Year: 1872

The following paragraphs are from
Superintendent Walkers census re-
port:


The cordiality with which the
press and the country have recogniz
ed the publication of the prime re-
suits of the census has afforded am
pie compensation to the Superinten-
dent for all the effort that has been
required to accomplish the compile
ton of the work of compilation
within two years from the conclusion
of the enumeration. There is no
reason, however, why, with such
notifications of existing laws as
would insure that the material
should come originally to the Census
Office in the proper shape for tabu.
lation, the entire compilation should
not be concluded Within wear from
the date of the first recei pit. It is
possible for any one who has had
such painful occasion as the present
superintendent to observe the work
ings of the census law of 1850 to
characterize it otherwise than as
clumsy, antiquated, and barbarous.
The machinery it provides is as unfit
FOR use in the census of the United
States, in this day of advanced stat
istical science, as the smooth-bo
10 muzzle-loading Queens arm" of the
Revolution would be for service
against the repeating rife of the
present day. It ought not to be
possible that another census should
be taken under this law; such a
thing ought not to be seriously pro-
posed. The country has suffered
more than enough already of discred-
it and of loss on account of the
wretched insuffciency and inappro-
priateness of the provisions of this
i'll constructed and out-grown statute.


I do earnestly recommend that
the attention of Congress be espe-
cially invited to the propriety and
expediency of an immediate census,
to be taken in 1875, in preparation
for the approaching centennial cele-
bration of the political birth of the
nation. A census of the United
States taken under system, and
with a management which would Sc
cure the publication of the result by
the 1st of June, 1876, would be a
noble monument to erect at the end
of a century of the nations life. It
would mark off the first grand stage
IN an industrial and social progress
altogether unprecedented in history,
and serve as the starting point Of q
fresh career which we have, under
Providence, reason to believe shall
be greater and hap pier yet.


Another consideration which
strongly influences me In this re-
commentator, is the belief that a
census in 1875 would, in all proba-
biIity, secure the taking of the Fed
eral census thereafter. at intervals of
five years only. The interval of ten
years fixed by the Constitution has
been found to be far too long for all
the. uses to which the statistics of
the census are put, except only for
the redistribution of Congressional
representation.


So rapid are the internal changes
of the country, oftentimes setting
calculations at nought, so fierce and
vast the growth of the nation as a
whole, that the hiatus in the sta
tistical information at the COM
mand of the Legislator, the
pamphleteer, the journalist, aud
the social and political philosopher,
five or six years after the date of the
census, becomes positively painful.
Whoever will call to mind the esti-
mates as to the population and
wealth of cities. States, and sections,
which Immediately before the occur
renee of the last census We're prop
erly put forth, were made the mate
rial of political and industrial spec
uIation, and were even taken as the
basis of State and national legisla
ton, will hardly be disposed to ques-
ton that the cost of a census once
in five years would be amply repaid
by the light it would shed upon the
condition of the people and the pro-
gress of the nation in population
and wealth. Were the country once
to learn by practical experience the
advantages of a quinquennial enum-
GRAFTON, it is not likely that longer
period would ever thereafter be al
lowed to intervene between the Fed
eral censuses.