MASSACHUSETTS STATE CENSUS OF 1875. 1876. Salary receivers: 9,554 "individual" returns. Wage receivers: 71,339 "individual" returns. 1877. The afflicted classes: blind, deaf, dumb, idiotic, and insane. Motive power of Massachusetts. Pauperism and crime. Massachusetts manufactories: persons employed in each 1878. Relative importance of private establishments and corporations in manufacturing industries. Conjugal condition, nativities, and ages of married women and mothers. Nativities, ages, and illiteracy of farmers, farm laborers," skilled workmen in manufactures and mechanical industries, and unskilled laborers. 1879. Hours of labor. 1882. Citizenship. UNITED STATES CENSUS OF 1880. 1874. Statistics relating to Massachusetts. MASSACHUSETTS STATE CENSUS of 1885. 1887. The unemployed. 1888. Citizenship. PRINTED MATERIAL, MANUSCRIPT, AND CORRESPONDENCE. 1874. Comparative rates of wages and hours of labor in Massachusetts and foreign countries. Prices of provisions, clothing, rent, etc., in Massachusetts and Europe; purchase power of money. 1875. Co-operation. 1877. Industrial arbitration and conciliation in England and 1881. Massachusetts. Industrial arbitration and conciliation. 1884. Comparative wages-1862 to 1883-Massachusetts and Great Britain. Comparative prices and cost of living-1860 to 1883- 1886. Co-operative distribution in Great Britain. MATERIAL SUPPLIED. 1874. Increase in wages in cotton, woollen, and worsted mills: 1861 compared with 1873. 1880. Cost of living table: Massachusetts and foreign countries. 1881. Statistics of drunkenness and liquor selling. Historical review of wages and prices: 1752 to 1860. Two fundamental points should be borne in mind in the collection of information. First, the information gathered must be exhaustive; that is, it must cover the subject and leave but little if any aftermath for the reformer, critic, magazine writer, or newspaper man to supply. Every statistical publication of an important nature, in the United States, is at once dissected by hundreds of keen minds and its armor of truth must be indeed strong to withstand their attacks. Their sharpest arrows are thrown at incompetency, and statistical incompetency is shown in no more marked way than in the inadequate consideration and presentation of some great economic question. This inadequacy may kill the statistician, but the subject considered gets a set-back also in consequence. There must be some patriotism still existing in the breasts of government officials who give the best years of their lives to the public service at salaries which would be refused by those who criticize their work and find it impregnable to their assaults. Second, it must be honest information. It must be fact and not hearsay. It must not cover one side of a question and ignore the other. It must present the strongest facts for both He sides. The statistician must be judicial in his conclusions. must be a judge and not an advocate. It is said, to our national honor, that the Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States have risen above partisan bias in their decisions regarding great questions. So, the statistician must put aside pet ideas, personal theories, and private hobbies, which constitute statistical partisanship, and, rising above them, judge facts dispassionately, and give to the public truths honestly arrived at from honest original investigations. CHAPTER III. INSTRUCTIONS TO ENUMERATORS AND AGENTS. THE best-prepared schedule will fail in its purpose, the securing of complete and accurate information, unless the instructions given to the correspondent, official, agent, or enumerator, are so full and helpful as to enable him to fill in the answers as was intended. Of course this is on the supposition that the blank, or schedule, is a perfectly constructed one, but, too often, the errors that vitiate statistics are fundamental, having their origin in the blank itself, and being of such a nature that careful instructions, honest endeavor on the part of persons supplying information, and even copious correspondence will not obtain trustworthy data. The instructions for mail blanks, or for returns to be made by officials, need to be more explicit than those given upon schedules to be collected by agents or enumerators. The agents and enumerators have their special instructions and are able to easily correct errors in blanks that by mail would require a long and tedious correspondence. It is this lack of rapport between the parties sending out blanks and those expected to fill and return them by mail that causes the great expense of collecting information by mail. It is not the cost of the postage, but it requires good salaries to pay for the clerks capable of writing suitable explanatory letters, and for stenographers and type-writers to put the correspondence in proper shape; again, a voluminous correspondence requires indexing, and careful clerks are needed for such service. Then, again, clerks having the power of brain-consecutivity must bring this information (often contradictory, being given, it may be, by different persons) into proper condition to be transferred to the schedules laid out on account of errors or omissions. Perfect schedules are needed for speedy and accurate tabulation, and all errors and omissions which are not found in blanks until they reach tabulation cause delay, re-figurings, and consequent additions to the expense of the clerical service. As instructions vary so much according to the information to be obtained it would be impracticable to give here only those. general in their application. In the case of special agents, they are often given orally, but, even with the best agents, this is not a safe plan. Instructions, either for agents or clerks, should always be reduced to writing, type-writing, or print, and then the persons employed can be held to strict accountability. The best general instruction for agents is that each series of recorded facts should be written upon uniform sized sheets of paper, suitably designated, so these slips can be sorted, condensed, or aggregated, without the necessity of re-copying. Copying, unless carefully read back, is the most inexact of all statistical work, and should be avoided as much as possible by utilizing the original records of the agent in tabulation. From the instructions supplied to the census enumerators of the Massachusetts State Census of 1885, the following condensed statement is prepared: COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS. THE ENUMERATOR'S BOOK FOR THE CENSUS AND INDUSTRIAL STATISTICS OF 1885. Containing comprehensive Definitions, Explanations, and Instructions for properly filling Schedule No. 1, Population and Social Statistics; Schedule No. 1-Special; and the necessary Memorandum Forms for Entering the Names, Kinds of Business, or Occupations; and Post-office Addresses of all Individuals, Firms, Corporations, etc., engaged in Productive Industry in the Commonwealth. DEALINGS WITH THE CENSUS OFFICE. 1.-Correspondence. All communications relating to the Census should be addressed BUREAU OF STATISTICS OF LABOR, CLAFLIN BUILDING, 20 BEACON STREET, BOSTON, MASS. |