Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/123

 ECCENTRIC OFFICIAL STATISTICS 109

price of all fish. While it is not possible in most cases to verify the data of either the Aldrich or the present report, there seems to be ground, in many instances, for doubting their accuracy. It seems absurd to suppose, for instance, that, with improved methods of production and generally falling prices, pine kitchen tables cost 25 per cent, more in 1891 than in 1860. In his paper previously quoted, Professor Bullock calls attention to the fact that in the wage data seven industries out of the seventeen investigated were represented by a single establishment, and that the increase of wages shown for these industries was considerably greater than for the other industries, and remarks :

This fact is of significance in two ways. Since the results for these indus- tries, represented by insufficient data, diverge so considerably from the results indicated in other industries, where the enumeration was more com- prehensive, we have a positive reason for suspecting that the establishments selected were not typical of the industries to which they belong. In the second place it is probable that the inclusion of figures based upon insuffi- cient data resulted in an exaggeration of the rate of increase of wages between 1860 and 1891, when the report computed a simple average for all industries. The matter was made still worse when the weighted average was calculated. These seven industries were then given weights that aggregated 684 out of a total weighing of 1,945 that was applied to all industries.

One of these industries represented by a single establishment was the manufacture of carriages and wagons, in which there is shown an increase of wages of over 100 per cent.; the index numbers being 100 in 1840, 1850, and 1860, and 202.4 i n 1891. Fortunately we have in Colonel Wright's report on the use of machinery official data which more nearly agree with the observation of persons employed in this indus- try. It is shown in this report (Vol. I, p. 36) that the labor cost of manufacturing one farm wagon of similar construction was $35.35 by the hand method in 1848, and $7.18 by the machine method in 1895. The time occupied in the first instance was 242- hours, and in the latter 48 hours, 17 minutes, 8 seconds. Thus, though the labor was five times as efficient, there was but a fraction of a cent difference in the average wages. For painting the wagon, in which no machinery is used, the time consumed in 1848 was 20 hours, and the labor cost $3; while in 1895 the time consumed was 10 hours and 48 minutes, and the labor cost $1.59. Thus for nearly double the amount of work the average wages received by painters in this establishment were 2^ cents an hour less in 1895 than in 1848. While this is not, perhaps, a fairly typical establishment, the figures are official, and show