Page:U.S. Department of the Interior Annual Report 1873.djvu/87

Rh viously ascertained totals. When it is considered that the three quarto volumes contain over 2,100 pages of tabular matter, having often as many as 22 vertical columns and 90 horizontal lines to the page, some impression may be obtained of the amount of labor involved in this effort to secure the highest attainable accuracy in the publication of the census. It has, of course, not been found practicable to eliminate every error from the material which was brought into the Office by the enumeration, or from the results as compiled in the Office, but certainly all who have taken part in the labors or responsibilities of the Ninth Census may well feel repaid for their exertions by the gratifying reception which these volumes have met from the people and the press of the country. In the revision of the statistical tables as they were put into type, this Office has been greatly assisted by the intelligent interest and kindly co-operation of the Congressional Printer, Hon. A. M. Clapp, who has afforded every opportunity consistent with other demands upon his office for the perfecting of this important national work, even to the last detail of publication. The several dates of issue for the three quarto volumes and the compendium were as follows: Population and social statistics, (quarto,) November 30, 1872; vital statistics, (quarto,) March 1, 1873; compendium, (octavo,) May 1, 1873; industry and wealth, May 9, 1873.

The revision of tabular statements has, however, not been the only work upon which the clerical force of the Office has been engaged during the year past. Each census brings into the Department an increasing mass of manuscript record, the usefulness of which, as record, is to depend wholly on the orderliness and compactness with which it shall be arranged for reference and consultation, after the compilation of general results for publication has been completed. The manuscript returns of the Ninth Census contain not only the name of every man, woman, and child in the United States on the 1st of June, 1870, in number 38,558,371, but nineteen entries, descriptive or merely affirmative or negative, against every such name. Moreover, every farm, factory, mill, or shop in the United States is returned by its location and the name of its owner, with from fifteen to fifty-two specifications of capital, stock, machinery, material, and product. In addition to the above, the statistics of mortality and what are known as the social statistics compose a body of manuscript larger than would have been required for the whole enumeration of the United States at the first two censuses, on the schedules then in use. The completion of the statistical tables of the census for publication leaves something like one million five hundred thousand pages in such place and order as the necessities of compilation required. Each of the five schedules must thereafter be brought together, sheet to sheet, township to township, county to county, State to State. The returns of each of the five classes must be prepared for binding by arranging the pages in numerical succession within the township, the townships in alphabetical order within the county, the counties in alphabetical order within the State. When this has been done, the record of the census is complete, 550 folio volumes of manuscript at 1870, of the average weight of 30 pounds.

The work, of which a rough description has here been given, has been carefully performed by skilled clerks, in order that the highest possible authority might be given to the record, and to secure the greatest ease and convenience of reference and consultation in the future.

Not less exacting have been the duties imposed upon the Office by the act of the last session providing for the payment of the assistant marshals of 1860, without proof of loyalty, as heretofore required.

By the act of March 3,1873, making appropriations "for the legislative,