New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1890-06-21
rpnrRLES OTER TIE CENSTS.

Tho Tribune wishes 10 express us sympathy
for its cntcrprising and ever up-and-dong western
friends who are in trouble over the results u
tho census We note the fact that the dlSsatisiac-
tion seems to exist chiefly IN cities which arc
uiIdl,, cmulous of some other city Thus st.
Louis and Minneapolis are agltated, ana Ihlc"eo
and St Paul visbly disturbed. 1t is a curious
fact that the enumerators in city which Is d
rival Of another city should almost invariably
be ircompetent We 10 not profess to understand
this but il is a fact. Something, however. I'M
presses the notion us that the conhiuon OIL
town which has estimated its own population
VIGOROUSLY and loudly before the census is much
the same as that Of man who accidentally makes
a humorous sueech in Congress, and forever after
has 70 live up 10 il.
The state Of the public mind in St. Louis seems
70 he The most dcplorable A hundred thousand
persons. so the papers say, were missed by the
enumerators We learn from the st. Louis papers
that these dctested Government employees went
laundering about the city avoiding their Fellow
creatures and doing little else. One man writes
10 the papcrs 10 say that himself and VIE ana
maiden aunt and fourteen children were success
fully overlooked by all the ccnsus-takers In the
city. though he stayed az home two days waiting
for an enumeration. who never came. Nothing
will satisfy St. Louis but another count. Chicago
is also excited. though not apparently TO SO great
an extent as 81. Louis. Chicago Will not get so
much sympathy as she did before the story became
public Of the treatment Of ono of her enumerators
by citizen who foolishly enraged about
nothing. Enumeration hammers called at a Chicago
glue factory in his quest for population for the
benefit OF the reader unacquaintcd with this KIND
Of mandatory We will say that glue factory
smells from three 10 four times worse than sheep
skin tanncry. After the enumcrator had ques-
toned Mr. Lester the proprietor, for some time AZ
70 his sex. number of children of which he was
the mother. attendance at school during the last
year. ability 10 read and write and speak EnglislH
and so FORTH he said IN him as he looked around
and smiled the air once or twice: " Mr. Lester.
the Government is striving 10 make this census
very complcie-what is the age of the smell about
this factory ?" The misanthrOplc Lester never
smiled but simply arose and kicked the cnumcrator
through the open door. II Chicago couldn't treat
her census-takcrs better than this she deserves
a small population.
The trouble in St. Paul and Minneapolis seems
TO be reaching almost the dignity of Il pitched
battle. Minneapolis is armed with a search war
rant-St Paul with deputy marshal. They
came into collision the other day, and the deputy
marshal drove out the search warrant and its
hackers with revolver. We are not altogether
clear as 10 the trouble, but it seems to he some
thing about StPaul suppressing some of Minncap-
oliss returns. There is also, We understand, I,
disagreement over man whose house stands
on the line between the two cities, the matter
being further complicated by the fact that the
line also runs directly through his bed. Dis
interested persons have proposed that he be
counted in one city, his wife in the other, while
the children are divided equally, but as there
are, unfortunately, an odd number of children
and no Solomon at hand 10 decree a division OF one
Of them, the suggestion of the pcacemakers cannot
he carried out. Meantime the RACES, and
New-Yorl, only, fguratively speaking, pat tho
Western youngsters the head and advise them
to settle it somehow without coming to blows.