530 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
included in the total average number of hands reported for all industries. That they are so included may perhaps be inferred from the following remark at the eleventh census : " The questions used in 1880 tended to obtain a number of employes that would be in excess of the true average, while it is believed the questions in 1890 have obtained as nearly as possible the average number." That the value of their services of this class was not included in the wage account, may also be inferred from the remark. "The questions for 1890 also tended to obtain a larger amount of wages as compared with 1880." As firm mem- bers and the value of their services were called for by the schedules of no other census than the eleventh, and as officers and clerks were called for only in two or three special inquiries, footnotes which lead investigators to suppose that these classes and the value of their services were fully included, though not separately, at prior censuses, can be properly characterized only as perversions of the truth.
It is true that in the volumes on manufactures recently given to the public may be found remarks showing that the statistics of the eleventh census are not strictly comparable with those of previous censuses, but they fail to indicate the extent of the incomparability. Whatever would have been their value if published at an earlier date, they count for little so long after the misleading tables have been given to the public in census bulletins and in the Statistical Abstract. The Statistical Abstract, published by the Bureau of Statistics, gives the sta- tistics of manufactures without any accompanying remark show- ing their incomparability with the statistics of other censuses, just as it also gives census statistics of true value without a remark or footnote indicating the incomparability of the ear- lier and later estimates. As a result, and of the misleading comparisons by census officials which the writer here criticises, the public is not enlightened but deceived. The following table from the campaign text-book of the National Democratic party, undoubtedly published without purpose to deceive, shows the conclusion usually arrived at from our manufacturing statistics.
