Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-01-04
CONGRESS AND Tue CENSUS.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 3.-When the Fifty
second Congress reassembles Tuesday, after
the holiday recess, it will find itself far less
capable of entering upon actual legislative
business than any of its predecessors during
| recent years. The committees of the Sem
ate, owing to the late date of their organiza-
tion, have been unable to place upon the
calendars any of the reports TINT properly
engross the attention of the Senate at this
stage of the first session. Consequently
there will probably be little for that body to
do next week beyond listening to speeches
and acting upon some resolutions of minor
Importance that may be brought before it
for immediate consideration as well as nom-
| nations sent in by the President.
THE illness of Speaker Crisp has pre-
| vented the House Committee on Rules from
availing of the holiday recess for the prepa-
ration of a code of rules for the direction of
the business of the House. That branch of
the National Legislature is now embarked
on the trackless sea of general parliament
| ary law. Mr.. Crisps present condition
warrants the presumption that he will not
be able to preside when the House reassem-
bles next Tuesday, and, in conformity with
the requirements of general parliamentary
rule, Clerk Kerr will call the body to order.
A Speaker pro tempore will be elected-prob-
ably McMillin, as Mr.. Mills who has also
been mentioned in that connection,
will not be in Washington-and an effort
will probably be made to secure the adop-
tion of tive Springer resolution, now pending
before the Committee on Rules. providing
for the adoption of the rules of the Fiftieth
Congress until further order Is taken. If
this is done, the various committees having
general appropriation bills in charge will be
able to enter upon the preparation OF these
measures, and the wheels of legislation will
begin to revoive. There is some talk OF
holding Democratic House caucus to-
rnnr ni0 tn fr111U off n
Rramme, but in view of the number OF absent
Representatives it has tyet been definitely
decided.
IN report to the Secretary of the In
terror, dated December 2, 1891, Superintend-
ent Porter of the Census Bureau, says he
thinks it safe to estimate that the cost of
printing the Eleventh Census, as at present
mapped out, will be, relatively speaking,
less, certainly no more, than the Tenth
Census. This estimateis is based on the law as
it stands to-day. Should Congress order
larger editions of the several volumes the
cost, he says, will be accordingly increased
Allowing for the amount of money unex-
pended the per capita cost of the eleventh
census up to this date has been 97S cents.
while for the Tenth Census it was
993 cents. Including the amount paid
enumerators and supervisors, the total cost
of the collection of the data for
the Eleventh Census has been $3.6OO3s5.
Superintendent Porter says that not only
was the cost of collecting statistics OF manu-
facturers, mines and mining, vital statistics,
ETC., increased under the present act, au-
thorizing the Superintendent of Census to
withdraw schedules from enumerators and
use other and more efficient methods, but
the pay for collecting the agricultural
schedules was likewise increased by Con-
gress. Should the Eleventh Census there
fore show. when completed, slightly in
creased per capita cost, it will. the super
intendent says, be due to the ever-growing
popular demand for local and minute infor-
nation and to the better work, better
methods and better pay allowed for collect
ing manufacturing and agricultural
schedules.
SUPERINTENDENT PORTER expresses the
belief that the census work proper can all
be finished and ready for the printer by the
close of 1892, and that the total cost exclu-
sive of printing, and farms, homes and
mortgages will not exceed 1000 600, or q
trifle over II cents per capita, as against
total cost of about s5 900 900, or about 10 cents
per capita, for the Tenth Census, an increase
of / cent. This, he says, will finish up the
work within the next II or, at most 1S
months in accordance with the original
plan, without a single outright or even par
tial failure. In brief, the cost of the Eleventh
Census, when completed, exclusive OF print
ing, and FARMS homes and mortgages. will
Tenth, an increase less than the increase
between the cost of the Ninth and Tenth
Censuses.
The work of the office is we'll advanced,
and IA of the % divisions of the Census Office
will soon have ceased to exist, the work
having been completed. Three other divi-
sions will exist only in name and in the ag-
gregate employbut l5 or 20 clerks. The office
ted on population, agriculture and manufac-
ture.