Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/631

Rh and unsatisfactory data—in fact, upon statistics that were not within a large percentage of accuracy. When treating the vital statistics of the whole country I shall take pains to call attention to some of the exceedingly misleading if not thoroughly erroneous conclusions in the past. It is exceedingly gratifying to know that the experts in charge of such important facts under the eleventh census are thoroughly alive to all the opportunities of error which ordinarily and naturally arise under imperfect statistics.

The discussions which are going on relative to municipal control will be enriched by a great many facts in the social statistics of cities that are being published under the eleventh census. The difference in the cost of building and maintaining streets and in the cost of street-cleaning, the advantages of paved or unpaved streets so far as health is concerned, and the general conditions resulting from cleanliness—all these facts can be learned when the complete statistics of cities are published. Boston, Worcester, and Holyoke are cities in which all the streets are paved; but Dallas, Texas, has but 4·7 per cent of its streets paved, St. Paul 4·1, and Minneapolis 3·1, while Denver's streets are not paved at all.

The average yearly cost of construction and repairs per head of population in cities having over 100,000 inhabitants is $1.54, while in twenty-seven cities for which the census has returns, having less than 100,000 inhabitants each, the cost is $2.04.

The average annual expenditure for street-cleaning varies from five cents in Buffalo and eight cents in Chicago to seventy-one cents in New York and sixty-two cents in Cincinnati; but, as the census officials remark, there is probably no definite relation between the cost per head of street-cleaning as shown by the figures and the actual condition of the streets as to cleanliness. Ordinary observation teaches us that in many cities where the cost is greatest the streets are in the filthiest condition.

The question as to economical street-lighting is an important one in all municipalities. The facts already published indicate that the annual cost of gas-lamps varies from $50 per lamp in New Orleans, $43.80 in San Francisco, and $37 in St. Louis, to $15 in Indianapolis and Canton, $15.60 in Minneapolis, and $17.50 in Hoboken; while the annual cost of each electric lamp varies from $68 in Chicago and $58.46 in Denver to $237.25 in Boston and $440.67 in San Francisco. When all the facts are collected and published it is to be hoped that the public can ascertain the relative advantages of the different systems of lighting, so far as cost per capita is concerned. At present the cost to each head of population can only be stated for the total average annual cost for the cities comprehended in the table. This is sixty-four cents