Here, again, prophecy would seem to be hazardous, but we cannot fail to notice and to record some significant tokens. Of these, one of the most notable is the marked tendency of the Negroes to herd together in the cities. It is well known that the problem of securing labour in the country is becoming increasingly difficult. Many plantations have, in fact, been abandoned for no other reason than that labourers could not be found to cultivate them. Italians and other Europeans are immigrating thither, and the question is eagerly debated whether they will fill acceptably the gap left by the departing Negroes. Whether this tide cityward, which is actually decimating some sections of the Black Belt, will turn and roll back, we may not guess; but it seems unlikely. To all appearances the Negroes will stream steadily towards the towns, and gather more and more densely in certain localities.[29] [29] "Fully ninety-four per cent. have struggled for land and failed, and half of them sit in hopeless serfdom. For these there is one other avenue of escape towards which they have turned in increasing numbers, namely, migration to town ... this is a part of the rush to town." Dubois, _The Souls of Black Folk_, p. 162. "The crop-lien system which is depopulating the fields of the South is not simply the result of shiftlessness on the part of Negroes" (p. 170). Here, again, evidence may be supplied in any measure desired. From the census reports it appears that in the North the same tendency is quite as strong, if not even stronger. But this tendency deals them _death_. The mortality among the coloured population of our cities is frightful. The gravest maladies establish themselves among these unsanitated throngs and rage with ruinous virulence. In ante-bellum days pulmonary tuberculosis was infrequent among the plantation Blacks of the South; now it lashes them with a scourge of desolation, and pneumonia even more ruthlessly. Typhoid fever also ravages their ranks with fury. Still worse, contagious diseases are fearfully prevalent. Among a populace to which chastity and continence are terms almost unknown and meaningless, these must diffuse and propagate themselves like an epidemic, they must lower the general vitality, and still more directly the virility and fecundity. Hitherto, the rate of multiplication has been in a measure maintained by a high birth rate in the face of a fearful mortality. But this cannot last. The plain indications now are that the birth rate is falling and must fall, while the death rate rises with the steady influx into the towns, the abandonment of the simple and healthful modes of country life for the vice and diseases of the village.[30] Even at best, the city is an ulcer on the face of the earth, a maelstrom, a minotaur devouring the yearly tribute of the strength and beauty of the land.[31] But for the Negro, it stands ready with two-handed engine of death.