Speech #510170531

When we have the estimates of trained actuaries who have arrived at the population of the country by certain fixed rules. calculating the increases from year to year and from decade to decade. such estimates are better than a false count. Now let my friend throw aside the question of immigration and estimate the population by the natural increase from 1800 to the present time and he will find that this increase was larger the first ten years than the succeeding ten years. there being a falling off of about 1.1 or 2 per cent. each decade until we get down to 1860. From.1860 to 1870 this natural increase fell from 22 per cent. to 13 per cent.. from 1870 to 1880 it went up again to 22 per cent.. but from 1880 to 1890. according to the count which has been made. there is a fall to about the standard of the war period. when 3.000.000 men were in arms away from their homes. [Here the hammer fell.]