Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Volume 44 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1881 edition. Excerpt: ...members of the House of Commons whom the president of the Board of Trade may sanction our giving information to. And also a considerable part of our more difficult work consists in answers to commercial questions which are referred to us, and the tariff work, and so on. "1196. Do yon think it important that the work of compiling statistics, and the work of abstracting statistics, should be united in one department?--I think to some extent it is very useful that the officer who is engaged in the duty of abstracting statistics, and publishing and digesting all the different statistics, should also have experience in compilation; and that unless he has great experience in compilation and great knowledge of the kind of difficulties that arise, his abstracts will not be so good or so useful as they might be. "1197. Can you illustrate that a little?--I think that there is as good an illustration as there can be in one or two of the subjects which the Board of Trade has to deal with, and not specially the statistical department of the Board of Trade. For instance, railway accidents and wrecks and casualties, these are two cases as to which an outsider might think that it was a very simple matter that you should get a return of railway accidents, and a return of wrecks and casualties; but when you come to actual practice, I have had experience indirectly at the Board of Trade, and although those subjects are not under my care, I find that there are very great difficulties indeed in definition in both those cases; that it is not easy to define what a railway accident is, and it is not easy to define what a wreck is, and what a shipping casualty is. And in addition to that, when you come to make up tables of statistics in reference to...