Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-08-05
ESPECIAL TELEGRAM TO THE DspArcH.,

ESPECIAL rxLzGRAM TO THE pIsPArcH.!
WASHINGTON, August A surprising
| ly large machine is that which Mr.. Porter
has set in motion in the quarters OF the Gen.
sus Office in this city, and it is not a tenth
part as big now as it will be year hence.
About 100 typewriters and clerks are now at
work. In March of next year 1000 clerks
will be at work, and in June the 4O, 900 emu
merators will take the field. Ten pretty
girls are now working typewriters in the
Census Office, and soon there will be 80. 1t
is remarkable fact that every one Of the
ten is really pretty, though good looks is
not one of the tests applied by the little in
itiation of the Chinese Civil Service Com
mission, which examines applicants for en-
ployment.
In 1880 the typewriter was not used at all
by General Walker, but Mr.. Porter consid-
ers that the day of the pen copyist has gone
and will not have his records in script
where the legible work of the typewriter is
practicable for his purpose.
SAVING OF MONEY.
This substitution Of the typewriter for
the pen, Mr.. Porter calculates, will result
in a saving of $40, 900 to the Government,
consequent upon the rapidity with which
| the work will be done.
The only work for penman at the Office
| is in the addressing of envelopes and this
| will not require large force for several
months to come. When the work of the
| census taking is at its height there will
| probably be 40 or so ladies employed in ad-
| dressing envelopes. The numbers of these
coverings of census Office communications
called i 9 use seem incredible, even now when
| the work is not developed, and it is not un-
| common for an order of $50. 900 envelopes to
be given.
Among the pretty lady clerks whose work
| it is to address these missives is Miss Ella
Byron, niece of the late John Roach, the
Philadelphia shipbuilder. She is said to
have the
REMARKABLE RECORD
| of 8, 500 envelopes addressed in one day of
seven hours, while 200 isconsidered very
good days work for the usual penman.
The mail of the office already comprises
several thousand letters daily, largely COM
posed of applicants for positions. The office
| of enumerator is accompanied by a very
small compensation. yet 100000 applica-
tions have been put in for appointment
Each letter received is answered, which in
| wolves tremendous correspondence. Sew
eral hundred of the letters daily have to be
answered by the superintendent, who en-
ploys four stenographers.
| Not a small part of the work now being
prosecuted under Mr.. Porter is that of pre-
pairing the maps showing the census dis
tricts for all parts of the country. These
districts do not correspond with the Con-
| gressional districts, but are composed of
counties giving each supervisor about five
times as much territory as Congressman
| have inclosed within their fences. Twenty
| topographers are employed in preparing the
maps, and they will be kept very busy for
the coming six months.
ERRORS TO BE DIssIPATED.
The next census will dissipate many
/ errors that have grown out of comparisons
| made between the census of 1880 and that of
| 1870. The most prominent misrepresenta-
ton that will be corrected will be the one
that asserts the phenomenal growth of the
| negro population of the country when COM
| pared with the whites. The comparisons OF
the next census will be made with those of
1880, the only approachably correct census
as to population or anything else made in
the history of the Government.
| The observation OF mortality tables, made
more complete during the last ten years
than ever before, show that the negro popu-
| lation has far higher death rate than the
whites. In Washington it is nearly double
that of the whites. and yet this district has
been fitly termed the paradise of the negro.
| Nowhere else in the civilized or uncivilized
world is he
| so WELL PAID FOR HIS LABOR,
20 we'll clothed, SO well housed, so well fed.
| There are more of the race in receipt of an
nual salaries, removed from the condition
| of day laborers, than in any city of the
| world at any period of the worlds history.
| Even the very poorest are cared for better
| than the average negro in any other city of
the country, and yet the death rate of the
| negro year after year Is nearly double that
of the white man..
1t is so in every city in the country, and
in nearly all Southern cities, where statis-
| tics are kept, the ratio of death is larger
! for the negro than in Washington. In
Charleston, Mobile, Savannah, New Orleans,
| Galveston, st. Louis and Memphis, the
| death rate of the negro sometimes rises to
more than double that of the whites. The
birth rate of the negro population is diff
! cult to obtain, because they
| RARELY EMPLOY A PHYSICIAN,
but from such statistics as we have the
| birth rate does not greatly exceed, in cities,
that of the whites. In Washington there is
| an excess of negro births as compared with
the whites, but it is not nearly double.
| From ali that can be learned from health
| and mortality statistics kept in cities, it is
| the best opinion that the negro population
| does not increase proportionately with the
| whites and that the next census will show
that in the whole country the importance of
the negro as a factor in our population is on
the decrease.