Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/581

 REVIEWS 567

indicate a slight decrease instead of increase in the proportion of female to male employe's in the manufacturing industries of that state, and doubtless a comparison of statistics for some of the southern states, in which one of the leading industries of Massachusetts has recently found rapid development, would show an enormous percentage of increase ; but what value have such comparisons as showing the general tend- ency ? Equally absurd seem the conclusions drawn in the Eleventh Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor from statistics of the number of employe's in 931 establishments at two periods. Not many years ago we had in Chicago but one department store. Should we dis- cover the proportion of female and child employe's in that establish- ment twenty years ago, when there were no other establishments having a considerable proportion of such employes, and make comparison with the proportion of those classes now employed in the same store, we should probably discover no great increase in the proportion of female and child workers. But would that show the tendency as to such employment in the city, where there are at present, besides numerous smaller establishments, at least six that are larger than the former establishment was at the earlier period, and nearly or quite as large as that establishment at the present time ?

Yet, though a precisely similar method was adopted by the Com- missioner of Labor, with the result of concealing, while seeming to reveal, the facts as to the employment of women and children, this author (footnote, p. 77) quotes that report, conveying the impression that the question is thus conclusively settled, saying:

This table seems to show that the proportion of females employed in these industries has increased a little faster than the proportion of males. Taking these facts in connection with the census returns, Commissioner Wright is of the opinion that the proportion of females, taking all the occupations in the country into consideration, is gradually increasing.

In this same footnote it is said in parenthesis : "The census statistics have been severely criticised by H. L. Bliss in three articles, ' Eccentric Official Statistics,' in the AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY, Vol. III." While in these articles I pointed out census deficiencies, my criticisms were also particularly directed to this report and to Colonel Wright's misuse of census statistics to discredit the results of this investigation of his own department regarding the employment of children. I called attention particularly to the fact that there was in reality a change in the classification of children at the eleventh census of one and a half years instead of one year, as appears, through the change, in the