In the following table are shown the facts for the rural population:

This table incidentally reveals the proportion of white and of colored in the urban and rural districts of Cuba. The results may be stated as follows:

The whites were most numerous in Habana city, the colored in the 13 other cities of Cuba. In the following table the proportion of each race is given for the urban and rural districts of each province:

In every province of Cuba except Matanzas the whites were most largely represented in the rural districts and the colored in the urban districts. The preeminence of Habana city in its proportion of whites,

when compared with the other cities or the rural districts as a whole, disappears when it is compared with the urban districts of Habana, Pinar del Rio, or Puerto Principe provinces. It is probable that the migration of colored from rural districts to cities in quest of employment has exercised greater influence even in Habana upon the distribution of population than the migration of whites from abroad.

Returning to an examination of the tables (pp. 139, f) with reference to the question they were immediately designed to answer, it appears that among the colored in the four eastern provinces marriage was more common in the cities than in the country, and that in Matanzas the difference was at its maximum. But in the two western provinces marriage was more common among the rural population. Among the whites the proportion of married was greater in cities except in Habana province, where it was the same for city and country, and in Santa Clara.

Classification by birthplace.-The classification by birthplace, and therefore the following analysis of the tables, is confined to the whites. It may be conjectured that white immigrants coming to Cuba unmarried and intending not to remain for life would form unions without the sanction of the law. This is the general experience where a large number of male immigrants enter a country in which the marriage law is rigid while at the same time social opinion in certain quarters tolerates a consentual marriage. Whether such a conjecture is in accord with the facts in Cuba will appear from the following analysis. The table below gives the facts for the two classes of whites:

an hypothesis could hardly apply to women, and therefore the sex distinction should be introduced as is done in the following table:

With both sexes the proportion of persons living together by mutual consent is greater among the native white than it is among the foreign white. But the immigrants are almost uniformly adults, and are probably decidedly older than the native whites over 15. Hence

an examination by age periods is needed. As the foreign born white women are so few the examination by age periods may be confined to males.

At every age the proportion of white men of foreign birth living in consentual unions was less than the proportion of native white men. The following table shows whether this is true throughout the several provinces.

This table shows that the figures heretofore reached are the net result for the island of conditions widely different in the different provinces. Habana city and the two provinces at the ends of Cuba agree in having a proportion of consentual unions among the native white men larger than among the foreign-born white men. In the other four divisions the opposite was true. Among females, on the contrary, consentual unions were less common with the foreign born than with the native white not merely in Cuba as a whole but in every province except Habana. The lower proportion of consentual unions is closely connected with the higher proportion of married already noted (p. 131) among foreign-born white women.

THE WIDOWED.

It might be anticipated that the very high death rate of Cuba during the last few years, to which attention is called in the discussion of the vital statistics of the past ten years, would leave its traces in an excessive number of widows and widowers. The facts for all Cuba in comparison with those for Porto Rico and the United States are given in the following table:

These figures indicate a proportion of widowed in Cuba not much above that in the United States and not at all above that in Porto Rico. But obviously only persons who had been lawfully married would be reported to the census as widowed. Persons who had been living in consentual marriages, but whose unions had ended before the census by death of the other party, would appear in the census not as widowed but as single. Hence a fairer basis for the comparison may be found in the persons reported as married. Such a comparison yields the following result:

On this basis it appears that there was in Cuba one widow or widower for every three married persons, while in the United States there was one widow or widower for every eight married persons. In Cuba in 1861 there was one widow or widower for every five married persons. This large proportion of widowed is emphasized by the following table in which the proportion of widowed to married is given for the last available census of a number of Spanish-American countries, or West Indian Islands:

The evidence thus shows conclusively that the proportion of widows and widowers in Cuba was far higher than in the other countries with which comparison would naturally be made. Whether the excess is of widows or widowers may be doubtful. In the following table the sex classification is introduced:

This table shows that both the West India Islands had more than double the proportion of widowed to married that prevails in the United States, but that the proportion in Cuba was noticeably higher than in Porto Rico. For every six husbands there was a widower and for every two wives a widow.

In the following table the classification is carried into the several provinces:

Widows were most numerous in the capital of the island and least numerous in Puerto Principe. Widowers were most numerous in Habana outside the city, and least numerous in Puerto Principe. Probably Puerto Principe suffered as little as any province during the last five years, and the high proportion of widows in Habana city may result from migration of widows to the capital or from the presence in the city of many widows of Spaniards. The facts regarding the classes of the population of Habana city are as follows:

While the figures show a larger proportion of widows among the foreign born than the native white, the proportion of widows among the colored was far greater. This is a result so unexpected that one asks at once whether it was true throughout Cuba. The following table gives the facts:

Apparently widows were most numerous relatively among the colored and least numerous among the native white, while widowers were most numerous among the native. white and least so among the foreign born.