The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1891-07-10
THE ELEVENTH CENSUS.
Something About the Progress of the
work-It Is Nearly Completed.

Som ething About the Progress OF the
work-It Is Nearly Completed.
WASHINGTON, D. c., July THE
work of compiling the census of 1890 is
rapidly drawing to close. The final
volumes of the report will hardly be is
sued before the latter part of next year,
but the bulk of the work is already
done, and the results obtained are being
rapidly put in shape for the printers.
The census office when it had obtained
its largest growth was divided into
twenty five divisions, each one devoted
to special branch of the census inyes-
tigation. Of these the population divis-
ion has all along been the largest and in
most respects the most important, but
it has now practically concluded its
portion of the work. The general re-
suits obtained by the, division have al
ready been given to the country, but on
the 31st of July all the figures showing
the population of the country by minor
civil divisions will be ready for the tab
ulating machines. and will be pub
lisaed Immediately afUerward. On the
same date 200 clerks now employed in
the division will be discharged, because
there is no other work for them Ito do.
Next in Importance
to the population are the divisions of
manufactures and agriculture, and these
will be the last to complete their work.
The manufacturers division has about
completed its field work, and the returns
respecting the most important products,
such as iron and steel, wooden goods,
cotton, glass, chemicals, pottery, silk,
hats, caps, newspapers and others,
are now being tabulated in the Office.
About nifty or sixty clerks will be re-
tanned to complete the work and pre-
pare it for publication. The final re-
port will not be completed until next
year. The division of agriculture has
so far been devoting itself to the compil
alton of statistics relating to what are
termed local products, and this work
has been nearly finished, and a report
showing the production of tobacco,
sugar, rice. cotton and other products
confined to certain localities will be
ready in two weeks. The work on the
general Investigations regarding cereals.
cattle, and such general products will
be taken up, and about fifty clerks will
be employed to tabulate the returns
made by the enumerators. In the other
and smaller divisions of the bureau the
work is being finished up now, and the
greater part of the force employed has
either been dismissed already or soon
will be.
Church Statistics and Crime.
The most comprehensive report on
church statistics probably ever printed
will be ready in three months, while
but seven clerks have been retained in
the division of education to- complete
the report on that subject, which will
be ready in three weeks. The division
of pauperism and crime will complete
its work in two or three months, and
the figures it has obtained; and on the
of one section of the debt, wealth and
taxation division, will put his report in
the hands of the printers, and his entire
force will be dispensed with. Mr.. ].
III. Upton, in charge of the second Sec
ton of the same division, will complete
his final report in two or three months.
In the division of farms, homes and
mortgages the bulk of the work has
been done, and on the list of August the
force of clerks, now 500, will be reduced
to 200.
Ivan Petroff, in charge of the Alaska
division, is now in Alaska, but will re-
turn in October with material for COM
plete report on the resources of that
country, and Prof. Thomas Donaldson
is just completing a lengthy and ex-
haustive report on the Indians. 1t will
probably be issued during the next
month. 1t is, therefore, apparent that
But Little Remains to be Done
except in two or three divisions, and
within the next three or four months
the force of clerks employed by the bu-
reau will be reduced so as probably not
to exceed 200 in all
The discharging of clerks, Superintsn-
dent Porter says. gives him nearly as
much trouble as their appointments did.
The impression that the wholesale re-
duction of the force in the census Office
is due to lack of funds with which to
pay it, Mr.. Porter says, is erroneous.
he claims that there is enough of the
appropriation left to run the bureau to
the end of the year, and more than
enough to continue the work until after
the assembling of congress. He antici-
pates no difficulty in obtaining an appro-
priation at the next session to enable
him to complete his work.