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The total number of families was 10,161. The total number of persons in these families, including three generations (living and dead) who were known to have been dependent upon public charity, was 14,901. The total number of the insane in the same families (living and dead), 4968; the total number of idiots in the same families (living and dead), 844; and the total number of inebriates in the same families (living and dead), 8863. The number of heads of families in the poorhouses at the time of inquiry, consisting of both parents, was 2746; these were said to have in all 7040 living children. The condition of these children were stated to be as follows: in poorhouses, 1010; in asylums, 149; in hospitals, 2; in refuges, 29; in prisons and penitentiaries, 9; bound out, 346; self-supporting, 4586; condition unascertained, 909. Thus about 22 per cent of the children of poorhouse parents were found to be of the dependent or delinquent classes. Taking only those whose condition was ascertained, the percentage of those who were a charge upon the public rises to a little more than 25. It should also be noted that a considerable number of those self-dependent at the time would probably with advancing years become public charges; and while some of those in a condition of dependency would perhaps eventually become self-supporting, they would hardly become so as a permanent thing. It is doubtful if half these children would get through life without some taint of dependency.

Two investigations have been made in this country into the histories of individuals descended from distinctly pauper families. (94)

The first, conducted by Mr. E. L. Dugdale, concerning the family of the Jukes, doubtless included many of the same persons or their progenitors as those found in the New York almshouses in 1875. (95) The Juke family has been traced back to a man whom Dugdale calls Max, a descendant of the early Dutch settlers, born between the years 1720 and 1740. He is described as a hunter and fisher, a hard drinker, jolly and companionable, averse to steady toil, working hard by spurts and idling by turns, becoming blind in his old age, and entailing his blindness upon his children and grandchildren. Two of his sons married two of the Juke sisters, of whom there were six in all. The progeny of five of them have been traced with more or less exactness through five generations. The number of descendants registered includes 540 individuals who were related by blood to the Jukes, and 169 connected with the family by marriage or cohabitation; in all 709 persons of all ages, alive and dead. The aggregate of this lineage reaches, says Mr. Dugdale, probably 1200 persons, but the dispersions that have occurred at different times have prevented the following up and enumeration of many of the lateral branches. They grew up in the rural districts of New York, and outdoor life probably aided the degenerate stock to resist the tendencies to extinction. The family, as indicated by the statement of its origin, may be considered distinctly American.

From the statistical summary of the facts collated by Mr. Dugdale, it appears that, whether we consider pauperism, or crime, or harlotry, or prostitution, this family produced a number of dependents and delinquents out of all proportion to the numbers of individuals it contributed to the population. For instance, taking only the cases of ascertained dependence in the Juke family, it is shown that pauperism was nearly seven times as common in this family as in the population of the state at large. Under the head of X, Mr. Dugdale classes all families not related to the Jukes who married into the family; taking people of the Juke blood simply, pauperism was 7.37 times as common among them as in the population as a whole; taking X blood only, that is, those families that married into the Juke family, pauperism was only 4.89 times as common as in the total population. Of the adult women of Juke blood 52.40 per cent are found to have been harlots, while only 41.76 per cent of the women of the X blood were found to be such. Turning to the matter of crime, there are within the family itself some distinctly criminal and some distinctly pauper strains. Intermarriage between people of the Juke blood, that is, breeding within the family, intensified the tendency to pauperism, while marriage with non-related stocks usually resulted in a larger proportion of criminals among the descendants. This is probably to be accounted for by the greater constitutional vigor that resulted from marriage with non-related groups. Since pauperism rests upon weakness of some sort, the tendency to degeneration is intensified by in-and-in breeding.