According to De Bow, the mortality of the free Negroes before the War was a hundred per cent greater than that of the slaves. It even appears that the death of the Negroes in the South at that time was less than that of the whites. In Charleston, S. C., the average death-rate from 1822 to 1861 was 25.98 a thousand for whites and 24.05 for Negroes. About the same was true of some other cities. From 1865 to 1894, however, the average death-rate at Charleston was 26.77 a thousand for whites and 43.29 for Negroes.[160:11] No doubt the slight increase of the death rate among the whites was due to the rapid increase among the Negroes as the whites necessarily came more or less in contact with the Negroes. Indeed, very significant in this connection, is the statement made in the “Negro Year Book” (1914-15) that an average of 450,000 Negroes in the South are seriously ill all the time, and that 600,000 of the present population will die of tuberculosis. The Census shows that both pneumonia and tuberculosis are diseases very fatal to Negroes. And strange as it may now seem, in slavery times Negroes were thought to be practically immune from tuberculosis. Indeed, it is said that, about 1882-3, there was exhibited at a clinic in Charleston, S. C., what was supposed to have been the second case of tuberculosis ever found among Negroes.[160:12] This is very remarkable, if true. In each city of the following list of twelve is given the number of times more deaths that occurred from tuberculosis among Negroes in 1910, according to the Census, than among whites: Providence, 1.82; Richmond, 2.05; Boston, 2.46; Atlanta, 2.48; New York, 2.64; New Orleans, 2.70; Memphis, 2.80; Philadelphia 3.00; Baltimore, 3.14; Washington, 3.34; Charleston, S. C., 3.55. It may be noticed that more than three and one-half times as many Negroes as whites died of tuberculosis in Charleston. The comparative statistics for pneumonia differ not very much from those of tuberculosis. However, the ratio of death-rate from combined causes is much lower than this. The average death rate a thousand in eight Northern States in 1910 was 21.9 for Negroes and 15.1 for whites; while the average for two Southern States was 23.7 for Negroes and 15.2 for whites. In ten Northern cities it was 23.64 for Negroes and 15.99 for whites; for the same number of cities in the South it was 30.60 for Negroes and 17.22 for whites.[161:13] Again, in thirty-three Northern cities the death rate among Negroes was 25.1 a thousand and 15.7 among whites, while in twenty-four Southern cities the death-rate was 29.6 for Negroes and 16.9 for whites. For the fifty-seven cities together, 27.8 for Negroes and 15.9 for whites.[162:14] Thus, it is seen that the death rate among Negroes is not far from twice as great as among whites, but contrary to the general impression it is less in the North than in the South.