The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1899-05-04

| tivation of staple crops, growing of
fruits and the raising of certain vegeta-
bles. The fishing business, which was
considerably neglected in the last CEN
| sus, will be exclusively investigated,
especially as to methods and production.
The various special agents, of whom
| probably twenty-five hundred will be
employed at different times, are sup
posed to have a technical knowledge of
the work to which they are assigned.
For instance, a bank clerk or bookkeep-
er Will not be sent to obtain statistics of
steel manufacturing, nor will a man ia
miliar with the manufacture of nails be
commissioned to obtain facts regarding
the textile industry or the growing of to-
bacco. A report on cotton manufactur-
ing in certain districts means not only
the number of mills, the capital invest
ed and the amount OF equipment but
the number character and age of en-
ployes, the quality and quantity of
goods manufactured, the average mar
ket price, the power utilized, the cost Of
the fuel, if any, the age of the mills and
the material of which they are built, the
possibilities for enlargement and the
general prospects. To do work of this
kind requires a man who has an idea of
the industry; otherwise bad mistakes
will greatly affect the character of the
report, Some of the special agents may
be in the service only a few days, while
others will be hard at work possibly for
two years, One may have his field of
labor in a district a few miles square
While another may travel a thousand
miles in order to gain what he desires,
for much of his information must be OBJ
tanned personally.
Five Sections of Bureau.
Enumerators and special agents COM
prise the field force. Supervisors, how
ever, have nothing to do with the special
agents, who receive all their instructions
from Washington direct. To handle the
thousands OF pieces of literature which
begin coming in a few days after the
enumerators start out and which contin-
ues for two or three years, requires
large office force. The present bureau
will be divided into five sections, each in
charge of a bureau chief, who, in turn,
is under a chief statistician, of whom
five are appointed. These are the exec
utive heads of the bureau and are under
the general supervision of the director
and his assistants. Attached to the d.
rector's Office is a geographer and the
necessary force for attending to the cor
respondence and reports, which must be
handled in the directors office proper.
The great bulk of the work, however,
comes through the five divisions In
general it may be considered that they
digest and separate the information.
Every schedule from the enumerators
and every report from the agents passes
through so many hands and is examined
so many times. AS it goes from depart
ment to department each extracting
whatever information it desires for tab
ulation The reports of the special
agents are very closely scrutinized by
employees, who are appointed especially
for the purpose of detecting errors.
When any are found the report either is
sent back to the agent for correction, or
efforts are made to obtain the accurate
data from the sources of the informa-
ton.
Army of Bureau Employees.
10 ndHul6 the necessary cDGIeS)ullu-
ance relating to these matters, to cores |
pond with the various supervisors and |
to attend to other mail matter will re-
1uire more than one hundred steno-
graphers and correspondence clerks in
addition to expert bookkeepers, copy
SITS, ordinary clerks Watchmen, jani- |
lers and messengers. The mail matter |
will be enough to run a good-size post |
)ffice and a branch of the city post-of-
ice service probably will be established |
n the bureau, in order to save time. |
Salaries will range all the way from
hree thousand dollars a year, paid to
he chief statisticians, to two hundred
md forty dollars, paid the office clean
RS. The special agents will average
rom three dollars to six dollars day
or actual work, in addition to what is
for travelling expenses.
At the end of the last census some in
eresting conclusions were made as to
he quantity of the matter handled by
he census bureau. Its weight was es-
mated at three hundred and five tons,
nd the space it occupied in the storage
ooms was Twenty-Five thousand cubic
eet. AS there will be a large increase
n the number of reports on the present
york these figures will give an idea of
What it means to take the coming
welftl1 census of the United States
special Washington Correspondence of
he Chicago Record
so NEAR AND YET so FAR.