n
steady and rapid. The law, which had been prepared for the census of
1870 by the House committee, furnished a basis for greatly improved
legislation in 1879, under which the tenth census was taken. By this law
the census office for the first time was allowed to call into existence
and to control an adequate local staff of supervisors and enumerators.
The scope of the work was so extended as to make the twenty-two quarto
volumes of the tenth census almost an encyclopaedia, not only of the
population, but also of the products and resources of the United States.
Probably no other census in the world has ever covered so wide a range
of subjects, and perhaps none except that of India and the eleventh
American census has extended through so many volumes. The topics usually
contained in a census suffered from the great addition of other and less
pertinent matter, and the reputation of the work was unfavourably
affected by the length of time required to prepare and publish the
volumes (the last ones not appearing until near the end of the decade),
the original underestimate of the cost of the work, which made frequent
supplementary appropriations necessary, the resignation of the
superintendent, Francis A. Walker, in 1882, and the disability and death
of his successor, Charles W. Seaton. The eleventh census was taken under
a law almost identical with that of the tenth, and extended through
twenty-five large volumes, presenting a work almost as encyclopaedic,
but much more distinctively statistical.

The popular opinion of a census, at least in the United States, depends
largely upon the degree to which its figures for the population of the
country, of states, and especially of cities, meet or fail to meet the
expectations of the interested public. Judged by this standard, the
census of 1890 was less favourably received than that of 1880. The
enumerated population of the country in 1880 was larger than had been
anticipated; and in the face of these figures it was difficult for local
complaints, even where they were made, to find hearing and acceptance.
But according to the eleventh census the decennial rate of growth of
population fell suddenly from over 30%, which the figures had shown
between 1870 and 1880, and in every preceding decade of the century,
except that of the Civil War, to less than 25%, in spite of an
immigration nearly double that of any preceding decade. For this change
no adequate explanation was offered by t