Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-11-01
4 Disappointing Falling of Shown
by the Census.
GLARING OMISSIONS AND ERRORS.
Director of the Mint Leech Makes
an Interesting Report on the
Coinage of Year.
[9scrAL DISPATCHES TO rHs RzooaD-vx1oa.l
CENSUS Returns.
A Decided Falling OFF in the Estimates
for the Country.


WASHINGTON, October 31st-The bulle-
tin issued to day on the population of the
United States says the population of the
United States June l, 1890, as shown by the
first count, exclusive of whites in Indian
Territory, Indians on reservations and
Alaska, is 62,4S0 $40.
These figures may be slightly changed
by later computations. In 1880 the ropu-
lation was 50,155,7 ,783. The absolute in
crease in ten years is II 324 757. The per-
centage of the increase is "a 81 In 1870
the population was stated at So 55S 81.
According to these figures the absolute in
crease between 1870 and 1880 was IL $751;
412, the percentage of increase being 80 05.
Upon the face, these figures show the
population has increased between 1880 and
1890 only 727 345 more than between 1870
and 1880, while the rate of increase has ap-
parently diminished from 80 0S to "a 81 per
cent. If these figures were derived from
correct data, they would be indeed disap-
pointing. Such a reduction in the face of
the enormous immigration during the past
ten years would argue great diminution
to the fecundity OF the population, or a
corresponding increase in the death rate
These figures, however, are easily ex-
planned when the character of the data is
understood.
1t is well known, the fact having been
demonstrated by extensive and thorough
investigation, that the census of 1870 was
grossly deficient in the Southern States, so
much so as not only to give an exaggerated
rate of increase of the population between
1870 and 1880 in these States, but to affect
very materially the rate of increase in the
country at large.
Ivan Petroff, who superintended the CEN
cr10 ~ iao DO oil t1A
yet in, and some will be delayed till next
spring. A portion of the returns are not
received, owing to the failure of the rev.
enue vessels to stop for them, and those of
the far interior require a long time for
transmission TO the coast. Petroff estimates
the population at So, 900 to 3S S,000, of whom
one e-seventh is white.
These omissions, the bulletin says, were
not within tie control of the census office
The census Of 1870 was taken under the
law which Superintendent Wallace charac
terized as clumsy, antiquated and barbar-
Gus" The census office had no power over
its enumerators. In referring to these
omissions, the Superintendent OF the Tenth
Census said in his report in relation to
South Carolina: at follows, as conclusion
of highest authority, either that the census
of 1870 was grossly defective in regard to
the whole of the State, or some consider
able parts thereof, or else that the census of
1880 was fraudulent. Those, therefore,
who believed in the accuracy and honesty
OF the tenth census-and that was thor
oughly established-must accept the other
alternative, namely: That the ninth census
was grossly defective "
What was true of South Carolina was
also true, in greater or less degree, of all
the Southern States. The omissions in all
probability amounted to not less than
1,500, coo. Omitting from consideration
those States in which the census CT 1870 is
known, or presumed to have been faulty,
the rate of increase between 1870 and 1880
in the remaining States has been very
nearly maintained in the decade between
1880 and 1890.