Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/535

 ECCENTRIC OFFICIAL STA TISTICS 5 2 1

facturing and mechanical returns results from a change in the law which provides for special agents for such enumeration, which at the earlier censuses was left with the marshals who col- lected the statistics of population. How much more thorough was this enumeration in the eleventh than even in the tenth census will be understood when it is stated that in five trades, painting and paperhanging, carpentry, masonry, plumbing, and plastering, the number returned was 265 per cent, greater in the later than in the former census.

In the ninth census, after allowing for the deficiency of both the eighth and the ninth censuses, General Walker estimated the actual increase in the value of manufactured products from 1860 to 1870 as 1 08 per cent. He also estimated that prices had risen 56 per cent. "That is that manufactured articles of the same quality (averaging all branches of production) which would have been $1,000,000,000 in 1860 would have been worth $1,560,000,000 in 1870." This would leave the increase of manufacturing production in the ten years to be represented by 33 K P er cent - 1 As population increased nearly 23 per cent, the per capita increase would be less than 1 1 per cent., yet it may be noticed that Mr. Steuarts's table gives the per capita increase in production of this decade as 260 per cent. It is true Mr. Steuart remarks that percentages based on the figures given cannot be relied upon as indicating the "exact" increase. He however leaves it to be inferred that in a rough way they show the facts.

It seems incredible that so eminent a statistician as Colonel Wright should quote and compare these incomparable statistics to prove for instance that women are not taking the place of men in manufacturing industries. In an article contributed to the Chicago Record of July 20, 1894,* Colonel Wright says:

The discussion of the question therefore is interesting sociologically, but it is often conducted more from the standpoint of sentiment than from fact. The results of the eleventh census give the fact and show clearly the tendencies of the times in respect to the employment of the classes named. In this

1 By what is evidently a clerical error stated in the text as 52 per cent. ' Women and ChiMren Work."