Page:U.S. Department of the Interior Annual Report 1878.djvu/33

Rh ample time is allowed, after the passage of the act, before the commencement of the enumeration. If the department is to remain uncertain whether the census is to be taken under the act of 1850 or under a new law till the February of the census year — as was the case in 1870 — the work must suffer both through enhanced cost and through impaired value.

As to the considerations which seem to demand new legislation, in the interest alike of economy and of the improvement of the statistical results, I respectfully refer to the report of the Superintendent of Census, which is annexed hereto.

The law of May 23, 1850, was passed in the very infancy of statistical science. In the period that has intervened the demands of Congress and the country for statistical information have greatly increased, and new schedules and new inquiries are needed to satisfy those demands.

Better methods of enumeration have become known, through our own experience at three censuses taken under the act of 1850, and through the experiences of other nations in conducting similar services. Even the conditions of the country have greatly changed. While our population was more easily classified in 1850, it now contains elements which vastly increase the labor of enumeration and multiply the liabilities to error. Large numbers of immigrants have been added to our population on the one hand, and five millions of freedmen, who were formerly reported at the census promptly and intelligently by their masters, are now left to speak for themselves under the gravest disadvantages. The very conditions of life among our people have undergone great changes. The interior movements of population have become more rapid and extensive, and half a million of square miles are now settled more or less densely, which in 1850 were unsurveyed, or even unexplored.

As the census of a great nation is a very practical work, into which theory and preconceived notions should enter as little as possible, it would seem that such great changes of condition, as well as the advances made meanwhile in the science of legislation and in the art of government, justify and require a new census law.

The duties of the Census Office, such as the correspondence supplying information asked for, and care of records and documents, have been satisfactorily performed during the year by the clerk in charge. No settlements have been made of the unpaid claims of the assistant marshals at the eighth and ninth censuses owing to the failure of Congress to provide for their payment.

It is to be hoped that such provision will be made at the coming session, in accordance with the recommendation of the department.

During the past season the work of the United States Geological and Geographical Survey, under the direction of Prof. F. V. Hayden, was continued northward into portions of Wyoming and Montana Territories.