The New York herald., 1878-12-21
The Methods or Taking the Next

| accordance with it unless different law
shall be enacted by Congress on or before
the lst day of January of the year IN which
the census is to be taken. There is no
chance Of the passage Of law by the next
| Congress previous to January ], 1850.
Being new Congress considerable
part of the month of December will be
| consumed in organizing the House. Even
| if a Speaker should be promptly chosen
| he will require two weeks or more for select
| ing the committees, ana within q few days
after the organization is completed Con-
gress will adjourn for the holidays Unless
new law is passed at this session it will
not be in season for the census Of 1880, and
the clumsy, blundering method Of the last
three enumerations will be repeated, giving
results which are worthless, except with
regard to mere population. 1t will be little
short of national disgrace If this i'm
portant work is again botched, as it has
been heretofore.
The machinery for taking the census
| needs to be entirely reconstructed. BY the
present law the United States marshal in
each judicial district is charged with the
duty Of taking the census. He is required
to subdivide his district and appoint suf-
ficient number of assistants, and each
enumerator gathers every kind OF informa-
ton within his own subdivision. Now, in
most of the judicial districts the marshal
has enough to do without being further
burdened with the laborious business Of
managing census. Marshals are appointed
for their fitness to perform the ordinary
duties of their Office. and seldom
have any fitness, even if they
had time, for the intelligent collec-
ton of statistics relating to manufac-
lures, mining and other great industries
to arts, education, sanitary arrangements
and social progress. 1t is suggested by
General Walker, the competent and accom-
plished superintendent Of the last census,
that one or more supervisors of the census
be appointed in each State, the number not
to exceed one hundred and fifty in all, to
be selected by the Secretary Of the Interior,
within whose department the Census
Bureau belongs. It is not proposed
to make marshals ineligible, since
tural districts, but they are not to be ap-
pointed in the plan suggested, without the
consent of the Department of Justice, which
is the fttest judge as to whether they can
in any case be spared. The purpose Of this
radical change is to secure men who are
fitted by knowledge and training for the
kind of work required. Moreover, as new
system is proposed, it will be expedient to
have o more competent set Of agents to
administer it.
We have room to sketch the new system
only in outline. Instead Of rigid, uni
form plan for all localities, large discretion
is to be permitted in varying the method
according to circumstances. There should
be one method for cities and another
for sparsely settled agricultural districts.
In large towns the enumeration of inhabi-
tants should be completed within a single
week if it is to make any approach to ac-
curacy, but in rural places it may be ex-
tended, as now, over period of three
months with little risk Of error. In cities so
large proportion of the people live in ho-
tells, boarding houses and small tenements;
they are so constantly removing from one
boarding house or tenement to another, and
occupants Of the same building SO quickly
forget them, that no stranger can get n cor
rect list in August of the tenement and
boarding house population of large city
on the 1st of the preceding June. But in
the country there is no such difficulty, since
people do not change their abodes so often,
and every family is SO well known to its
neighbors that if dwelling bas been vacated
or only young children happen to be at home
the enumerator can learn all the facts he
needs at the next house. With this great
difference In circumstances it is absurd to
apply the same method to both city and
country. BY making the subdivisions
small enough the population of city, with
race, nativity, ages, &c., can easily be ascer-
tanned in n week; but in the country, where
the time of the census takers is chiefly con-
sumed in travelling from place to place,
longer time is needed and may be allowed
without impairing the value of the result.
Besides this difference of method be-
tween city and country, Of which the ex-
pediency is SO obvious, it is proposed to
collect the statistics of population by
different set of machinery from the statis-
tics of manufactures and mining. The
arguments for this change are irresistible.
The statistics OF manufactures and mining
collected by The present method are SO i'm
perfect in some cases and so false in others
that they are little better than rubbish. A
valuable letter has been written by Pro-
fessor Whitney, of Harvard Univer-
sity. who has conducted several geo.
logical and mining surveys in the
United States, has visited most of the min
ing regions of Europe and is an eminent
instructor in this branch of knowledge, in
which letter he exposes in detail number
In mt ~ nf h.