Page:U.S. Department of the Interior Annual Report 1879.djvu/51

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In the last annual report of the department it was recommended that new legislation be had in provision for the approaching tenth census of the United States. The considerations which, in the interest alike of economy and of sound statistics, seemed to require that the census should not continue to be taken under the act of May 23, 1850, were set forth at length in the papers accompanying the report. By act of March 3, 1879, Congress instituted a new system of enumeration, and made provision for the tenth and subsequent censuses upon principles widely different from those of the act of 1850. The careful and detailed consideration which has been given to this enactment in the preparations making for carrying its provisions into effect, and the experience which has been had of the workings of the system so far as it has already become operative, have confirmed me in the belief that the new legislation was wise and salutary, and that the results of the census soon to be taken under its provisions and sanctions will fully justify its wide departure from the methods previously in use.

No defect has appeared which in an appreciable degree threatens the integrity of the enumeration, nor has any change in any essential feature of the scheme suggested itself to the department as likely to result in an improvement in the quality of the statistics to be obtained.

The Superintendent of Census in his report recommends that the benefit of the franking privilege be extended to mail matter addressed to the Census Office in response to its inquiries, or in compliance with its requests, by persons not officers of the government; and that one interrogatory, which by the act of March 3, 1879, was introduced for the first time into the so-called population schedule, viz, as to the holders of the public debt, be dispensed with, as unlikely to secure results of value and as certain to hinder the progress of the enumeration if not to engender animosity.

These recommendations meet the approval of the department.

The report of the Superintendent raises the question whether a copy of the returns of enumerators should be provided for by new legislation.

It appears that a copy of the returns would probably cost $130,000 as a minimum. In his opinion such an expenditure, if it were to be incurred, would properly be looked upon wholly as a measure of insurance against the accidental destruction of the original schedules. The use to which the copy would be put, except in case of such destruction of the originals, would be far too slight to justify the great cost of making the copy.

In fact this use may be regarded, in the consideration of this subject, as absolutely nil. The danger to be apprehended to the schedules is not that of their loss prior to or during transmission to the Census
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