An interesting sidelight on the apparent tendency of the country to have an increasing death-rate, year by year, is shown by the meager figures which are available on the subject of the number of small children in the different towns. The Chief Clerk in the Census Office, Mr. William S. Rossiter, has investigated the proportion of children in two rural counties of New York State, Otsego and Putnam, and has discovered the startling fact that while the population in those counties has hardly changed since 1860, the proportion of young children has decreased almost one third in the forty years ending with 1900, as shown by the following table:-- TABLE IV. TABLE SHOWING PERCENTAGE OF CHILDREN IN OTSEGO AND PUTNAM COUNTIES, 1860-1900 =========================================================================== 1900 1860 ------------------------------------------------------------------ Total Total White Under 10 White Under 10 County Population Years Per Cent Population Years Per Cent --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Otsego 48,793 7,121 14.5 49,950 10,988 22.0 Putnam 13,669 2,332 16.9 13,819 3,333 24.1 ------------------------------------------------------------------ Total 62,462 9,453 15.0 63,769 14,321 22.5 =========================================================================== This shows that while in 1860, when the total population was about 64,000, the number of children was about 14,000 or 22.5 per cent, in 1900, when the total population was 62,462 or nearly the same, the number of children was only 9453, or a reduction in numbers of nearly 5000 children. In many of the small cities of New York State, the fact that there is a constantly decreasing number of children in the community is well recognized, the greater proportion of the population being past middle life. The death-rate, therefore, is lower, from this very fact. _Death-rates of children._ That the general death-rate is directly affected by the number of children living in a community is shown by the following table:-- TABLE V. SHOWING DEATHS FROM ALL CAUSES IN THE UNITED STATES FOR THE YEARS 1901-1905, AT VARIOUS AGE PERIODS