“At the end of the decade, January 1, 1890, the [SN: ON ACRES AND LOTS.] real estate mortgage indebtedness amounted to $6,010,670,985,” on the whole, “represented by 4,777,698 mortgages,”[98] which were divided into the mortgages on the acres and the mortgages on the lots. It was also computed that the average length of a mortgage in the United States is longer than four and a half years, or exactly [SN: LIFE OF MORTGAGE.] “4.660 years.” The Bulletin calls it a “life of a mortgage,” which may last “as much longer without being paid off;” that is, a mortgage may last as long as the creditor gets his rate of interest, or as long as his increasing interest is secure in the whole value of the mortgaged property. Otherwise a mortgage is foreclosed. But what is specially important for us is whether the mortgagors are able to extinguish their debt with the same rapidity with which it was incurred by them? If they are able to pay off their debts at the proper times, then mortgaging of property would at least appear uninjurious to their well being, though it could not be regarded as profitable to them. The same “Bulletin No. 71,” however, states that, “since mortgages in force were made, 12.68 per [SN: ORIGINAL DEBT PAID: 12.68 PER CENT.] cent of the original amount of indebtedness incurred under them has been extinguished by partial payments.” Now, it was time to extinguish all the original amount on mortgages in force. Yet 87.32 per cent of the original indebtedness could not be paid off by the debtors. And this is a sign of the [SN: ORIGINAL LOSS OF PROPERTY: 87.32 PER CENT.] most forcible argument, showing that the greatest majority of the mortgagors have been on the way to ruin, and on the way of losing their properties. It is thus the millions of tenants appeared in 1890. THE PER CAPITA DEBT. Instead of being paid off at proper times, the mortgage debt was accumulating so far that if it were divided among the entire population in 1890, every man, woman and child would have been in [SN: PROPORTIONS ON STATES.] debt of $96. Just as the Bulletin says that “the mortgage debt per capita in the United States is $96; the three largest state averages (omitting the District of Columbia) are $268 in New York, $206 in Colorado, and $200 in California. The smaller ones are found in the south and the Rocky Mountain region.”[99] Such is the per capita debt in these three States. “In 41 States 28.86 per cent of the taxed acres are covered by mortgages in force. The largest proportion of mortgaged acres is in Kansas, where 60.32 per cent of the total number of taxed acres are mortgaged. Nebraska stands next, with 54.73 per cent; South Dakota third, with 51.76 per cent.[99]