Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 November 1880 — The Census Work. [ARTICLE]

The Census Work.

Superintendent Walker says that the work of compilation of the results of the labors of the enumerators has sufficiently advanced, especially with reference to population, to enable him to say with perfect safety that this branch of the labor of his office will be completed by January Ist. The statistics of population will be in such shape that, should congress determine to revise the apportionment ot representatives based on the census of 1880, he can furnish authoritative information concerning every portion of the country to the committee charged with this subject. The work of revision, he says, now going on in St. Louis, under the auspices or the people’s committee, will not make any material delay, as he anticipates from Professor Woodard such an active performance of his work that the returns will be completed and submitted to the chi el office within thirty dsys. There are other localities of mi nor importance which have been reviewed by special agents, but returns in these have been made, leaving Bi. Louis the only point in the United States not yet finally diipoeed ot. With respect to enumerators, representatives from different sections in the northwest and South have been in correspondence with the census office and members of the census committee, urging a disposition of the appointment at the approaching session

of congress, on the ground that in all the states holding biennial sessions the legislatures will be in session for an adjustment of their districts for the purposes of natioaal representation to the new ratio, whatever that may be. This question is bound to excite considerable discusion The houße, with its present two hundred and ninety three representatives, has sometimes been regarded as unwieldy for tbe prompt dispatch of publio business, and respected intimations have been given by tbe leaders on both aides of a purpose to reduce the aggregate representation by increasing the ratio. The minimum number suggested is two hun drjd and forty, and the maximum the present figure, and an increase of the ratio so as not to materially change the representation in the ssates where the population -has kept pace with the progress of yean, and only reducing it in such portions of the country where development has kept leas rapid pace and coneequently presents loss important considerations for even the present ratio. In the states where the interests ere important it is claimed the representation should particularly remain unchanged, taking the loss relatively off sections where the copulation is sparse and scattered and'inaustry more diffused.