

31 

Butler R. Wilson, Esq., then read the following letter from Mr. George G. Bradford, 
of Boston, to President Bumstead : 

" It is with great regret that I hereby tender my resignation as corresponding sec 
retary of the conference. 1 need not assure you that only urgent necessity compels 
me to give up a work in which I have taken so deep an interest." 

The following resolution was unanimously adopted, upon the receipt of this letter : 

" Whereas, Mr. George G. Bradford, of Boston, a trustee of the Atlanta University, 
has been untiring in his efforts to make permanent the movement to obtain exact 
information concerning the social, physical and moral condition of the colored peo 
ple living in cities ; 

" Ttesoloed: That this conference hereby tender him the thanks of the colored peo 
ple for his splendid work and instruct the secretaries of the conference to send him 
a copy of these resolutions." 

It was then voted that an executive committee of five be appointed at some future 
time to make plans for a subsequent investigation, to decide the subjects to be inves 
tigated, to appoint a recorder, and to name a corresponding secretary. 

Butler R. Wilson, Esq., then read the resolutions presented by the committee on 
Tuesday night. There was considerable discussion as to the phraseology of the first 
resolution, participated in by Butler R. Wilson, Esq., Rev. J. K. Smith, Prof. Eugene 
Harris, Dr. A. J. Love, Rev. Dr. W. J. White, Mr. L. M. Hershaw, and Prof. T. N. 
Chase. The resolutions as a whole were unanimously adopted. 

After remarks by Mrs. Georgia Swift King concerning a partially successful at 
tempt by the W. C. T. U. to establish a day nursery in Atlanta, and further remarks 
by Mrs. Dinah Watts Pace, the conference adjourned. 

GEORGE A. TOWNS, \ Recording 
GEORGE P. SMITH, /Secretaries. 

> For these resolutions see page 33. 

 SECOND ANNUAL CONFERENCE. 

33 

32 

STUDY OF NEGRO CITY LIFE. 

RESOLUTIONS ADOPTED EY THE CONFERENCE. 

METHODS OF PREVENTING CONSUMPTION. 

REPORTED FROM THE MEN'S SECTION MEETING. 

kere.as, the chief modes of infection are: 

First—By inhaling dry and pulverized expectoration; 

Second—By using spoons, cups, and other articles which have not 
been properly cleaned after u.sing by tuberculous patients; 

Third—By kissing; 

Fourth—From intermarriage of tuberculous individuals. 
Therefore, Resolved: 

First—That sputum must be destroyed and must not be allowed 
to become dry, and that handkerchiefs used by tuberculous persons 
must be destroyed; 

Second—That the floors and walls of rooms occupied by tubercu 
lous persons must be thoroughly disinfected before being used by other 
persons; 

Third—That carpets, curtains and bcddingmnst be exposed to su 
perheated steam under high pressure; 

Fourth—That all living rooms must be thoroughly aired daily, 
kept thoroughly clean, and ventilated night and day. 

MOTHERS' MEETINGS, DAY NURSERIES, FAMILY SUPPORT 
AND KINDERGARTENS. 

REPORTED FROM THE WOMEN'S SECTION MEETING. 

tercets, a race cannot rise higher than its women, and the home is 
the great school for the molding of character, and mothers are the 
most important factors in these schools ; 

Therefore, Resolved: That anew impetus be given to the establish 
ing and holding of mothers' meetings whenever and wherever prac 
ticable, for the instruction, development and uplifting of the mother 

hood of our race along practical, moral and spiritual lines. 

Whereas, a very large percentage of our women, being thrown upon 
their own resources for a livelihood for themselves and families, are 
compelled daily to leave, uncared for, their little ones; 

Therefore, Resolved: That individuals and organizations interest 
themselves in the immediate establishment, on a small scale at first, 
of day nurseries for the care and culture of these dear little ones. 

Whereas, investigation shows that a very large majority of our men 
are supported by their wives, and since such a condition of affairs 
must of necessity hinder wives and mothers from performing their 
higher duties, such as the careful training of families along moral and 
spiritual lines, and since man in failing to care for his family proves 
himself to be unfit to be called husband or father; 

Therefore, Resolved: That in order to arouse and educate such men 
to a full appreciation of their duties men's meetings be held whenever 
and wherever practicable, and that our ministers of the Gospel preach 
special sermons along all practical lines ; that by these two agencies 
the men of to-day mav be aroused to a keener sense of their responsi 
bility in this matter of family support. 

evens, the need of kindergarten work is clearly seen for the 
starting of the little ones into proper chaunels of training, and since 
work in this department has been of the greatest help to teachers who 
lead the young minds from this into higher branches, and since the 
child-life in the school-room should be of vital interest to parents; 

Therefore, Resolved: That efforts be put forth for the establishment 
and maintenance of such departments of educational work. 

GENERAL RESOLUTIONS. 

Resolved, That it appears from the result of the investigation :— 

First—That the excessive mortality among Negroes is not due 
mainly to environment; 

Second—That the excessive mortality among Negroes is largely due 
either to their ignorance or to their disregard of the laws of health 
and morality; 

Third—That the excessive mortality and the apparent increase of 

 34 

STUDY OF NEGRO CITY IJFE. 

immorality among the Negroes is chiefly due to neglect of home and 
family life, the chief cause of which is the extent to which the mothers 
are obliged to go out to work; 

Fourth—That the failure of the men to entirely support their fami 
lies with their earnings has a most serious effect upon the social, phys 
ical and economic progress of the race; 

Fifth—That finally, it appears that the Negro must reform himself, 
and that he is not dependent upon charity or municipal regulations, 
but has the means in his own hands. 

Resolved, That the following recommendations are made:_ 

First—That the attention of members of the conference during the 
coming year he concentrated 'on reforms in the family life of the 
Negro; 

Second—That greater care and attention should be given to the 
home training of children, and also of young men and young women, and 
that parents' associations and mothers' meetings should be formed for 
that purpose; 

Third—That day nurseries should be provided for the care of infants 
and young children in the enforced absence of the. parents; 

Fourth—That friendly visiting among the poor should be more gen 
eral and more systematic, and that friendly visitors should hold weekly 
or monthly conferences under the direction of those who are making a 
special study of social problems. 

SECOND ANNUAL CONFERENCE. 

ADDRESSES, PAPERS, AND LETTERS. 

ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT KUMSTEAD. 

It has been our hope, and for a time our expectation, that the ad 
dress of welcome would be given to-night by His Excellency, Gov 
ernor Atkinson, but circumstances have prevented his attendance, and 
we must content, ourselves with the expression of his interest and good 
wishes which he has so kindly conveyed in his letter of regret. 

It seems, therefore, to fall to me to speak the word of welcome, and 
I do it with great heartiness. I welcome you to the interesting dis 
cussions which this conference has in store for us. I congratulate 
you, too, on the painstaking and highly successful work which yon 
have carried on since our meeting a year ago, and which will form the 
basis of discussion at the present meeting. The results of your inves 
tigations conducted last fall and winter, as embodied in the statistical 
tables of the May Bulletin of the Department of Labor at Washington, 
have impressed me deeply. I am impressed with the enormous amount 
of careful, patient, discriminating, and conscientious labor which those 
tables represent, and I am impressed anew with the significance and 
importance of statistical science. 

What is the significance of the statistical work in which this con 
ference is now engaged? You and 1 have sometimes seen a man who 
attracted our attention because of his striking physical health. His 
figure was erect and finely proportioned, his muscles well developed, 
his step elastic, his eye clear, his complexion of the kind that reveals 
healthy blood coursing through every artery and vein. This man, 
however, may once have heen a weak and sickly student in college. 
How did this transformation take place? It was the work of the 
director of physical culture in that college. He took the student in 
hand, made careful measurements of the different parts of his body, tested 
the action of his muscles and of his lungs and heart and other vital 
organs, found out where the weak points in his body were, and noted 
accurately the degree of weakness or of insufficient development. 
Then he presented certain exercises for the student to practice to se 
cure a more vigorous or a more symmetrical development, a certain 
diet to follow, possibly certain medicines or tonics to take. The 

 36 

STUDY OP .S1K<;RO CITY LIFE. 

transformation followed, and its success all depended on the accuracy 
with which the real condition of that young student's physical organ- 
ism was ascertained by the director of physical culture. 

We are dealing with a much larger and vastly more important 
organism than that of any individual—the great social organism of 
which we all form a part, an organism of wonderful complexity, with 
a life peculiar to itself, and just as much subject to the laws of health 
and disease as the body of any individual can possibly be. It is the 
prime object of all sociological investigation to find out the weak spots 
in the social organism and to seek to remedy them. This is the work 
in which we are engaged, in common with all other students of social 
science. We are not, indeed, undertaking to do the whole of it, but 
only a part. We have wisely chosen for the present to confine our 
selves to that constituent part of the social organism which is made 
up of a single race or class of people, and to those nerve-centers of 
modern life which are found in the cities and larger towns. But it is 
none the less for the benefit of the larger whole that we carry on this 
more limited work. And for the furtherance of the great end before 
us all—the perfect health of the social organism, or the body politic, 
as it is sometimes called, I am confident that your investigations of 
the past winter will prove a substantial contribution. 

Before we pass to the discussion of the statistics to which I have 
referred, it is perhaps important that I should remind yon of the two 
things which constitute the chief value of all statistics. One is the 
accuracy with which they are gathered, and the other is the honest}' 
with which they are interpreted. The gathering of statistics is not the 
easy task which many people suppose, or which, possibly, you sup 
posed before yon tried it. It requires intelligence, discrimination, 
tact, courtesy, patience and fidelity in no small degree, and your work 
shows the possession of these qualities to a very gratifying extent, as 
it seems to me. But the correct reading and interpretation of statistics 
is oftentimes an almost equally delicate and difficult task. The temp 
tation is frequently strong to close our eyes to unpleasant conclusions 
or to attempt to explain them away. Candor and courage are needed 
here in the proper interpretation of our statistical work as intelligence 
and accuracy were needed in their collection. Let the proceedings of 
this conference demonstrate that we are possessed of all these qualities. 

SKCON1> ANNUAL CONFERENCE. 

PRENATAL AND HEREDITARY INFLUENCES. 

BY MRS. ADKL.LA HUNT LOGAN ('81), TUSKEGEE, ALA. 

37 

The boy takes his large nose from his grandmother, the small mouth 
from his father, and a quick temper from his mother. This is natural, 
for children always inherit the characteristics of their ancestors. But 
where does lie get red hair? No one in the family has hair of that 
color. And how is it that the young man seems prone to the social 
sin? His father has always seemed upright, and his mother is re 
garded as a model of purity. To be sure, the grandfather sowed wild 
oats, and it is charged that a great—great—grandmother was born out 
of wedlock, but that was generations ago and this young man has never 
heard those family scandals of a hundred vears past. 

It is well, if his ears have never listened to such unhappy stories. 
His parents were wise in withholding them from his knowledge. Alas ! 
while they could easily keep the family skeleton in the closet and spare 
their son the humiliation of such ugly tales they could not so easily 
purify and change the blood that coursed in their veins; hence we see 
the son, in spite of fine precept and example, ou the downward grade 
in his social tendencies. 

Again, they say this young man is not very strong. His mother 
tears he is going into consumption. The father says: "Have no fears 
along that line, my dear, for there is no consumption in my family nor 
in yours. No danger of that, although somehow our son is rather 
frail!" 

That red hair is hard to account for, but, no doubt, this head is an ex- 
uct reproduction of one in the same family generations ago. It may be 
wo far back, indeed, that no living person remembers having heard of 
the peculiarity. In the same silent way influences which affect the 
morals and the health of the boy have been handed down. 

How rarely in the every day ordering of our lives do we give any 
attention to that silent, but powerful, thing known as heredity! 
Although its power cannot be confined in time to the earthly life of 
man, nor in social contact to any one race, as long as we are not re 
minded in some very forcible or unpleasant way of its effects, we 

 38 

(STUDY OF XEGKO CITY LIFK. 

scarcely think of its operations. At any rate, the thought expended 
upon it rarely ripens into such action as will regulate its influence. 

In respect to time the force of heredity cannot be checked by a 
generation. We are to-day reaping what was sown, not by our fathers 
alone, but by their fathers and grandfathers. " Unto the third and 
fourth generation of them " was the decree thundered from Mt. Sinai 
by the voice of Almighty God. 

There can be no suspending of the influences of hereditv until the 
human soul has had sufficient development to appreciate responsibili 
ties ; until it wills to be shaped by this or by that influence. No, 
there is no choice! Before the body is ready to begin life as a .separate 
being, as a new personality, it is molded and cast by the combined 
traits of the father and the mother from whom this new creature must 
draw its individual existence. And the intellectual and ethical cast 
will follow as closely the law, " Like begets like," as will the physical. 
We do not expect to find the children of white parentage having black 
faces or kinky hair, nor the children of black ancestry having fair 
brows, blue eyes, and flaxen locks. It would be just as unreasonable 
to expect the intellectual and the ethical characteristics of children to 
be radically unlike those of their ancestors as it would be to expect 
their physical features to be radically different. 

'T is true that the progeny of some very good parents are very bad 
specimens of humanity, but such' cases must be like our boy's red hair 
which fell to him despite the fact that no other such head had ever been 
seen in that family. In both cases the results came through blood. 
Both the red hair and the weak or vicious character were transmitted. 
Probably through a long stream of blood, but we must know that 
neither came as a matter of chance. The one was just as much a leg 
acy as the other. 

Placing an inheritance is often difficult for the reason that it mav 
be the result of complex causes and combined forces. 

Possibly no one in the preceding generations had red hair, but there 
must have been sufficient in the aggregate of that kind of pigment to 
produce one such head in the family. This same principle of trans 
mission applies to the health, the brain and the morals of the descend 
ants. The exact ailment of body or malady of mind may not be 
traceable to any one source, but it has been handed down. 

* SECOND ANNUAL t'ONFKEKNCE. 3y 

Legacies of money seem to fall in most cases to those who are already 
fortunate. This may be on the theory that " To him that hath shall 
be given." Not so with the more enduring legacies of body and soul. 
Whether we will or no they come, and, like the dreaded bacteria, fix 
themselves in the most fertile soil. Where there is one weakness of 
body or mind another is the more apt to locate ; hence, instead of 
having a general distribution of evil, it falls much more heavily in 
some places than in others. 

To no one source more than the conditions attendant upon pregnant 
women can the cause of physical or moral evil be traced. The unborn 
child draws its physical and in large measure its intellectual and 
ethical make-up from its father and its mother. Not from the mother 
alone, as many suppose, but from both. 

Both parents contribute to the possibilities for health, good or bad, 
and furnish the germs for character creation and development just as 
certainly as they together originate the physical life. 

These are solemn truths! Yet how few people understand or re 
gard them ! The awful sacredness of procreation has never yet 
dawned upon any considerable proportion of mankind. 

Sadly enough, the gratification of passion is too often the only 
thought, while the result is given little or no consideration. Too 
many children come into life as mere accidents. The father is irri 
tated at the thought of an additional one to work for. He feels his 
present family to be quite as much as he can decently support. His 
moroseness is communicated to the already regretful mother, who rea 
sons that she is not strong enough, that children worry her so she can 
not do justice to those she already has, that her time and strength are 
too much divided, as she in many cases is also a bread-winner. Sad 
plight, we see, for there is reason in the objections offered. But pru 
dential considerations come too late to be availing. Just think how 
the innocent offspring must reap the evil effects of these unholy feel 
ings and expressions, and all the sympathy that you might have felt 
for the parents turns into disgust, and you exclaim: "In Heaven's 
name, call your will to the rescue and say, 'God helping me, I will not 
thus prejudice the cause of my own child !' " 

Few women seem to appreciate the fact that the sensitive embryo 
receives the impressions made upon the mind of the mother. Very 
strange thoughtlessness, as the most ignorant believe in birthmarks 

 40 

STUDY OF XEOTJO CITY LIFE. 

SECOND ANNUAI, CONFEKKNCTC. 

41 

and everything that affects the body. How is it that they do not 
realize that a mind also is being created ? 

All parents love their children and most love them to the very best 
of their understanding. Because of this love, which we believe to be 
the strongest known to the human breast, most parents arc willing to 
be taught what is best for their offspring. 

In making effort to give uplift to the vitality of the Negro race the 
best work needs to be put into the enlightenment of present and pro 
spective parenthood. Not necessarily into general and extended 
learning,—that is more or less impracticable,—but the claims of prenatal 
and hereditary influences need to be brought to the direct and intelli 
gent consideration of all classes. 

In the women's meetings and in the men's meetings equally there 
should be set forth in a plain way the important teachings of science 
on this important subject. This instruction may be set forth in such 
language as the occasion demands and the instructor chooses to employ, 
but, above all, let it be distinctly understood that the development of 
germ life depends upon the original germ and equally upon the cul 
ture and treatment of that germ:—in short, teach that the prenatal de 
velopment of a child depends largely upon whenever affects the mother. 
If the pregnant woman is constantly wishing that her unborn child 
were dead or that the man who has given her this burden,—as she has 
learned in her chagrin to regard the child,—were dead; who can won 
der that out of such murderous thought there should come in very 
truth a murderer! 

Should the material wants of the mother be denied her to such an 
extent that she feels the necessity and yields to the temptation of sup 
plying them by theft, or by prostitution who shall think it strange that 
her child should be a thief or prostitute ? If the father is a drunkard 
the son is apt to be a drunkard. 

Criminals are often made years and years before they are sentenced 
to prison. Alas! too often made criminal before they arc born. 

The body may cotne into life as sorely doomed as the mind, unable 
to resist the ordinary diseases incident to childlife, because of the many 
neglects and abuses of the bodies of parents. This is very wrong: very 
unfair to the child and in many ways very hard on parents- 

The creation of a strong public sentiment on these subjects seems to 
be an imperative necessity. 

THK CAKE OF NEGLECTED CHILUUKN. 

HY REV. JOSEPH E. SMITH ('76), CHATTANOOGA, TENN. 

[NoTK : [''or confirmation of the facts stated by Mr. Smith, see table 7 of appen 
dix A. showing the proportion of families partially or wholly supported by women. 
The enforced absence oi' the mothers from their homes will remain a vital factor in 
the problem for many years to come, being due to industrial conditions which will 
change slowly. Mr. Smith's recommendations are therefore timely.—El>.] 

" beestthou not what they do in the cities . . .and in the streets? " 
I desire to call attention to some of the daily scenes in our streets and 
the lessons which they teach. The streets of a city are the exhibition halls 
of its citizens. Walking through these public halls all phases and con 
ditions of life may be seen, and the character and civilization of its peo 
ple judged. Most pleasing and inspiring evidences of well ordered 
and happy home life appear on the one hand; while on the other hand 
many and sad are the evidences of no order, no home life and no hap 
piness for a large number of people. 

[t is of this imperative need,—orderly home life and training,—as 
evidenced by street and prison scenes, that 1 shall now more particu 
larly speak. 

One of the first scenes in our streets between the hours of five and 
six o'clock in the morning is, large numbers of women railing to their 
places of work for the day. About eight o'clock at night they return 
to their homes. Many of these women are mothers with from one to 
eight and often more children. Unwillingly these, mothers leave their 
children all day and part of the night in the place they call home, all 
alone to care for themselves. If they are awake, just before the mother 
leaves, as is usually the case, she gives them hastily what she may hap 
pen to have for their breakfast, sometimes apiece of bread, sometimes 
it is a little molasses in a tin plate or old bucket top, around which the 
little ones all gather and each in his turn dips in his fingers and licks 
them off1 until all the molasses is gone. To this sweetness the mother 
' adds many sweet promises of great things for them if they will be good 
and stay at home until mama com<\s back at night. Then with great 

 42 

OK NKGKO CITY LJFK. 

anxiety and confusion she tears herself awav from them and hasten.' 
to her work while they «ry for her to come back, and often they arc 
quarreling and fighting among themselves before she is out of sight. 
No one but a mother knows how painful it is to leave her children all 
(done under these unfortunate circumstances, but there is nothing else 
for her to do but to go, and go she does with an aching heart. 

It is not long after the mother is gone before the children, being 
left to themselves, leave the house, go into the streets, wander about 
at will from place to place, get into mischief and commit sin, often 
taking little tilings from people's houses without realizing that they 
have done wrong. They ramble about until tired, fall down at almost 
any place, go to sleep, and wake up again only to continue the ramble/ 
.sometimes until late in the night. 

The anxious mother comes home at night to find that her chil 
dren are not there. She does not know where they are and starts 
out in the dark to look for them in the streets. Often she finds them 
in the city jail or station house, having been arrested by some officer 
during the day or early night for committing some little crime. Chief 
Hill of the police force of Chattanooga says: "They are brought in 
the patrol wagon to the station house by the dozen at the time. Ask 
them where their parents are and they will sav, 'Dead, or at work, or 
away from home somewhere.' " 

Such is a faint representation of a part of that which is going on in 
our streets every day, and we need only to multiply the days and we 
have the awfid record of years. Growing up in the midst of such 
daily surroundings and influences is it to be wondered at that large 
numbers of our young people find their way to the chain-gang and 
work house'! 

There arc hundreds and thousands of our children at this veryhoni 
who are roaming about at large in the streets of our cities because thej 
have had no orderly home life or training; growing up in the streets 
their idea of living is such as they get from the worse side of street 
life, and the inevitable result must be crime, prison and the gallows 
And the saddest thing about all of this is, that unless underthe providence 
of God a preventive is found, this most appalling state of society 
must continue growing worse each day to the end of time. 

Is it possible to so reenforce the home as to save society and the 

SRCoNU A.NNtiAI. 

state this awful menace? I believe it is possible and practicable. 
The " Day Nursery " and education as reeuforcements to the home 
furnish the preventive. 

The greatest need of Negro children is the right kind of home life 
and training. It is a most encouraging truth that many of our people 
have ueat, modest, virtuous homes, and their children, being reared 
under intelligent and safe motherly influences, are growing up virtuous 
and modest, trustworthy and useful. These children are not candi 
dates for crime, disease and prison, but for a worthv and useful citizen 
ship. While this number is small when compared to the masses, yet 
it is large enough to show what can be done by that all-important 
agency, the home. The day nursery, as a supplement to the home, 
is the most urgent need of the great masses of Negro children. Says 
Mrs. Dodge in the Outlook: "If the child is father to the man, then 
the influences which surround him during childhood have the greatest 
effect upon his after-life, and the day nursery is, therefore, the 
foundation upon which to build the structure of character; for, taking 
the child in his earliest years, often indeed in earliest infancy, nursery 
training is the first in the chain of educational influences which aid 
the state iu making the useful citizen, this influence holding sway 
over his mind arid heart on through the kindergarten period, through 
the public school, and over the threshold into the whirl of life's ex 
acting activities." 

If day nurseries can be established iu the cities and the little 
ones gathered from the streets into them; soap and fresh water, comb 
and brush freely and effectually used; a clean little garment furnished 
for a clean little body, and some wholesome food for a hungry little 
stomach; clean thoughts put into the little mind and heart; lessons 
of sympathy, kindness, honesty, industry, hope and self-respect taught; 
—if these things can be done for all Negro children deprived of home 
training a long and very effectual step will be taken toward reducing 
crime, disease and premature death. 

 44 

HT17DY OF NEXJKu CITY LIFE. 

THE NEED OF FRIENDLY VISITATION. 

HV RHV. II. H. PROCTOR, ATLANTA, GA. 

An undertaker who within the last ten years has buried many of the 
ten thousand of our people who sleep in Southview cemetery recently 
made a remark to me that set me to thinking. I give it to you to 
night with the hope that it may have the same effect upon you. "You 
have no idea," he said, " how many people are dying from the lack of 
sympathy." This is expert testimony, and vve cannot reject it. 

I suspect, however, that the idea he had in mind is capable of a more; 
precise expression. There is a wealth of sympathy in this world. It 
is the exceptional heart that contains no well-spring of S37mpatliy. 
The difficulty is not as to the possession of sympathy; it is as to its 
expre ion. Many people are dying because no one expresses any 
sympathy for them. Sympathy is like the coupon on the railway 
ticket,—not good if detached ! Prayer may be effective, though un 
expressed ; but not so with sympathy. 

There are runny ways of expressing this sympathy so as to make it 
effective in elevating the home life of the poor. One way is by giving 
good advice in an assembly like this. Another is by contributing 
money to be used in judicious ways. Both of these are .needed, but I 
am thinking of another way, wliieh, while not necessarily independent of 
these, is, 1 think, more important than either. I refer to friendly per 
sonal visitation. Advice is cheap. We may cast a coin at a beggar 
to quiet a disturbing conscience. But to give ourselves,—that is the 
gift that costs. Togo into the homes of the people and, as did Philip 
with the eunuch, to sit with them, costs more than to make an address 
or contribute a quarter. And yet that is to my mind the only solu 
tion of this great sociological problem. We must come into personal 
touch with the masses. 

To this some will put in objections. Will not these people presume 
upon our social reserve ? Will not the upper class be dragged down 
by contact with the lower? These questions are not unnatural. They 
demand a reasonable answer. To the first objection I would say that 

KECOM> ANNi'Ai CONFERENCE. 40 

there is not the least danger of the plainest people mistaking our 
kindly interest for an invitation to onr private social functions. The 
plain people have wonderfully keen instincts. To the other I would 
sav that it is not contact with the lower element that injures the higher; 
it is the kind of contact. The distinction is vital. " He is armed 
without who is innocent within." Virtue is its possessor's shield. The 
immaculate swan comes unspotted from the vilest sewer. 

If you would elevate a building you would not apply pulleys at the 
top. You would put jaekscrews under the mudsills. You cannot 
elevate society by lifting from the top; you must put the jaekscrews 
under the mudsills of society. Put the unfailing dynamics of friendly 
visitation under the homes of the poor and the whole people will rise 
a living, an exalted temple before God. 

 STUDY Of NUOKO CITY 

SECOND ANNUAL <X)NFKRKNCK. 

47 

CAUSES OF CONSUMPTION, AND PRACTICAL METHODS 
OF PREVENTING IT. 

BY A. .1. I.OVE, M.D., CHATTANOOGA, TKNN. 

Mr. President: Thinking as I do that the specific treatment of 
tuberculosis does not come before ns for consideration at this meeting, 
[ shall not enter into a discussion of the late discoveries for the radi 
cal cure of consumption. 

In presenting to you this paper on a subject about which so much 
has been written and concerning the solution of which so many the 
ories have been advanced, I shall speak more from a practical than 
from a theoretical standpoint. 

That tuberculosis is a germ disease is no longer disputed. But a 
practical means of destroying this bacillus is the vexatious question of 
to-day. 

To rightly understand some of the mean* of cheeking and prevent • 
ing the growth of consumption we must first know some of its predis 
posing as well as some of its exciting causes. 

A predisposition to tuberculosis is inherited. Not that the infant is 
born with the germ fully developed in his system, but being born'of 
tuberculous parents he inherits a condition favorable to the develop 
merit of the disease. He ia of an inferior physique, usually slender, 
emaciated,, nervous, easily exhausted, has a low or deformed chest, his 
blood is poor in quality, he is susceptible to colds, and subject to bron 
chial catarrh and cough. The alimentary canal is one of the most 
vulnerable points in his anatomy. The digestion is so feeble that the 
mildest diet is sometimes harmful. And yet, with all this, he is bright- 
eyed, intelligent and hopeful. 

There is an intimate relation between consumption and scrofula, 
which is likewise a disease of degenerative tissue metamorphosis. 
Whether there is a direct relation between these two diseases or not, is 
perhaps yet to be demonstrated, but the clinical fact that tuberculous 
aud struraous diatheses are almost always found in the same subjects 
cannot be, denied. That the tissues of scrofulous subjects are wanting 

in vital power is apparent from their great tendency to suppurate. 
Bartholow says that the tubercle is a product of scrofula, which would 
indicate that the same cause which produces scrofulosis would, through 
the process of pathological evolution, produce tuberculosis. 

Is tuberculosis possible in a subject who has not the unfortunate 
legacy of a tubereuhir diathesis? To my mind there can be no doubt 
that tin* affirmative of thin is true. The child born of healthy 
parents, but who is reared in the slums of a densely populated city, 
housed in a miserable hut in the alley, forced to sleep in a crowded 
apartment where the atmosphere is necessarily damp and virulent, 
both from the effluvia rising from the decomposing excreta from the 
bodies of its many inmates and from the vitiated gases exhaled from 
their lunge, who sleeps in the garments which he wears through many 
weary days, who goes tor months without knowing the civilizing. 
Christianizing and cleansing influence of the bath, whose food is im- 
properly cooked and wanting both in quality and quantity, and con 
cerning the hour of whose meals there is no regularity, will almost 
Hurely present early symptoms of decay. 

That constitution which at the outset was physiologically perfect 
has gradually degenerated into one with inferior vital tendencies. The 
morbific influences of his surroundings have wrought upon him a 
molecular modification of the tissues, which undergo a low grade of 
inflammation and glandular suppuration. This, with its catalogue of 
pathological possibilities, is scrofulosis. Tins fruitful soil is the reode- 
vons tor bacteria of every morbid turn of mind. The cells having lost 
their vital resistance, the system becomes an easy prey to disease. 
Here the tubercle bacillus finds a suitable pabulum on which to subsist, 
and amid such unfavorable surroundings our subject of unfortunate cir 
cumstances will almost inevitably succumb to this disease. But even if 
»t this period he should not himself be overtaken by tuberculosis, still 
this marked tendency of constitution will gradually become permanent 
»"d capable of hereditary transmission. Thus the succeeding genera- 
tionsof all such individuals h:ivc a natural predisposition to tuberculosis, 
SB also to many other diseases which are superinduced by malnutri 
tion. 

Drunkenness in parents predisposes to consumption in their off 
spring, because of the fact that they transmit to them the toxological 

 48 

STUDY OF NEGRO CITV 

SJK<:OND ANNUAL OONKKKKNOM. 

49 

effects of alcoholism, producing a general deterioration of nutrition,, 
and because of semi-starvation duo to neglect on the part of these 
parents while under the influence of alcohol. For it is a painful fact 
that mothers in the lower classes, as well as fathers,are becoming more 
and more addicted to strong drink, and that these unfortunate chil 
dren are allowed to go for many hours without nourishment. 

Puberty, with its attending susceptibility to consumption, is a crit 
ical period. The system, while undergoing the important changes of 
maturity, is ill-prepared to defend itself against extraneous patholog 
ical factors. This period ends the career of many youth, who in their 
infancy were fed on artificial food instead of mother's milk. That 
this has a baneful influence on the constitution during a lifetime, the 
emaciated frames of these unfortunate subjects will attest. Those ar 
ticles of diet whieh purport to be elegant substitutes for mothers' milk 
are wanting in both nutrition and digestibility. Though they have 
the elements necessary for development and growth the ratio of these 
elements is not in keeping with the natural formula of mothers' milk 
and a dyspeptic condition is induced which leads to marasmus, scrof- 
ulosis, tuberculosis, and death. 

It is a prevalent idea that tuberculosis is transmissible by touch, and 
that inhalations of effluvia emanating from the skin of tuberculous 
subjects will reproduce the disease. This, however, is untrue. 

The most frequent cause of the direct transmission of tuberculosis 
is the inhalation of the bacillus arising from dried and pulverized 
sputum. Hence the danger of living in houses recently occupied bv 
consumptives. They frequently spit upon the walls or the floor, and 
the bed-clothing and wearing apparel become contaminated with 
sputum, which, when dry and broken into small particles, is subject to 
inhalation. While it is true that this virus is of a greater specific 
gravity than air and therefore has a tendency to fall to the floor, yet 
sweeping and dusting will raise it, at which time it may be inhaled 
and become a nucleus around which is built that insidious and yet ag 
gressive foe. 

As long as the germ is kept suspended in fluid it is less liable tn 
cause infection, for as moisture increases its specific, gravity it cannot 
float in the atmosphere and therefore cannot be inhaled. 

In order for this bacillus to find a lodging place in the human econ 

omy, there must be a dissolution of continuity in the mucous membrane. 
For in a healthy condition it i not liable to infection. It is here 
that these bronchial catarrhs and colds cut such a distinguishing figure; 
for a catarrh indicates that violence has been done to the integrity of 
a mucous membrane, destroying or impairing its protective power to 
such an extent as to admit of inoculation and infection. This is the 
second whirlpool for our predisposed subject, for if possibly in his 
childhood hehassteered clear of Scylla he has now drifted intoCharyb- 
dis. 

It is not likely, however, that a subject with an otherwise healthy 
constitution, even though he has a diseased mucous membrane, will 
become infected under such circumstances. For the blood in such an 
individual is rich in the life-giving properties of the body and the cells 
are so vigorous as to stand as a bulwark against an invading enemy. 
- Tuberculosis may also be contracted throu h impure alimentation ; 
for it has been clearly demonstrated that cows are often affected with 
this disease and that tubercle bacilli are found in large numbers in 
their milk. 

When there is a lesion in the alimentary tract virus may, because 
of this, enter the blood and induce both local and constitutional con- 
' sumption. That this source of infection is true was proven a short 
time ago in a swine test. Of 1,026 healthy swine fed on sour whiskey 
and distillery slop, all were sickened and 250 died. Autopsies on 104 
showed tubercle bacilli. In an adjoining pen were 600, fed ou good 
sweet maize. None contracted tuberculosis. 

Persons whose foods are subject to acetic fermentation in the ali 
mentary canal are liable to tuberculosis through its absorption. Tn 
those habituated to strong drink themicoderinaaccti, which is an acetic 
ferment, is frequently absorbed through the intestinal mucous mem 
brane, which is paralyzed by the presence of alcohol, but in the ab 
sence of this stimulant this membrane is capable of protecting against 
such absorption. 

The death-rate from consumption in the United States is appalling. 
But that the spread of this disease can be checked is clearly apparent. 

It is the plain duty of every city to pass ordinances prohibiting its 
inhabitants from living in squalor and dirt; prohibiting the conver 
sion of homes whieh should be clean, wholesome and pure, into pest 

 50 

STUDY OF NBGRO CITY LIFE. 

houses and laboratories in which are incubated every conceivable form 
of virulent bacteria ; directing that the premises of all be kept at all times 
clean, that bedding and carpets be aired and exposed to the suu, that 
the houses be from time to time renovated, that thorough ventilation 
be the rule in every household. 

While it is a fact that every family is not able to wear costly gar 
ments, yet every family can wear clean ones, and have clean sur 
roundings. 

Nor do I think a course of this kind impracticable or abridging 
persona] rights; for to live in such unwholesome abodes with such un 
healthy surroundings is not only damaging to those who indulge in 
this loathsome practice, but is forever an abiding source of infection to 
the community. This is a menace which no municipality can brook 
without becoming weakened thereby. This is the prime source of all 
infectious diseases, a nuisance to the public because it is in direct oppo 
sition to the pursuit of health and happiness. A government has the 
same right to protect its votaries from this deadly condition as it has 
to quarantine against smallpox. For while smallpox is rapidly con 
tagious and spreads dread disaster in its wake, what disease is more 
terrible than consumption, which like the boa constrictor is stealthily 
winding itself around humanity and squeezing the life out of the 
nations? 

Tf we would stamp out tuberculosis we must elevate the standard 
of living among the lower classes. We must save them from them 
selves. Tf we have not educational facilities sufficient to civilize them 
fast enough, we must bring them up to the requirements by legisla 
tion. In my opinion the present condition is too appalling to wait on 
the slow process of evolution. More vigorous measures must be taken. 

We need a more rigid system of food inspection. No animal should 
be killed for food without first being scientifically inspected and pro 
nounced sound. The inspection of milk for tubercle bacilli should 
be made a specialty. Milch cows and animals to be killed for meat 
should not be fed on impure foods. Stale and tainted meats of any 
kind should not he eaten, for although bacteria for the most part are 
destroyed in the process of cooking, still the decomposition of this ab 
normal material in the intestines may produce infection, thus lessening 
the vital resistance and paving the way for consumption. 

RklX>JSTD AJSNUAL UONFKKENCJK. 51 

VENTILATION. 

BY H. K. BUTIjER, A.M., M.D., ATLANTA, GA. 

[NOTE: Dr. Butler's paper included also tlie subjects of Exercise and Physical De 
velopment. But in this case, as also in others.we have felt obliged to abbreviate.—En.] 

Iii the homes of the most ignorant of our people, and some of the 
intelligent for that matter, ventilation is an unknown quantity. The in 
mates are opposed to having air enter the house when all are well, and 
if any of the family are sick it is believed that it means death to the 
patient should air, and in some cases light, enter the sick chamber. 

I will not enter into a description of the various methods of venti 
lation; we have not the time for such here. I will simply give you a 
few of the many cases that have come under my observation in which 
ventilation was much needed. 

Case 1.—-This first case to which I wish to call your attention was 
in a one-room house; room 14x14; inmates, four. It was a case of 
confinement. The room was as dark and the air as foul at twelve 
o'clock in the day as it was at twelve at night. 1 had to use a small 
tin lamp at either hour in order to see how to care for my patient. 

Case 2.—It was in a small basement room where a mother and two 
small children lay sick, nigh unto death. The door and window had 
been closed for weeks. The air was foul, damp and heavy. There 
they were with no friends, no water, no food, and no pure air. There 
they lay until found by some good women who sent the mother to the 
poor-house, one child to the hospital where it died, and the other to 
the Carrie Steele Orphans' Home, where it is recovering slowly. The 
mother is well and has returned to the city and is at work. Both 
mother and child, however, show signs of tuberculosis, which are no 
doubt the result of inhaling the foul air of that basement room. 

Case 3.—I manage to visit the public schools of the city at least 
once a year. I visited one of these schools this year in which every 
thing else was taught and practiced but ventilation. The air in some 
of the rooms of that building was not at all conducive to good health. 

f'.lll 

 II 

52 

KTUDY OF NJ-XiRO CITY 1,1 FE. 

SECOND ANNUAL CONFERENCE. 

53' 

Case 4.—Jt was a two-room house; inmates, two,—a mau and his 
wife. The husband lay dying with consumption and would, in his 
delirium, spit any and every where. The wife, who was a kind and 
tidy woman, did all in her power, under the circumstances, to keep her 
little home clean. To do this she was continually sweeping, in which 
process she kept bacilli on the move, endangering not only her health 
but rny health and the health of all her friends who might call. 

Being a woman of some intelligence a brief explanation that she 
must keep the air of the room fresh and free from dust was all that 
was necessary to have her see the danger. I then began to care for 
my patient hygienically andantiscptically. 

Thus J could go on and multiply case after ease to show the great 
necessity of a better understanding among our people concerning ven 
tilation ; but it is riot necessary. We all are satisfied that much im 
provement is needed in our homes along those lines arid that is why 
we are here. 

Preaching the laws of health and hygiene in this age has about the 
same effect that preaching the gospel has. They hear willingly, but 
heed slowly. Many hear, but only a few will believe ; a few will be 
saved and many will be lost. 

In conclusion, I would ask that this organization petition Congress 
to make an appropriation to help push forward this well-begun work. 

With that aid we would be able to place one or two physicians in 
every large city, at least, whose duty it would be to push these inves 
tigations, and as they would go from home to home they could in 
struct the people as to ventilation and in the laws of health and hy 
giene. This is, indeed, necessary if we wish to have the masses in 
structed in those things that are indispensable in order to have strong 
and healthy bodies as well as strong and vigorous rninds. 

THE CARE OF THE TEETH IN ITS RELATION TO 

HEALTH. 

BY J. R, POUTER ('86), D.D.S., ATLANTA, GA. 

In working out our health problems we often fail to recognize 
urrtain factors which are highly important. We hardly ever fig 
ure on the effect of diseased teeth on the general health, and their 
permanent handicap on our energies. Many a trouble that has been 
assigned to some remote cause, and that has called forth learned dis 
quisitions, should have been placed at the door of some abscessed 
tooth of long standing, and the diagnosis punctuated with the 
forceps. 

Many a case of iaeial neuralgia is the progeny of uncared-for teeth. 
Many an injured eye owes all its troubles to the root of some offending 
tooth that reaches the floor of its orbit by using the Antrum of 
Hymore as a go-between ; while fever, hysteria, muscular neuralgia 
and apparent heart trouble, that are plainly due to these unclean 
members, are not infrequently met with. 

There are two classes of evils that may arise as a result of diseased 
tooth tissue: those that conic from actual contact with the poisonous 
matter generated in the affected member, and those that result from 
the constant irritation of the nerve tissues. 

Each one of these may be serious in its consequences, and may 
force upon us evils that will run their allotted third and fourth gen 
eration, or may leave permanent marks on our physical appearance 
and health. 

Lessons should be taught in the schools on the care of the teeth, as 
well as of other portions of the body. People do not neglect treat 
ing a fever, removing a splinter or caring for a sprain, and yet they 
pass unnoticed these long-suffering members, until one of them, after- 
long endurance, suddenly wakes them to a sense of their duty. 

There is a truth that rings through the pages of the Bible, in" so 
many forms and varieties that it has become impressive. " Cleanli 
ness is next to (Jodliness," is that truth. In it we have our first 

 64 

SttlDi' Of &EGKO <HTV UFK. 

lesson in hygiene, and around it clusters all our physical and spiritual 
comfort.- 

There is nothing useless iu that sacred volume, nothing Written foe 
tnere ornament, nothing engrafted in the wonderful schemes of crea 
tion and redemption that has not a " because " attached to it, and that 
is not a link in God's economy, whether of man towards his Creator, 
or of man towards himself. 

This beautiful truth is therefore pregnant with a deeper meaning 
than is at first apparent. Not only does it teach that we should keep 
the body pure aud clean as the fit temple of the living God; but 
more, it teaches that if we would more nearly live the allotted span 
of human life, we should recognize that cleanliness is the panacea for 
all our ills, and that sanitation, external and internal, is our best Haft • 
guard against disease. 

STCCOND ANNUAL CONFERENCE. 

55 

ADDRESS BEFORE THE WOMEN'S MEETING. 

BY MISS LUCY C. I.ANEY ('73), AUGUSTA, GA. 

Ladies : A little more than a quarter of a century ago this Ameri 
can Republic, after much painful travail, brought forth the youngest 
child of civilization—the Negro citizen. To-day we, the offspring of 
that birth, stand upon the entrance of a glorious future if we will ac 
cept and faithfully comply with the conditions upon which we may 
claim the boon. 

To find out and to discuss some of these conditions is the object of 
this conference and the women's section of it. For a long time many 
were di posed to think that the condition of most importance was pol 
ities, and for years politicians, honest and dishonest, ignorant and wise, 
struggled in vain to bring about that consummation devoutly to be 
wished, true manhood in our race. Some vainly hoped that that mis 
erable deformity wrongly called education, viz., the conning of a few 
facts from text-books, was the condition to be complied with. Still 
another class said honestly and devoutly that the condition and the 
only condition to be met was the development of our religious nature. 
A fourth class united the second and third conditions, and after some 
what modifying the third, gave to the world as the watchword of 
Negro development " the Bible and the spelling-book." Any one of 
these made the rule of life, made the only condition to be met, has been 
to those who followed it an ignis fcduus, for it has misguided them and 
led them into dangerous places. Each by itself is but a part of a 
grand total. 

No person is responsible for his ancestors; nor should he be held 
responsible for their sins aud short-comings, though he bear about in 
his body the marks and scars of those sins; but every woman can see 
to it that she gives to her progeny a good mother and an honorable 
ancestry. I care not how humble may be the house in which two loving 
hearts may set up their household gods, if blessed with a manly and 
God-fearing husband, a womanly aud God-fearing wife, intelligence 
and health, that place is a home, the nearest approach on earth to 

 1 

.in 

If 

66 STUDY OF NEGPO CITV LIFE. 

heaven. The chief joy of home is mother. You may place upon the 
brow of a true mother the greenest laurel or you may give into her 
keeping the highest civic honors, but these to her will be found want 
ing if weighed in a balance over against her home. To her the bless 
edness of motherhood is the greatest joy, a crown more costly than 
pearls of royalty. 

Marriage, the beginning of home, is a matter of great importance 
and should not be carelessly entered into. It is the place to take the 
proverbial stitch in time. From this point a shadow may be cast 
which will darken the pathway of coming generations. This is not a 
question that can be settled on a basis of gain or convenience, but as 
has been said: " A tie that only love and truth should weave and noth 
ing but death should part." 

Motherhood, honored by our blessed Master, is the crown of woman 
hood. This gives her not only interest in the home and society, but 
also authority. Hhe should be interested in the welfare of her own and her 
neighbors' children. To woman has been committed the responsibility 
of making the laws of society, making environments for children. 
She has the privilege and authority, God-given, to help develop into 
a noble man or woman the young life committed to her care. There 
is no nobler work entrusted to the hands of mortals. 

Faithful mothers, mothers who know their duty and perform it,—- 
such must have been the mother of the Gracchi,—such a mother we 
read of in holy writ: "All nations shall rise up and call her blessed." 
Will not the intelligent mother gather' to her heart her sons and 
daughters and teach them to be pure in life and chaste in conversation, 
and see to it that there be no double standard set up in her home, and 
none in her community if she be able to tear it down? 

Too often that mother who is careful of her daughter's environ 
ment, the formation of her girl's character, is negligent as to her son's. 
He may choose his own company,-—be the rnolder of his own character. 
If the daughter should drag the robes of her womanhood in the dust 
that mother would be covered with shame and grief,—but the sou of 
that mother may trample down his manhood and there will scarcely 
be a blush ; only the old but false cry, and pernicious as it is false, 
" Boys must sow their wild oats." 

Our bovs need the careful, loving hand of mother ; perhaps not more 

SEOOXI> AXNUAI. CONFERENCK. 

57 

so than the girls—but certainly not less.- 

Shall the boys be left to the tender training of the saloons and the 
fascinations of women degraded by sin ? God forbid it! Women of 
to-day, awake to your responsibilities and privileges. 

The Mothers' Congress recently held at Washington was not only a 
most unique gathering, but as the years roll on and men and women 
study more carefully that most, important of all questions,—the chil 
dren of the nation,—it will be found to be the working out of the 
noblest ideas of the noblest minds and most loving hearts of the age. 
That vast assemblage of men and women discussing questions most 
vital to the welfare of their children shows how great is the lamenta 
tion in Rama, Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be com 
forted because they are not. 

Shall we not catch inspiration from that Congress and in our literary 
societies, ladies' clubs, and even in our churches study our children by 
the search-light of the new psychology and with the spirit of the true 
and loving mother? 

 58 STUDY OF NEGRO CITY LJFK. 

FRIENDLY VISITING. 

BY MRS. MfNNIK WRIGHT PRICE ('88), SOUTH ATLANTA, GA, 

Life would not be worth living did we not have friends to rejoict 
with us when we are glad, and to weep with us when we mourn. 

As the babe looks to his mother to laugh when something has par 
ticularly pleased him and expects that same mother to kiss away his 
tears when trouble has befallen him, so we, who are grown to woman 
hood, like to feel that we have earthly friends to sympathize with us 
in jov or grief. But what> do we think of a near friend who never 
visits us? 

All of us have our friends, especially while we live in the place of 
our birth ; for there are men and women there who knew us when w< 
were babies, who are our friends for our mother's or father's sake, if 
not for our own. 

There are boys and girls who grew up with us on the play-ground 
and in the school-room, who, in remembrance of the associations 
of our youth, will always be our friends. But not all spend their 
lives on their native heath, some are continually moving, they spend a 
few months here and then, when they have just begun to make friends, 
move 011 to another place. They are often strangers in a strange land 
and then it is that they feel the loneliness and emptiness of life with 
out friends. 

Our neighborhoods are filled with families which need the sympa 
thy and cheer that a friendly visit from you would give, but you 
withhold yourself because they are a little lower in the social seal* 
than vou are, or if they are higher, you fear that they will think you an 
seeking their recognition. How much better off we would be if we 
would cease to draw these lines of caste and each of us as we climb 
the ladder reach down and assist a struggling sister! 

What a spiritual help we would be to each other, if we would make 
more friendly visits ! Just a word of cheer and hope to the low-spir 
ited, a word of sympathy to the sick, would show forth the Holy 

SECOND ANNUAL CONFERENCE. 59 

Spirit who dwells in all Christian hearts. 

Women are naturally kind and friendly. About woman has ever 
clustered the affection, the romance and even the comfort of human 
existence. Wherever women are found there is almost always cheer 
fulness and kindness; they are generally obliging, and even among 
savage tribes they are uot as distant and suspicious as men. How 
ever poor their hospitality may be, they can safely be relied upon by 
the stranger. 

Mungo Park in the midst of Africa, when robbed of his baggage 
and suffering from