was greater than the number due to other causes. These were laborers, stable keepers, and persons engaged in transportation, such as teamsters, expressmen, etc. In the case of 13 occupations, all of males, over one-fourth of the insane were excessive drinkers, namely, transportation, etc., 39 per cent; personal service, 39 per cent; stable keepers, 36 per cent; metal workers, 34 per cent; cigar makers, 33 per cent; leather makers and workers, 33 per cent; laborers, 32 per cent; dealers (peddlers, traders, etc.), 32 per cent; painters, 31 per cent; manufacturers, 30 per cent; machinists, 29 per cent; mariners and fishermen, 27 per cent; tailors and garment workers, 27 per cent.

VIOLATIONS OF THE LIQUOR LAW.-Statistics on this subject are of interest as showing the degree of difficulty experienced in enforcing laws of this character. The following table shows the nature of violations and the number and sex of persons fined and imprisoned in each

case:

CASES OF FINE AND IMPRISONMENT FOR VIOLATIONS OF THE LIQUOR LAW, BY SEX AND KIND OF OFFENSE.

The aggregate number of convictions as shown in the table is as follows: Liquor carrying, 4; liquor keeping, 98; liquor nuisance, 66; liquor selling, 220.

The report also deals to some extent with statistics of the use of tobacco and drugs among paupers, criminals, and the insane.

MINNESOTA.

Fifth Biennial Report of the Bureau of Labor of the State of Minnesota. Part I, Modern Variations in the Purchasing Power of Gold. 1895-1896. L. G. Powers, Commissioner of Labor. 528 pp.

This part of the report is devoted entirely to the subject of "Modern variations in the purchasing power of gold." It is an elaborate

presentation of facts and statistics relating to the prices of agricultural products from 1862 to the present time. One chapter is devoted to each of the following products and groups of products: Indian corn; oats; wheat; corn, oats, and wheat in combination; barley; rye; buckwheat; corn, oats, wheat, barley, rye, and buckwheat in combination; potatoes; hay; tobacco; corn, oats, wheat, barley, rye, buckwheat, potatoes, hay, and tobacco in combination; cotton and its combination with the nine preceding crops; live stock for the ten Mississippi Valley States; live stock for seven selected States; live stock for seventeen selected States and the United States; summary for all crops and live stock.

The tables are nearly all compiled from figures gathered and published each year since 1862 by the United States Department of Agriculture. Cotton crop statistics are obtained from the United States Statistical Abstract, and some other sources are also quoted for comparative purposes.

The object of this investigation is to "ascertain, as accurately as possible, for American agriculture, the effect of varying supply and demand and changes in the methods of production and transportation upon prices, and thus build the bridge that will enable us to utilize all our facts about general price movements to an orderly and systematic solution by the statistical methods of our vexed modern silver question." In other words, by eliminating the effect of changed supply and demand and of varying cost of production and transportation as factors, the price movement that remains is intended to measure the effect of currency changes.

The text of each chapter is supplemented by numerous tables in which are presented, by States and groups of States, the total crop and live stock product of each State for the period covered by the inquiry, its value in currency and gold, comparisons by index numbers, etc. With the analyses of tables are comments upon the influence of the separate factors which determine prices. These tables are so numerous and all so important to a clear understanding of the case that it is not possible by the selection of a few to briefly summarize in tabular form the results of the inquiry. A series of charts is also presented in conclusion showing the variations, by States and groups of States, in the prices of the farm products by four and seven year periods.

The conclusions reached by the compiler after analyzing the statistics are summarized as follows:

Taking all the farm products of the whole United States as a measure, with its leading crops, including cotton, and all its live stock interests, the purchasing power of gold in terms of farm products is the same on an average to-day as in the five years, 1862 to 1866, or the years 1874 to 1878. There have been since 1862 many transient causes that for a few years have greatly affected the prices of agricultural products, now enhancing and now depressing them. These factors have, therefore, transiently affected the purchasing power of gold for farm

products in the United States as a whole. Such factors affecting prices occurred notably in 1867 to 1873 and 1879 to 1882, enhancing prices then. Other allied factors depressing prices have been active since 1893. These transient changes in farm prices have been intimately associated with increasing or restricted foreign demand for the products of American farms, and have had no connection with such financial legislation as that of 1873.

Changing railway rates have greatly affected local prices. They have depressed prices in Seaboard States. Measured by the farm products of those States, gold has appreciated in value in thirty-five years. Cheap rates of freight transportation causing that appreciation takes from the farmers in those States the benefits that otherwise should have resulted to them from improved methods of farming and the use of better machinery and implements, and so leave them worse off relatively than they were before the era of high prices that began in 1866 to 1867. The only farmers in those Seaboard and Gulf States that have not suffered in this way from falling prices, due to changing railway rates, are those who have adopted a system of farming with crops but little modified in prices by fluctuation in rates of transportation. In contrast with those just mentioned, the farmers in the Upper Mississippi Valley as a whole have gained as much from the changes that have followed the modern revolution in methods of transportation and the rates for the same, as the Seaboard farmers have lost. For them the purchasing power of gold in terms of their farm products has greatly fallen. The final result, when the whole nation is included, is< no change in average prices, no change in the purchasing power of gold over the average of all farm products in all sections of our common country. This statement involves the condition, that farm values as a whole shall be compared under like circumstances. High prices which have occurred at various times in the past thirty-five years and in all ages shall be compared with other periods of high price, and low shall be compared with low, and average with average price.

Regarding the purchasing power of labor, the compiler says:

While, taking all facts into consideration, no trace can be found of any permanent change in terms of farm products, at farm prices, in the purchasing power of gold in the United States there have been great changes in the producing power of human toil on the farm. In the Mississippi Valley that change has been since 1862 one that gives to the average farm worker a producing power above that possessed by his predecessor thirty-five years ago of not less than 60, and possibly 75 per cent. There has been a smaller relative gain in the Seaboard States where old systems of husbandry prevail and old methods. of work are in vogue to a greater extent than in the newer West. The changed producing power of the average farm worker vastly increases the purchasing power of his toil, even though gold in exchange for his products on the farm is relatively the same as from 1862 to 1866. In this increase we note a tremendous fall in the purchasing power of gold over or in exchange for human labor, the only final measure for testing the value of gold or any other commodity. That decline in the purchasing power of gold in terms of human labor, its only fina! measure and test, has since 1862 in the United States been not less than 40 per cent, and for the Mississippi Valley farm workers 60 per cent.

RECENT FOREIGN STATISTICAL PUBLICATIONS.

Report of the Departmental Committee on the Importation into the United Kingdom of Foreign Prison-made Goods; with minutes of evidence and appendices. 1895. 152 pp.

This report was made by a committee appointed by the British board of trade for the purpose of inquiring into the extent to which goods made in foreign prisons were imported into the country, and to report whether any, and if so, what, steps can be taken effectually to restrict the importation of such goods. The appointment of this committee' was the outcome of questions addressed and complaints made to both houses of Parliament in reference to the competition of foreign prison labor, and of the action of the trades union congress in 1894 in instructing the parliamentary committee to promote and support legislation to prevent the importation of foreign prison-made goods.

During the period from May 2 to June 28, 1895, the committee sat on eleven days. Twenty-five witnesses were examined, including government officials and leading manufacturers and representative laboring men engaged in the production of the articles in question, namely, brushes, mats, buttons, horse collars, and articles of stationery.

The conclusions reached by the committee after hearing the evidence may be briefly stated. As to so much of their instructions as obligated them to inquire into the extent to which goods made in foreign prisens were imported into the country, they answered as follows:

1. That no evidence has been brought before them to show that goods made in foreign prisons are imported into this country in such quantities as to injure British trade generally.

2. That two trades only, the brush makers and the mat makers, have made serious complaints of injury, and their complaints were founded solely on the importation of Belgian and German goods, showing that British industries in general do not feel any evil results from the competition of the various other trades carried on in foreign prisons throughout the world.

That in the case of the brush-making industry of this country as a whole the allegations made of serious or lasting injury were not sustained and in the case of the mat-making industry the injury was found to be but slight.

That it was clearly established that the cheapness of the goods was no proof of their being prison made, as, owing to the cheapness of labor abroad, free labor could effectually compete with prison labor, and consequently if prison-made goods were prohibited the competition of freelabor goods would be quite as formidable.

3. That in the case of brushes it was further proved that brushes could be and were made in England by machinery as cheaply as or cheaper than they can be made by foreign prison labor or by any other description of labor. That in the case of mats, it was proved that foreign mats were not made more cheaply in prison than they were made outside. That the depression in the brush trade and mat trade was, so far as it existed at all, only connected with the production of the cheaper

descriptions of goods, and that, in the case of the higher descriptions of brushes, it appeared that the production in this country was actually on the increase.

With respect to the instructions directing the committee to report whether any, and, if so, what, steps could be taken effectually to restrict the importation of such goods they answered as follows:

Your committee reply that no cause has been shown for the necessity to take any steps to restrict the importation of prison-made goods, and that if causes were shown no steps can be taken to restrict such importation which would not produce more harm than good. Any prohibitory legislation would involve administrative action of a kind which would be most injurious to trade, which would probably create international difficulties, and which would fail in effecting the objects intended.

Vierteljahrshefte zur Statistik des Deutschen Reichs. Ergänzungsheft enthaltend Hauptergebnisse der Berufszählung vom 11. Juni 1895 im Deutschen Reich. Jahrgang 1896. Herausgegeben vom kaiserlichen statistischen Amt. 125 pp.

This is a supplement to the regular quarterly bulletin of the imperial statistical bureau and is published for the purpose of presenting in a preliminary form some of the results of the census of occupations taken June 15, 1895.

In this publication the individual occupations are not given, the population being grouped only according to sex, to the industry in which engaged, and to condition. Condition shows whether they are earning a livelihood in the various occupations, are engaged as domestic servants, are dependents, or are without occupations but not dependent directly upon members of their families. They are also grouped according to principal and secondary occupations.

A comparison of the figures for 1895 with those obtained from a census taken in 1882 shows some interesting results. The population of the German Empire in 1895 was 51,770,281, an increase of 6,548,171 since 1882. The following statement shows the population classified according to sex and condition:

POPULATION OF THE GERMAN EMPIRE, BY SEX AND CONDITION.