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and mistakes in such enumeration, and to that end he may swear and examine witnesses, who shall testify subject to the pains and penalties of perjury. The result of such inquiry for correction, and the whole number of persons by him enumerated, he shall make known to the bystanders, if any. And the time given enumerators by said act to make return to supervisors is hereby extended fifteen days. And each euumerator shall be paid for his services in correcting his schedule of inhabitants, as required by this act, a sum to be fixed by the Superintendent of Census, in no caso to exceed two dollars and fifty cents per day. And that the oath of office prescribed by section seven of said act be so amended as to authorize and require the making and filing the list of inhabitants as required by this act.

SEC. 7. That to pay the enumerators for the additional services required by this act, the sum of one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, or so much thereof as may be necessary, be, and the same hereby is, appropriated out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated.

SEC. 8. The Superintendent of Census shall collect and publish the statistics of the population, industries resources of the district of Alaska, with such fullness as he may deem expedient, and as he shall find practicable under the appropriations made, or to be made, for the expenses of the Tenth Census.

Approved April 20, 1880.

APPENDIX B.

REPORTS OF THE SUPERINTENDENT OF CENSUS TO THE SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR.

INTERIOR DEPARTMENT, CENSUS OFFICE,

Washington, D. C., November 15, 1879.

SIR: I have the honor to report the operations of this bureau as follows: At the beginning of the year the Census Office existed by virtue of the provisions of the act of May 23, 1850, the only salaried official being Mr. Harrington, who had served as chief clerk at the Ninth Census, and still remained in charge of the files and records at Washington. The Superintendent of the Ninth Census still held the position without salary, conducting the correspondence arising out of the publications of that census from his home at New Haven, Conn.

On the 13th of March, Mr. Harrington died, after a lingering illness.

On the 12th of April, 1879, the Census Office was organized under the act of March 3, 1879, providing for the Tenth and subsequent censuses, by the appointment of the present Superintendent.

Mr. C. W. Seaton, of New York, a chief of division at the census of 1870, and the superintendent of the New York state census of 1875, was appointed chief clerk. Clerical appointments of a temporary nature have been made at successive dates, as the exigencies of the service required.

The work of the Census Office, since the organization, has been of two distinct kinds: First. Work in preparation for the enumeration, which is by law to commence on the 1st of June, 1880.

By the statement of the case, none of the work of this character yields statistical results. It is in no part definitive, but is purely preliminary, embracing the preparation of schedules, the subdivision of the country into supervisors' districts, the canvass of the geographical conditions of enumeration in the several sections for the purpose of grading the rates of compensation so as to secure at once the highest efficiency and the highest economy, the entertaining and answering of thousands of applications for appointment, and, finally, the conducting of the large correspondence which the organization of a service of such popular interest brings upon the office charged therewith.

It has not, however, been upon work of this class that the greater part of the labor of the Census Office since its organization has been bestowed.

Second. The collection of certain classes of statistics for the current year has been going on since June 1.

There is, by the act of 1879, as by that of 1850, both a census day and a census year. The census day is June 1, 1880; the census year comprises the twelve months ending at that date. The census day is the day on or for which the count of inhabitants is required to be made, and certain facts relating to the status of population and industry to be obtained; the census year is the period for which certain other classes of facts, relating to the movements of population and the operations of industry, are required to be taken.

But while the act of 1879 and that of 1850 are alike in thus instituting a census year for the movements of population and industry, as well as a census day for deter

mining their status, the two acts differ widely in the agencies they establish and the methods they prescribe for obtaining those results.

By the act of 1850, all the statistics to be obtained in the census were to be collected by the regular enumerators in their house-to-house canvass of their several districts. The facts relating to mining, to the fisheries, to agriculture, to manufactures, to the mortality of the population, and to many other matters of social and industrial interest, were to be ascertained and reported on by the same officers who made the count of population.

The inadequacy and the inaccuracy of the statistics thus obtained, which were sometimes positively discreditable and even disgraceful to the census, their only possible effect being to mislead the reader and misrepresent the country, led to the introduction of provisions into the act of March 3, 1879, by which the Census Office is authorized to withdraw certain classes of statistical inquiries from the ordinary enumerators and place them in the hands of experts and special agents.

In the spirit of this enlightened provision the Superintendent has carefully canvassed the field of investigation, with a view to ascertaining what parts of the field promise to yield results to such special inquiries of sufficient value, over and above what might be expected to be obtained through the ordinary course of enumeration, to repay the necessarily higher cost of the service.

In consequence of this inquiry several important investigations have already been set on foot, of which those involving the greatest amount of labor and expense are here indicated.

SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS CONDUCTED BY EXPERT AGENTS.

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L-THE FISHERIES.

The statistics of fisheries have been a blank, or, it would be more proper to say, a blotted, page of the census reports, ever since those statistics were first sought to be obtained, in 1850.

It is questionable whether the results obtained ever reached twenty, if indeed they ever reached fifteen per cent. of the actual facts.

The census of 1870 reported a total value of products of only eleven millions of dollars, among the items being 647,312 bushels of oysters!

Statistics like these were only calculated to bring the census into discredit, even when they did not have consequences of a more practical nature, as in the international arbitration at Halifax in 1877.

Under the provisions of the act of March 3, 1879, the Superintendent in June completed arrangements with Professor Baird, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, and president of the United States Fish Commission, by which the scientific direction of a comprehensive investigation into the statistics of the fisheries and the fishing populations of the United States should be assumed by himself, while the administrative charge of the service remained with the Census Office.

The details of the scheme having been arranged, a number of experts and skilled assistants, under the personal supervision of Professor G. B. Goode, were put into the field in the early summer.

Special canvassers, well trained for such inquiries, were engaged to proceed in boats along the entire eastern and southern coast, from Maine to Texas, visiting every fishing port or fishing village, and collecting the whole body of social and industrial statistics of the populations engaged in this occupation, together with all facts of economic interest relating to the habits and the haunts of the several species of fish, the methods and apparatus of fishing employed, the labor systems in vogue, &c. Other parties were engaged to canvass the Pacific coast, the northern lakes, and the western rivers, while special agents were engaged to work up the oyster fishery and to obtain the statistics of the fish markets of the principal ports.

Some of these parties have now been four months in the field. The character of the reports already received puts the success of this investigation beyond a reason

able doubt. Already large bodies of material are being compiled and tabulated in this office. The work will be actively prosecuted through the winter and the coming summer, until every portion of the field shall have been covered.

IL-THE MINING INDUSTRIES.

(a) The precious metals.—The census statistics of the production of gold and silver have never possessed the slightest appreciable value, but, on the contrary, have always been erroneous and misleading.

At the census of 1860 returns were obtained from 2,202 mining "establishments", and estimates were made of the product of 5,000 from which no returns were received. Twenty-seven million five hundred and thirteen thousand one hundred and seventy dollars only of product was obtained from actual returns.

The product of the two years 1859 and 1860 had been estimated by the United States Commissioner of Mining Statistics at fifty millions of dollars in 1859 and forty-five millions in 1860.

Of the $27,513,170 actually returned, $10,135,000 belonged to two establishments in San Francisco county, California, employing together but 15 men, and paying but $16,440 annually in wages. Of course, this means that these were simply refining and assaying offices. Making the proper deduction on this account, we have but $17,378,170 of actual metallic product accounted for in the census.

At the census of 1870 special efforts were made to obtain accurate statistics of gold and silver production through the established agencies.

The result was slightly to increase the proportion returned, the amount reported being $26,452,652 out of a production of $61,000,000, as estimated by the United States Commissioner of Mining Statistics.

This last experience would have proved, even if the nature of the case had not abundantly shown, that a canvass by the ordinary enumerators of population must be utterly worthless. A more grotesque figure can scarcely be imagined than that of a man who knows nothing about mining attempting to extract the statistics of capital invested,and product obtained from an operator who has his reasons for not telling the truth or any part of it.

Even to the eye of the expert, the indicia are few and the statistical tests nice and difficult. The unskilled enumerator becomes simply a butt for ridicule, imposture, and cheap miners' jokes.

Mining having been specially mentioned, in the act of March 3, 1879, as one of the subjects of special investigation, at the discretion of the Superintendent of Census, little hesitation was felt, in view of the facts and conditions recited, in organizing a service for obtaining the statistics of this department of the national industry. The creation, by act of Congress, at the same session, of the Geological Survey, seemed to offer a most fortunate opportunity. A complete understanding and agreement having been reached between the two bureaus, the scientific direction of the investigation into the gold and silver mining of the United States was undertaken by the Hon. Clarence King, Director of the Geological Survey, while the administrative charge of the work rested, as in the case of the fishery investigation, with the Census Office. The arrangement thus effected promises to be successful, not only in attaining great accuracy in the statistics collected, but in effecting much economy of expenditure, the skilled agents of the census being often able to secure, without any additional expense, scientific information respecting the regions they visit for the use of the Geological Survey, and the agents of the latter bureau being often able, incidentally to their own work of exploration, to make extensive collections of facts, of both social and economical importance, for the use of the census.

Parties have been in the field since July. Several of the principal mining regions of the West have been brought under investigation, and I feel assured that it is already put beyond doubt that that portion of the reports of the Tenth Census which deals

Especially in this period of universal monetary disenssion a complete economical survey of the mines of the United States producing the precious metals must be found of interest and value.

(b) The non-precious metals and coal.—Arrangements have been completed for a canvass by experts of the whole field of production of iron, copper, lead, and the other non-precious metals, and also of coal. The scientific direction of the work has been undertaken by Professor R. Pumpelly, and the agents of the Census Office have been in the field since September.

IIL-POWER AND MACHINERY USED IN MANUFACTURES.

By the act of 1850, no provision was made for obtaining the statistics of power and machinery employed in productive industry.

The omission was a grave one. The number of operatives engaged in any branch of the national industry, or in that industry as a whole, is merely one factor. The other factors are the amount of labor-saving machinery in use, and the amount of steam and water power applied to production. Given the fact that three millions of persons are employed in manufactures, what does this signify, unless it be known what is the aggregate horse-power of all the water-wheels and steam-engines by which their labor is assisted, which cannot at the present moment fall short of the lifting force of thirty millions of men, and may reach a far greater amount.

At the census of 1870 the Superintendent, impressed with the importance of at least approximate statements on this subject, introduced an inquiry into the manufacturing schedule respecting the kind of power in use in each establishment of productive industry, and the number of engines or water-wheels, with their aggregate horse-power. The returns to these inquiries were duly published in the reports of that census, and constituted a valuable, as they were a novel, feature of those reports.

By the act of March 3, 1879, the Census Office is authorized to institute inquiries respecting

The kind and amount of power employed in establishments of productive industry, and the kind and number of machines in use, together with the maximum capacity of such establishments, where the Superintendent of Census shall deem such inquiry appropriate.

As the inquiry into power and machinery is eminently one which requires not only technical knowledge, but high scientific training and wide observation, it has been determined to make this department of statistics the subject of a special investigation. General W. P. Trowbridge, professor of engineering in Columbia College, New York, has been appointed the special agent of the Census Office for the purpose of this inquiry.

Trained assistants are already in the field, and the canvass is being actively prosecuted.

IV. THE DEFECTIVE, DEPENDENT, AND DELINQUENT CLASSES.

The census act of 1850 contained provisions for collecting the statistics of the deaf and dumb, blind, insane, idiotic, and also of all criminals and paupers.

The reason for the special recognition of these classes, in preparing for a census, is fourfold: first, philanthropic, in order that the humane efforts made by individuals or communities for the protection and relief, and, so far as possible, the restoration to society, of the unfortunate classes, may receive intelligent direction; secondly, scientific, in order that the physiological laws which govern the appearance of mental and physical defects, and the social laws which govern the commission of crime, inay be disclosed; thirdly, political, in order that the state may know what proportion of its citizens are incapacitated for military and civil service; and, fourthly, economical, in order that it may be known what is the burden laid by pauperism and crime upon productive labor, and what the extent to which exceptional physical infirmities and afflictions in classes of the population, as blindness, deaf-mutism, etc., create an exceptional liability to future pecuniary dependence.

But while the importance of a special enumeration of the defective, dependent, and delinquent classes was fully recognized by the act of 1850, no adequate agencies were provided.

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