less clear conception of a great army of the colored race in the south, of the Irish and Germans in the north, of the Swedes in the middle west, and of the Chinese on the Pacific Coast. The census of 1890 gives the relative numbers of native white, foreign white and colored (including Chinese) domestic employes in the United States as follows:
Elements of the Population Engaged in Domestic Service.
(From the Eleventh Census of the United States.)
 | A table should appear at this position in the text. See Help:Table for formatting instructions. |
Number. Per cent.
Geographical Section.
Native White.
Foreign White.
Colored.
Native White.
For'gn White
Col'd.
Pacific Coast 37.58 35.83 †26.59
Eastern 39.11 55.22 5.67
Middle* 176,194 175,819 42,049 44.71 44.62 10.67
Western 59.98 33.11 6.91
Border (near the Mason-Dixon line) 31.65 6.62 61.73
Southern 16.77 3.10 80.13
United States 41.65 29.55 28.80
*Includes New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.
†This term includes also Chinese who are reckoned in the census as "colored."
These figures attribute nearly 29 per cent of the domestic service of the country to the colored, who comprise only 12½ per cent of the population.
The colored perform about three times as much domestic service in proportion to their numbers as the whites do. From this it will be seen that while the study of domestic service in any consideration of the condition of the colored people is important, the study of the Negro domestic is equally important in any careful consideration of the domestic service problem. It will be noticed that the per cents for the middle section of States show only 10.67 per cent of the domestic service performed by colored people. The large urban populations of the New York cities doubtless reduce this below what it would be if only Pennsylvania and New Jersey were considered, as city servants are mostly drawn from our foreign white population, but if the rate be accepted as true for the city of
