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Show THE CENSUS. The population of the United StateB will foot up about thirty-uiue millions, falling a little short of the expected forty millions. This id an encouraging exhibit of the numerical growth of the country, hen the terrible war which raged for orer four years during the last decade is taken into account. The correctness of the returns, however, how-ever, is disputed, and if the charges made against their reliability prove correct, the possibility is that a complete com-plete census would fall very little if anything short of the forty millions. Philadelphia, for instance, claims that the full census of that city would show a hundred thousand more than is set down for it, and a census is being taken by the city itself, which, as far as it has progressed, would seem to sustain the assertion. It is held that New York has several thousand more people than it has received credit for. Some towns' of less importance are actually claiming a population nearly double that with which they are credited, and are Terifying their claims, in some instances, in-stances, by actual enumeration ; while in various parts of the South strong complaints are made against the correctness of the returns. In plain terms, the census marshals are charged, in many places throughout through-out the United States, with not having done their duty, and Philadelphia is proving the charge made there by indisputable in-disputable figures. Besides this, the manner in which the enumeration was made is susceptible of great improve ment. The time it extended over was too long, and uany changes, of daily occurrence, interfered with the most ainstaking and faithful of the marshals. mar-shals. The system adopted in France and Britain, of having the complete - census made in one day, is deemed superior in view of obtaining exact returns. Ou this poiut we find the following in the Sacramento Cnitn : The plan of spending a month or two or three in taking down names is not a good one. It can hardly be relied re-lied upon even with the most competent compe-tent agents and where the people give every assistance to them. But when there are ill-paid, inefficient or indifferent in-different agents, and a listless or suspecting sus-pecting and jealous population, the work cannot be much better than the merest uess at accuracy. As for the statistics collected by these census agents, no one will pretend that they are more than a vague approximation of the truth. The census of the United States should be taken in one day as in Eogland and France, and those appointed ap-pointed to take it should be the most intelligent and active persons to be found. Statistical information gathered gather-ed in the way this census is collecting can be of no value, save as a means of giving work to the public printer. We have now a Bureau of Agriculture (poor enough it is, too), which is better bet-ter calculated to collect reliable information infor-mation on that great national industry that the cesus marshals, though they were thrice as numerous and ten times as intelligent as they usually usu-ally are. With an improved Bureau of Statistics embracing information infor-mation upon railways, shipping (foreign (for-eign and domestic), and all the other main features usually spread out with such vague and sloppy diffuseness in the census returns, we shall come a good deal nearer the true condition of our national industries and social life. The results of this census ought to teach Congress the aecessity either of more thorough and reliable methods er of abandoning the business as a useless use-less labor. There is probably nor a city in the United States whose population popu-lation could not have been guessed by any intelligent citizen with a closer approximation ap-proximation to the truth than thisceu-cs thisceu-cs places it. Under the circumstances, there is n'jt much wonder at our questioning - the correctness of the ceneus of this Territory. We are satisfied tho popu- . latkm of this city is fully a couple of thousands more than the enumeration gives ; and that the Territory fully tu-Ven tu-Ven would show at leact hundred thousand, and this without special blame to any engaged in making the census, the circumstances surrounding the work, particularly in the fact of large numbers being away from home when the enumeration was being made, probably rendering it impossible to havo had it taken more correctly. |