Show CENSUS QUERIES Mr PORTER the superintendent of the census evidently thinks that tho American people are like stoughton bottles so far as the fuier feelings are concerned though he expects them to use their tongues quite freely He also assumes thatbecause he is a government official his subordinates are licensed to go into every family and individual indi-vidual closet in the nation and drag forth the skeletons which have been carefully guarded with all the skill and cunning and pride with which the average free born man or woman is blessed Heretofore the queries propounded by the enumerators haveso closely bordered on tho Impudent that every ten years the masses are on the verge of a riot or bloody revolution and can be restrained only by tho assurances of the press that everything will como right with the passing away of tho month of June Mr POIITEH however is not content con-tent with the prying into home secrets that has been practiced and proposes to gel right down to bedrock as it were He has added a number of questions to the usual list and all these relate to matters which the average person is firmly opposed to talking about For instance ono may be afflicted af-flicted with an acute or chronic disease and may know all about it but he or she will not take kindly to the suggestion of explaining the case to a stranger nor does ono quite understand why the details of his case should be carefully preserved in the national archives Mr PORTER also proposes that every individual shall blushingly blush-ingly or otherwise divulge the amount of his mortgage indebtedness and whether or not the house in which he lives is owned wholly or in part by him and what rental he is paying for tho property in the form of interest on borrowed money There are some men who do not tell anything about their financial affairs even standing off the prying commercial agencies How these men will receive the impudent interrogation interroga-tion points sent out by the superintendent of census can better be imagined than described de-scribed It is to be hoped that there will be no disturbances of the peace as the result re-sult of tho enumerator visits next week But Mr POKTEU docs not stop with these queries ugly as they may seem He proposes pro-poses compel every man and woman old and young that his agents can run down and corner to say whether or not they have any defects in mind sight or hearing whether in our families there are any paupers or convicts and whether we live in our own houses or are tenants of a grasping landlord who is liable to turn us out upon an unfeeling world for nonpayment nonpay-ment of rent or other cause deemed by him good and sufficient It is thought that Mr POKTEII is unacquainted with the people peo-ple of the wild and woolly west however famIliarhe may be with those on the Atlantic At-lantic side of the continent If he had known the character of the people of Nevada for instance he would have eliminated from schedules the offensive questions orhe would have asked that each enumerator be accompanied by a platoon of pugilists and officers expert with the pistol When one studies the schedules and reads the questions to bo propounded he wonders won-ders why superintendent did not include in-clude queries as to where individuals buy their hosiery as to the length of time the average citizen wears a shirt without washing wash-ing it and how long a fellow with small income in-come and extravagant habits can stand off his washerwoman without with-out gaining unenviable notoriety in the community It is not known just what authority or power Mr POUTER has to enforce en-force answers to bis queriesbut wo imagine im-agine that a good deal of the information which he seeks to obtaiiiwlll be so incom I pleteand misleading as to be useless for I any purpose People will simply refuse togo j to-go into details as to Choir private affairs I even though the request is accompanied by i au assurance that the information will I never be made public I |