Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1885-01-09
THE STATE STATISTICAL BuREAu


The Commissioner of the Bureau of
Labor Statistics has filed bulky report,
which amounts to Just this-failure to
fasten upon the Guiding statistics he was
sent for. Mr. Enos attributes his failure
to the Discrimination Of County Assessors
to furnish him facts in response to tabu-
lated inquiries he made, and lays it to their
incompetency, stupidity and general cuSs-
edneSs. This may appear to be severe
upon the Assessors-but it is not If any
practical and impartial statistician will
take up the table of questions Mr.. EnOs
sent cut, and examine them carefully and
hold the Assessors blameworthy, the
country viii get down upon its knees and
ask Mr.. Enos' pardon, and rise up and
hang the Assessors.
We assert, without fear of successful
contradiction AS the term gocs-that
had any ordinary newspaper reporter been
set upon the scent of the same facts, and
had he adopted similar methods to those of
Mr.. Commissioner Enos he would have
been SO suddenly and permanently raised"
to a different plane of action by the SUI
pervi~ine journalistic authority that he
would never have been able to return to a
newspaper shop. Outside of a statement
of the area, chief products and character
of soil of several counties, the report
amount, to very little. Every item Of that
important information is however, just
such as has been published over and again,
and Is oompiled by enterprising provincial
journals annually and immigration soci-
ties oftener. The commercial statistics and
those Of manufacture are Of the kind the
commercial journals annually present
Something may he said, however favor
able Of the chapters on cost of living
in California as compared with
the cost of living elsewhere, and
of earnings and cmployments. But
even these are incomplete, iiumbled to-
gether, and lack the value statistics gain
from comparisons. They certainly do not
compensate the State Of California for the
five pages of free advertisement given to
two cheap dining saloons in san Francisco
We really feel like entering a protest at
the discrimination practiced in excluding
the Ills Of fare of oar favorite chop
houses in Sacramento, which we feel Ger
tain can outbid Mr. Enos' chosen san
Francisco eating-houses. There is vast
deal Of matter clipped and begged and
quoted on a variety Of subjects But not
one Is clearly methodically or logically
treated There seems to have been no true
conception on the part Of the Commissioner
of the rudimentary methods of tracing
causes to effects, or of securing desired
statistical information The whole report
is miserable failure, where there should
have been. and might have been, fair
success. The trouble lies in Mr. Enos' dis
position 10 scatter. He has applied a sort
of shotgun and random treatment to the
important subject of labor statistics, and
has attempted 50 much that he has ac-
complished nothing. All the good the
State viii ever derive from the two years
salaried services of the Commissioner and
his deputy, and the 27S pages of report 3"
they make" it can put into the
smallest of nutshellS. No legislator of
ordinary intelligence will learn any par
ticulariy valuable new thing from the re-
port, or be enabled by it to legislate more
disereetly because of it, except it serves to
point to him the wisdom of getting the
Bureau into some shape to be useful. 1t
is complained that the sum allotted for
the work was too small; then the Bureau
should have attempted less. Had it