Preposterous Figures

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PREPOSTEROUS FIGURES.

Never credit statistical statements without long reflection and leaving ample room for deduction. We meet in some of our exchanges, nearly every day, some erroneous estimates. For instance, a Temperance¹ man will prove to you beyond a doubt that nearly half the adults in the city have spent some portion of the year in the Penitentiary for drunkenness. When you examine the figures closely you find that in reckoning the number of committals the same old names and the same old faces appear again and again. Similarly to this it has been estimated that nineteen millions of dollars of specie are annually brought here by emigrants, which go towards counterbalancing the draft of California gold to England. This supposes that every emigrant arriving at New York brings with him an average of $50. But the fact is that the majority are fetched here with money sent by their friends who have come over before them; and doubtless whole families arrive at Castle Garden who have not a dollar among them. Nor are the returns made by these to be depended on—for through a spirit of emulation many will boast themselves possessed of considerable means, who have hardly the wherewithal to pay for their first month’s rent.

All sorts of social statistics abound with similar errors. The same persons and things are reckoned over and over again in different positions and capacities, and hence nothing can be more delusive than arguments or theories based on figures of this kind.

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