Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/122

 108 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

claims to have guarded against error that might result from this cause, he seems but to have made a bad matter worse, as is undoubtedly the case in his weighted wage statistics. For instance, in weighing the wages of employe's in the building trades, he assumes that all persons returned in the census tables of occupation as carpenters, masons, painters, etc., have obtained the increase of wages shown in establishments reported in the Aldrich report as " Building Trades Establishments," for which a high ratio of increase is shown. Yet, for instance, of the twenty-two series of carpenters' wages of which use is made in the Aldrich report, only seven are from establishments entitled "building trades," and of thirteen series of painters' wages only five are from "building trades" establishments.

As is shown by the pay-rolls of these other establishments, in which the larger number were employed, the increase in wages was much less than in these building trades establishments, evidently located in large cities where wages had increased with the increased cost of living. Yet by this system of weighing the statistician esti- mates that all carpenters, masons, painters, etc., have enjoyed the increase in wages of these establishments shown by the data of the report itself to be non-representative.

As but a small proportion of bread or flour is consumed as crackers, it seems also erroneous to take the relative prices of crackers as to any considerable extent representing the ratio of prices at which flour or wheat was consumed. Neither does it seem correct to assume that all fish was consumed at the relative prices of mackerel and cod- fish shown in the quotations of those articles. The majority of con- sumers certainly do not pay Fifth avenue prices for fish. Yet the prices quoted for codfish, which we have found so largely to affect the price average of the food group, are stated to have been furnished by Hitchcock, Darling & Co., Fifth Avenue Hotel, New York. While codfish is thus quoted at 4 cents per pound in 1860, and 12^ cents in 1891, we find on the next page of the report (Part II, p. 80) a quo- tation of codfish which indicates that the quotation used does not fairly represent the increase in the price of that article. The latter quota- tion is for pickled codfish, showing it to have been worth $4 per 112 pounds in 1875, an d $4 per 112 pounds in 1891. This quota- tion is stated to have been furnished by the secretary of the Boston fish bureau. As the quotation did not make a complete series from 1860, it was not used by the statistician in his computation. It, how- ever, goes to show that there was not the estimated increase in the