alue.
The inquiries are the same in regard to every kind of industry, whether
the product be cloth, leather, iron or silver, and are confined solely
to wages, kinds and quantities. No means are provided for ascertaining
with skill and exactness the necessary details of the varied
manufactures of the country. The schedules for agricultural returns are
also the same for all sections--for cotton and sugar-cane in Maine, for
maple-sugar and hops in Louisiana. These, however, are merely
superficial defects, some of which might easily be remedied in the hands
of a competent superintendent, as was the case with the census of 1870.
The graver inherent defects are equally obvious, but not equally
susceptible of remedy. Nothing short of a new law will accomplish that
result.

In the first place, the officer designated to take the census is, in
every point of view, objectionable. That officer is the United States
marshal, originally selected, probably, for no better reason than that,
as there was such an officer in every State whose services could be made
available, it was better to use him than to create a new office. But
neither the legitimate duties of his office nor the department to which
he belongs justify such a selection. His duties are chiefly connected
with violations of law, and he is necessarily associated in public
opinion with the criminal side of life. A police-officer is not a good
census-taker. Moreover, many of the States are divided into several
marshalships from considerations which do not at all enter into the
taking of the census. Thus, New York has three districts, the largest of
which contains more than two and a quarter millions of inhabitants,
while Florida has two districts, the smaller of which, but by far the
more important so far as the legitimate duties of the marshal are
concerned, contains scarcely six thousand inhabitants. Massachusetts is
a district with over a million and a third of people: so is Arizona,
with less than ten thousand.

Then the methods of payment are unfair, irrational and cumbersome. They
bear no relation to the amount of work performed, are irregular in their
operation, are obscure in their manner of calculation, and impose
needless labor alike on the officer to be paid and the census office. To
say that the square root of an area multiplied by the square root of the
number of horses indicates the number of miles travelled in taking a
census is as absurd as to say that the sq