Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-04-19

trlcal counters. w nile was looking Al
them a terrible din was going on overhead.
1t made me think of a boiler factory, and
asked what was being done.
THAT" said Mr.. Porter, sis where the
cards are being numbered. Each one OF
these 60, ,000, 900 cards has to be numbered so
that we can tell where to find it and where il
belongs. There are only two big patent
numbering machines in the United States
and the owners wanted the job of numbering
these cards. They said that one man with a
hand machine could number only 800 cards
day, and that It was impossible for the
Government to get along without their ma
chimes. They
Asked an Exorbitant Price
and they thought we would have to pay it.
/ tried the hand machines and found that
instead of 300, smart workman could
number 80, 900, and we have some who num-
Der 42, 900 day. The result is that we can
number 10000 day, and we do it for g
| bagateile compared with what the other men
wanted. But let us go up and see"
At this moment we stepped upon an ele-
vator of the kind you find in the mills for
the raising of wheat and were pulled up to
| the second door. The din increased as we
went up and the noise was that of nail
factory when We stepped out About 100
men sat at long, rough tables all in their
shirt sleeves and each having heavy metal
stamp in his hand. These they brought
down on the cards for all the world just like
the post office clerks cancel the stamps on
the letters, save that each stamp iell on a
| card and gave it number, and this num-
| bering was consecutive and the cards were
| then ready to be taken up to the Census
! Office for use.
Nine Million Tales of Woe.
Taking a cab, we next drove to the big
| gest chamber of sorrow in the United States.
Imagine a room about 30 feet long, 20 feet
wide and Is feet high and pack this with
long tiers of shelving running in aisles
through the center of the room and reaching
from the floor to the ceiling. Make the
walls OF this room of iron and vault it at the
roof with fre-proof cement Fill these
shelves with great packages of files so that
they burst out into the aisles and let the
files consist of thin slips of paper not much
bigger than a postal card but each covered
with notes and figures.
These are the records of all the mortgages
Of the United States. The name of every
man who has mortgage debt is recorded on
one of these files. The date of his mortgage
is there, the rate of interest he pays, and in
some cases the reason for which it was given.
There are 9, 600, 600 of such records, and it is
safe to say that s, 500, 600 of them keep the
men who gave the mortgages awake at night
and worry them from day to day. Each one
of those slips could tell
Story of Hope and Misfortune.
Each one of them is full of pathos, and
the collection is the most remarkable that
has been ever gotten together by census or
anything else. When Mr.. Porter suggested
it he was laughed at, but the more Congress
thought of his suggestion the more interested
they became in it, and the result is we have
now record of the personal Indebtedness of
the whole United States. 1t took a small
army of special agents to get it, but these
agents overhauled the records in every State
and Territory; they travelled on horseback
and on foot through the most sparsely settled
parts of the country, and the information
gained has been tabulated in such way
that you can get the exact number and
amount OF mortgages in the different States,
the rate Of interest paid and the number Of
acres mortgaged.
When the reports are published, this
bureau will bring forth some very astonish-
ing facts. 1t will show, for instance, that
per cent of the lands in Iowa are mortgaged
aud that the farmers pay from to 20 per
cent for the use of their money, while in
Alabama the interest rate ranges as high as
40 per cent.
How the Towns Are Growing.
"Tell me, Mr.. Porter" said 1, "some of
the most striking things you have discov-
cred in your collection of the census"
well, one, replied Mr.. Porter, "is that
the people are leaving the country and
going to the cities, and another is that our
native American women are decreasing in
numbers year by year as mothers OF chill |
dren. The largest families in the United |
States, and especially in New England, are |
those in which the mothers are of foreign |
birth, and believe that the growth of cities |
has decreased the rate of increase in our |
population. The birth rate in our cities is |
VIGOROUSLY low, and a tendency is to small |
families, especially among the well-to-do. |
During the past ten years the cities have |
been growing at the expense of the country, |
and in Massachusetts,, for instance, fully 20 |
per cent of the people live in cities In |
1920 only one man in 20 lived in town, and |
in 1890, 29 people out of every 80 in the |
United States lived in the country and |
away from villages. In 1860 one man in |
SIX was living in the cities. Ten years |
later one man in every five lived in the |
cities, and now out of every ten men, women |
and children in the United States, three of |
these are living in cities or villages.
Figures on Foreign Immigration.
1--WE are giving very full set of statis- |
tics this year of all matters relating to |
foreign immigration, and we will show
among other things that the number of |
Hebrews among us are increasing. The |
prosecutions in Russia have driven a great |
many Hebrews to this country
We then went to the Inter Ocean build |
ing, where 1 found thousand and more |
men and women working away at tabulat- |
ing machines and rattling at type-writers |
like so many corn shelters. One room con- |
tanned about 80 of these typewriter A |
young lady sat behind each and the type |
writers were arranged in double file up and |
down the long room, forming very pretty |
picture. l asked Mr.. Porter as to the |
work of the women as compared with that |
of the men. He replied: "In the use of |
the tabulating machines and in counting,
they are far superior. l had two women at |
5000 year and six men at the same work. |
each OF which got 5000 a year. found the |
two women accomplished Just as much as |
the six men and that 1 was getting from |
them for 81 200 just what cost me through
the mon 81 Am -