TABLE XLIII-Pauperism and Crime, with Population by States and Territories-1870. Colored. Foreign-born. 116, 102, 10, 930, 429 76, 737 53, 939 44, 539 a9, 400| 22, 798||| 36, 562 32, 901 24, 173, 16, 117 8, 056 8,728 of inmates was 15,352. The date taken for this return, viz, the 1st of December, would probably not show quite so large a number of paupers as a date nearer the close of the winter; but December would certainly exhibit a larger number than any other month of the spring, summer, or autumn, excepting March, and possibly April, and is therefore to be regarded as presenting an unexceptionably fair average for the year. Yet the books of the same institutions record the admission during the year, whose beginning and ending are thus defined, including those remaining at the beginning of the year, of no less than 59,136 "persons." In addition, the number of persons receiving temporary and partial out-door relief in the State of New York through the year in question (at an expense of $911,855.15) is returned at 101,796, making the total number of "persons" receiving aid from funds appropriated distinctly for the poor, 160,932. But a still further extension of the list of public pensioners might, upon a possible, Colored. Foreign-born. States and Territories.. TABLE XLIV.-Pauperis m and Crime, with Population by States and Territories--1860. *In the opinion of the Superintendent of Census, no use of these figures for purposes of comparison between States and sections, or between the several periods of time covered by this publication, will be justifiable, unless reference is had to the remarks which are beneath the table. and indeed from its own point of view an entirely reasonable, theory of the case, be claimed and allowed. The immigration commissioners for New York report having expended during the year 1869 $330,000 for the relief of poor immigrants. There was also appropriated from the treasury of the State, or of the city of New York under laws of the State, during the same year, in assistance to hospitals, dispensaries, infirmaries, asylums, &c., the sum of $1,903,075.59. Allowing for the persons participating in the benefits of these expenditures, we should have the State poor very considerably increased, even above the enormous numbers already expressed. The number of persons given in the table as "supported during the year," for the State of New York, is 26,152. The foregoing statements will sufficiently illustrate the importance of having the tables of pauperism for the several States and Territories made up upon a uniform plan. It was the want of such uniformity of construction, in connection with manifest looseness in the collection of material, which yielded such impossible and altogether TABLE XLIV.--Pauperism and Crime, with Population by States and Territories-1860. 2 28 4,021 29 9 30 358 31 40 37 3 38 irrational results in the publication of the census of 1860, as New York, with a population of 3,880,735, having a pauperism of 164,782, (average cost per head less than $9,) while Pennsylvania, with a population of 2,906,215, in the same general condition of settlement and industry, showed only 16,463 persous supported during the year, (at a cost of something over $40 a head;) Michigan, with a population of only 749,113, having a pauper list of 9,104, (average, $12,) while Illinois, with a population of 1,711,951, was returned with only 4,628, (average, $42;) Massachusetts, with a population of 1,231,066, engaged principally in manufactures, having a pauperism of 51,880, (average, $11,) while Connecticut, also a manufacturing State, with a population of 460,147, was returned with only 4,044 paupers, (average, $31.) Comparisons like these, which might be extended through pretty much the whole list of the then existing States, show at a glance that no effort was made at the Eighth Census to impose anything like a uniform rule upon the returns of pauperism; that some States were returned with a pauper-list three, five, or ten times as large as States in the same general condition of settlement and industry, for no other reason than that in one State the aggregate cost of poorrelief was practically divided by the known cost of sustaining one pauper one year, and the quotient taken for the number of persons supported during the year, while in another State all persons entering a work or alms house, for ever so limited a period, were included, and, in a third, every person receiving so much as a half ton of coal in States and Territories, TABLE XLV.—Pauperism and Crime, with Population by States and Territories-1850. (*) See note (*) on preceding page. (f) The nativity of 34,662 free persons was not returned on the schedule. For their distribution among the States and Territories, see Table X, page 377. a hard winter, or a dozen soup-tickets, was set down among the State's poor. While claiming in respect to this as little as in respect to any other class of the statistics of the census, and, indeed, less with respect to this than to almost any other, absolute accuracy, the Superintendent must claim the credit of having attempted to introduce as fully as, with the vicious machinery of the present census law, was possible, discrimination and order into the returns of pauperism. In a country presenting such wide diversity in the conditions of life, settlement, and industry as the United States, four things would be essential to anything like a complete exhibit of the pauperism of all the States: First. The number of persons actually inmates of asylums, alms and work houses, on one or more days certain during the year. It would be desirable that three or four dates should be taken for the count. If, however, only a single return could be ob tained, the date taken should be as strictly representative of the year as possible. This condition, the day previously indicated as taken for the return in New York, viz, December 1, fairly answers. The census date, June 1, is as little representative as any could be. Second. The amount of pauperism calculated impersonally, i. c., by dividing the aggre gate expenditure for poor-support by the ascertained cost of maintaining, in each State and section by turns, one pauper for one year. Third. The number of persons who, for any period, however limited, from beginning to close of the year, become inmates of any of the different classes of charitable institutions. TABLE XLV.-Pauperism and Crime, with Population by States and Territories-1850. Native. Foreign- Fourth. The number of persons receiving, in any form and in any degree, relief or assistance in money or by supplies at the public expense. Nothing less than the above would put the statistician, the economist, or the social philosopher, in a position to work out all the relations of the pauperism of such a country as this to the social and economical interests of the people. But unfortunately the census law of 1850 allows the authorities and agents of the census to compass but two of the four points of importance in the consideration of the subject. One of the two is the number of inmates of asylums, alms and work houses on a day certain, corresponding to the first of the series of four just enumerated. The other of the two questions which the law allows may, by the authorities of the census, be made at their discretion to cover any one of the three remaining points, and.of necessity must leave the other two uncovered. The phraseology of the law on this subject, "number supported during the year," is, as usual, ambiguous. It would certainly be within the scope of administrative construction to determine this inquiry to meet any one of the three following points: First. Number supported during, i. e., throughout, the year. The philological argument is rather in favor of this construction. This would give the impersonal amount of pauperism, provided, at least, it were held legitimate, as it clearly might be, to reduce partial to total support at the ascertained cost of the latter. Second. The number during the year receiving support, greater or less, in public institutions, i. e., receiving support at any time and for any time" during the year,” i. e., within the year. Third. The number receiving support, i. e., assistance at public expense, as above, but without reference to the manner in which such assistance be rendered, whether total support in alms and work houses, or occasional out-door relief. Native. Foreign born. |