Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/543

 ECCENTRIC OFFICIAL STATISTICS 529

Wright states in his editorial note, divided by the total number of employes. Dividing by the average number instead, the result is to give that which would be the average earning if every employe had constant employment.

On page 4, part I of the manufacturing statistics of the Eleventh Census we find a table of comparative statistics with the footnote referring to employes and wages for 1 890 : 44 Includes 461,009 officers, firm members, and clerks, and their wages amounting to $381,988,208. These classes of employes were not reported separately at prior censuses."

A similar footnote accompanied the census bulletins of manu- factures. This footnote seems calculated to conceal rather than to reveal the truth, for it can convey no other impression than that though these classes were not reported separately at prior censuses, they were included in the aggregate. That they were not so included at the eighth and ninth censuses is distinctly stated by General Walker in his remarks in the ninth census.

We find it remarked in the Eleventh Census : " The number of this class of wage-earners included in the reports of previous censuses, with the excep- tion of two or three special inquiries at the census of 1880, were only those reported when the manufacturer considered that they should be included in answer to the general question as to the number of employe's and the total amount of wages."

The schedules of no census prior to 1890 called for the enumeration of firm members and the estimated value of their services. Neither were there inquiries as to clerks and their salaries save the special inquiries in the census of 1880 referred to in the remarks quoted. In one of these indus- tries, cotton goods, we find the employes reported under the heading, "operatives and officers," and the footnote, "From this number deduct 2115 officers and clerks, whose salaries are not computed in wages." Whether or not, in the other special industries reporting officers and clerks, the salaries arc included in the wage account docs not appear, nor has the writer been able to ascertain whether the number of officers and clerks reported in the cotton goods and other special inquiries are