Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 102, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 August 1907 — FACTS ABOUT : : : : : : THE CENSUS. [ARTICLE]

FACTS ABOUT : : : : : : THE CENSUS.

Uncle Sam is a successful publisher, lie issues annually the • “horse book,” which has an enormous circulation. Over a million copies of the hook have been printed, and still the public demand for it is not satisfied.- Another edition of 230,000 copies of this famous volume, the full title of which is “Special Diseases of the Horse,” has just been ordered. This makes over a million copies ordered, but before the demand is supplied these will he exhausted and Congressmen will find it necessary to go down in their pockets to have copies of the book printed for constituents after using their congressional quota. An idea of the magnitude of the work may be formed from the statement that the first edition of 301,000 copies if laid end to end would cover a space fifty miles long, and if piled tip flatwise would make 10S piles as high as the Washington monument.

In 1904 the census bureau started out to ascertain whether the country is getting better and it now announces that, better or worse, the ratio of persons fn_ prisons to the entire population has decreased since 1890. Out of every million Americans there now are 1,000 in prison, not including trust magnates, while irf* IS9O there were 1,067. The census experts point out that this decrease may mean only an extension of the probation and parole system. In 18S0 8 per cent of the prisoners were women; in 1890 7 per cent, and in 1904 5 per cent. Colored persons were more common among the prisoners in 1904 than they were in 1890.