The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-07-12
THE wINDUP OF THE CENSUS.
Five Hundred Clerks Discharged Al
ready--An Oniceholder Dislik "a to Co

AOS0 nm DlSlIkS8 TO Co.
WAsHINGToN CRY, July 6-[Special Cor
respondence. THAT tremendous mush-
room, the eleventh census, is going to
pieces with rapidity characteristic of
the growth that springs up in night and
within brief space decays. Five hun
dred of its clerks have been discharged al
ready, and LOCO more are to be thrown out
upon cold world July 81. Of the re-
naming l, 700 not more than 500 will re.
main three months hence 1t is worth
inquiring into what becomes of this army
of quill-drivers and computers thus sud-
denly deprived of employment.
Three-fourths of them are copvists. paid
at the rate of SIS month. They never
save anything. and dismissal finds them
without a dollar. Like so many grass
hoppers. they are happy during the season
of plenty, having no thought for the fu-
ture. They come from all over the United
States-many of them because thew can
find no other employment, others for the
sake of staying awhile in Washington
City and earning little pocket-money,
and others still in order to get a chance
to study law or medicine for awhile at the
colleges hereabout. A majority. particu-
larly those who bring their families with
them, entertain hopes of getting herman
ent places in the departments. and about 5
per cent. succeed in this by passing the
civil service examinations.
Now that wholesale discharges have be-
gun, the entire census bureau is in a con-
dition which may be ikened to a tremu-
lous jelly. Several of the divisions have
been fairly demoralZed by alarm. No one
knows where the lightning or dismissal
will strike. and it is pitiful thing TO see
the blanched faces and visible anxiety of
the clerks when on any afternoon at $3.50
O'Clock messenger goes around among
the desks with bunch of yellow en-
velopes in his hand. These are the mis-
sives of fate, i'll which Superintendent
Porter courteously announces that the
services of the recipient will not
be required after that date.
The persons to whom thew are
handed have half an hour in which to
pack up their belongings before the close
| of the business day. No other notice do
they have, and the next morning finds the
seats they have occupied vacant
1t is wonderful how people who have
held public employment cling to it. The
| discharged mostly hang about the census
| buildings for DAYS or weeks afterward,
curious TO see who lose and who retain
their places. Meanwhile they try to regain
! their own situations through POLITICAL in
from morning till night by persons of
prominence who wish to speak in
| behalf OF this or that empioye re-
| Gently bounced. \ few do get
| back in this way; the rest inger until all
| hope OF reinstatement has vanished, to-
| gether with their last pennies. and finally
| they disappear. Those who have taken
the employment just for dyer" and not
| by reason of necessity, scatter TO their
| homes. The majority, who are obliged to
| work for their bread and butter, manage
to procure it elsewhere. Others,
who are trying to get an educa-
ton, struggle along in some fash
| ion until they have learned enough law
or medicine to practice with in the towns
or villages they come from. Thus the
| hands that built the census are distributed
far and wide; but the monument will re-
main in the shape of twenty-five big
| volumes of concentrated facts and figures
When these have been published the great
bureau will go out of existence until The
year 1900 shall arrive and another censu:
shall be in order. RESE RACHE.