The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1907-07-03
TEE STATISTICAL BAD BOY.

Hesitation, the type, the Boston incarnation,
Charles FELTON, Pidgin, who identified the
abandoned little wretch with himself n
dramatized him. It IL many years since
Mr.. Pidgin first gave this public token Of
depravity, but to those who have never
ceased TO think OF him AZ Peck's Bad Boy
the chastisement visited upon him last week
was no surprise. Their only wonder was
hat he had escaped 80 long. I
Mr.. Pidgin is versatile. What biography
in Who's Who" il longer than his2 From
mercantile business, where he learned to
keep books by machinery rs early as 1870,
he was graduated to the Office Of the Massa-
chusetts Bureau of Statistics Of Labor,
where as aid and chief he has invented
devices for ciphering without work, such
as ~self-counting tally sheets, electrical
adding and multiplying machines, auto
matio multiple counters n tabulators,
and myriad other tackle. He has built
up the statistics of labor by a~bolishing
the labor Of statistics. Yet all the time
this delve in facts by day was a producer
of fiction by night. Besides "PeckIs Bad
Boy" The Electric Spark" "Luoifer
Matches" and many other operas, both
comic and grand. he has given of such
h0itb az SulnCy <tubilts Va yer, Ditunct
hasset," Little Burr and a long list OF
other He is said 10 ave fled
away n thousand plots, ounter plots
and bargain ounter plots. Jealous rivals
have charged that in the interest OF the
Aaron Burr Legion. a genealogical society
of which Mr.. Pidgin is an u~nashamed re-
gent. he is composing ten Aaron Burr novels
at once, not debating to ste~nographers.
like Cesar, but employing his own multi
plying devices for III saving Of labor, time
and thought.
This double life, diurnsl reality and noe
urn romance, served until a few months
ago TO divert public attention from those
Pecky traits of defiance to social order
which all the while lay crouching in the
ambushes of his character. Only once was
suspicion aroused In official Massachu-
sets social order now consists in standing
pat on the tariff. In older days the mark
was ready quotation from Scripture TO
justify the New England slave trade; later.
philosophical apologetics for imported rum.
To defend the peculiar institution" what
ever IL may be at the moment. this in social
order. Now the late William +. Russell
attacked the social order. He was a Demo-
crat in the first place. which was bad enough.
but he went after the Governorship on the
issue of tariff reform. which was worse.
Mr.. Russell applied TO Mr.. Pidgin for a list
of the Massachusetts industries which
showed a decrease" MIR. Pidgin gave him
about forty. Mr.. Russell impaired the
data TO the voters and laid his antagonist
low. At the autopsy il came out that there
were about 300 other industries. the prin-
cipal ones. which showed an increase"
II was felt at the time by official Massachul
sets that Mr.. Pidgin's institutional impas-
sivity in not divulging this fact to the
Republican ~spellbinders betrayed a lack of
sympathetic enthusiasm for the social order.
IL resembled certain ~silences Of Peck's Bad
Boy on the brink of peril for his own flesh
and blood. MIR. Pidgin was a subordinate
and the lapse was overlooked.
Two years ago an offence wa committed
which could not be blinked. In that year
were published for the first time the mid
decade Federal statistics Of manufactures.
The Massachusetts, bureau, which takes
figures for manufactures annually. had CO.
operated for the one year with the United
States census Office. In an independent
bulletin Of his own, Mr.. Pidgin, now chief of
the bureau, called attention to a fact which
it is not good form to mention in Massachu-
setts society. The Federal method of COM
putting capital invested, he pointed out, was
so radically different from his own Massa-
chusetts standard that no comparison could
be made between the ~mid-decade figures
and those Of the year before or the year
after. The disparity lies in the items in
cluded as capital invested. The Federal
blanks instruct manufacturers to give
money whether owned or borrowed. and
buildings il owned. otherwise not. Mr.
Pidgin, protesting himself unable to nee
why rented money is capital invested while
rented buildings are not, asks for money
owned, but not for money obtained on notes
or bonds. The effect of such sophistry il
clear. The borrowed capital swells the total
in the Federal tables. and when anybody
subtracts expenses from value OF product
and divides the capital into the result 10 find
the profit, he reaches a lower rate per cent.
Since an exhibit of high profit per cent.
furnishes aid and comfort TO the tariff re-
visionists, obviously Mr.. Pidgin in his i'll
advised exposure had been guilty of an overt
act against the social order. He remarked
that he would probably never cooperate
again with the Federal census. Ard he
probably never will. The Hon. Eben s.
Draper. anu nenCe
presiding officer of the Governors Council,
which confirms appointments Of bureau
chiefs. has seen to that.
MIR. Draper says, IL do not believe in
reciprocity" He also says, Il stand on
the tariff revision platform" but he makes
stand pat speeches when nobody is looking.
His cotton machinery is handsomely taxed
on TOP Of the patents. Mr.. Draper was
not so Dungling as to make a point of Mr..
Pidgin's offence. He waited for a more
convenient season. The Legislature last
year established a free employment bureau
and handed it TO Mr.. Pidgin to run Citrous
though it looked, edicts were edicts. After
about a year the knights of the social order
audited the books Of the employment bu-
reau, discovered that in other States where
such institutions had beer running longer
the cost was lower to each job found. and
passed the awful indictment up to the
Governors Council. When the nomination
of Mr.. Pidgin TO succeed himself came to
hand Mr.. Draper m his colleagues took
Peck's Bad Boy over their official knee and
walloped him. There In a statistical vacancy
-. nooooo Hill NJ p;do;n pho II N xo1d