Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 38, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 February 1906 — ANTICIPATING THE CENSUS. [ARTICLE]

ANTICIPATING THE CENSUS.

Forecast of tho Population of Leading? American Cities in 1010. An expert statistician who has done work for the. census bureau at Washington has figured out the' population ol American cities in 1910, basing his estimates upon past growth, building statistics, city directories and local censuses; The result with gains in ten years for the seven cities at the head of his list is here presented : Population. Gain. New York .. 4,437,202 1,000,000

Chicago 2,298.575 GOO,OOO Philadelphia 1,818,697 525,000 St. Louis 975,238 400,000 Boston ............ 740.802 180,000 P>altimore ... 608,957 100,000 Cleveland G01.7G8 220.000 Of these seven cities New York, Chicago and Cleveland were the only ones that showed an increase of more than 30 per cent in the decade between 1890 and 1900. St. Louis had 27.3 per cent; Boston, 25.1; Philadelphia, 23.6, and Baltimore, 17.2. Under the new dispensation St. Louis would go soaring. Her percentage of increase would leap far beyond that of Chicago in the last decade. It would be less than the Chicago rate between 1880 and 1890, but it would be on some accounts much more remarkable. For St. Louis has not been conspicuous as a racer. Precedents are rudely overturned also in the case of Philadelphia. Starting with a population some 406,600 less than that of Chicago, that city is given an absolute increase nearly equal to Chicago's and a considerably larger relative increase, also to the confusion of precedents. These are the most notable of the predictions, and it is evident that they have little retirtton to “pass gains. Cleveland is given an increase of about GO per cent, as against 4G per cent in ths last decade, but a very high rate was to have been expected from her past growth. On the other hand, Chicago is dropped from 54 per cent to about 35 per cent. Her precedents are knocked into smithereens to her very great disadvantage. In building increases in cost for 1905 Over 1904 were: New York, GO per cent; Brooklyn. 44; Chicago, 32; Philadelphia, 37; St. Louis, 65; Cleveland, 48. It would require a larger survey to get at the significance of the factor in the calculations and also a very careful analysis.