affected in the same way, sinking in hard times and rising again on the restoration of business. Represented graphically, the curve for the Massachusetts marriages and the curve for United States divorces (1867-86), with slight exceptions, "uniformly ascend and descend together and reach their maxima and minima in the same years. Depressions in trade have had a tendency to decrease divorces as well as marriages;" whereas in England, while the marriage rate falls the divorce rate rises in hard times. But in that country divorce is notoriously very expensive and hence mainly a luxury for the rich. So it is concluded that "this difference between the effect of hard times in England and in the United States, together with the very rapid increase of divorce among the southern negroes, and the fact that only about one wife in six of those obtaining divorces receives any alimony, are among the indications that divorce has become very frequent and perhaps most frequent among our lower middle classes, and has reached for weal or woe a lower stratum than perhaps anywhere in Europe."[767] [760] MILL, _Prin. of Pol. Econ._ (Boston, 1848), I, 413. [761] FAWCETT, _Manual of Pol. Econ._ (4th ed., London, 1874), 143. [762] BODIO, _Del Movimento della populazione in Italia e in altri stati d'Europa_ (1876), 136, 137; FARR, _Vital Statistics_, 68-75; and _idem_, in _Report of the Registrar General_: quoted by OGLE, "On Marriage Rates," etc., _Jour. of the Royal Statistical Society_, LIII, 254 ff. _Cf._ NEWSHOLME, _Vital Statistics_, 45, 46. [763] OGLE, _op. cit._, 256-63. CAUDERLIER, _Les lois de la population_, 71-74, 113, 114, has also shown in the case of England that foreign commercial relations must be considered in determining the condition of material well-being. [764] OETTINGEN, _Die Moralstatistik_, 89-94, and authorities there cited; BERTILLON, _Annales de démographie internationale_, I, 24; CAUDERLIER, _op. cit._, 61-78, 102 ff., giving statistics for Germany, Belgium, England, and France. _Cf._ MAYO-SMITH, _Statistics and Sociology_, 100, 101. [765] OGLE, _op. cit._, 255; _cf._ OETTINGEN, _op. cit._, 93, 94. [766] WILLCOX, "A Study in Vital Statistics," _Pol. Sci. Quart._, VIII, 76, 77. _Cf._ _idem_, "The Marriage Rate in Michigan," _Pub. Am. Stat. Assoc._, IV, 7; and CRUM, "The Marriage Rate in Massachusetts," _ibid._, 328, 329. [767] WILLCOX, _loc. cit._, 76, 77, 79-82. On the increase of divorce among the southern negroes see _idem_, _The Divorce Problem_, 21-23, 29-32.