Rensselaer Republican, Volume 12, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 February 1880 — THE FORTHCOMUNG CENSUS. [ARTICLE]

THE FORTHCOMUNG CENSUS.

Tte Vartew* Mlefabini.WiU Hub The original scope of the decennial census went no further than the obtaining a basis for political representation and direct taxation. This, however, has been gradually enlarged, until now it is intended to include all manner of social, vital and industrial statistics. Heretofore the United States Marshals, whatever might or might not be their qualifications for this particular work, performed this duty of supervising the census, and the ordinary enumerators were charged with the collection of special statistics as well. This method resulted in 1870 in such imperfect returns and* obvious errors that many of the statistics collected rejected as Utterly untrustworthy. Under the new law special supervisors will be appointed to take general charge of the census districts, and many classes of statistical inquiry will be placed in the hands of experts and special agents. General Francis A. Walker, Superintendent of the Census, began .he work of organization in April last. His chief assistant is C. W. Seaton, who was Superintendent of the New York State Census of 1875. At the office in Washington thirty or forty clerks are already employed in the preliminary work for the enumeration next June. Professor Baird, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution and President of the JJnited States Fish Commission, will have the direction of a comprehensive investigation into the statistics of the fisheries and the fishing population of the United States., W. Clarence King has the scientific direction of the investigation into th® gold and silver mining of the country. General W. P. Trowbridge, Professor of Engineering in Columbia College, New York, is the special agent for the purpose of obtaining the •tatistics of power and machinery employed in productive industry. Fred H. Wines, Secretary of the Illinois Board of Commissioners of Public Charities, has charge of a special enumera tion of the deaf and dumb, blind, insane and idiotic, and the criminals ar.d paupers. The collection and co-ordination of the social statistics has been intrusted to Colonel George E. Waring, Jr.,’ of Rhode Island. The collection of star tistics in relation to manufacture and agriculture has been assigned to special agents, as follows: The manufactures of cotton to Edward Atkinson, of Boston; the manufactures of wool, to George William Bond, of Boston; the buildingstones of the United States and the quarrying industry, to Professor J. S. Newberry, of New York; the manufacture of iron, to James M. Swank, of Philadelphia; ship-building, to John Lynch, of Portland, Me.; the manufactures of glass and of coke to J. D. Weeks, of Pittsburgh; the manufao* hires of silks to W. C. Wyckoff, at New York; the lumbering industry to Professor C. S. Sargent, of Brookline, Mass. The subject of cotton culture has been intrusted to Professor E. W. Hilgard, of the University of California, who is assisted by several eminent agriculturists and geologists; that of the production of cereals to Professor W. H. Brewer, of the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale College; that of forestry to Professor C. S. Sargent, of Brookline, Mass.; that of orchard fruits, tobacco and hops to J. R. Dodge, of Washington, D. C., and that of meat Production in the grazing States and 'erritories to Clarence Gordon, of Newburg, N. Y. Special attention will be paid to the obtaining of vital statistics. This is to include information respecting range and degree of virulence of certain fatal diseases, and the rate of mortalityin one section as compared with adjoining sections. The co-operation of physicians and surgeons throughout the country is solicitea in this department of inquiry.— Philadelphia Press.