1 These figures include $29,716.50 salaries earned in June, 1912, but not on cash book on June 30, 1912.

The amount called for by the estimates of the Bureau of the Census for the fiscal year 1913 was $1,572,440 (exclusive of the item for printing other than the printing of Thirteenth Census reports, which item is now included with the appropriations for the Department of Commerce and Labor as a whole). The amount actually appropriated by the act of August 23, 1912, is $1,503,920, in addition to which, as already stated, Congress appropriated $45,000 to enable the Bureau to carry out the provisions of the new legislation concerning tobacco and cotton statistics. The appropriations include $696,340 for salaries of regular employees, $342,000 for collection of statistics, $120,000 for salaries of temporary clerks, and $272,000 for the printing of Thirteenth Census reports.

For the fiscal year 1914 estimates have been submitted to Congress calling for substantially the same amount for the Bureau of the Census as was appropriated for 1913, minus the special sums for temporary clerks and for Thirteenth Census printing. The total as estimated is $1,240,720. Substantially the same number of clerks of each salary class are called for as were provided for in the fiscal year 1913, save only that there has been some slight increase to enable the Bureau to carry out the provisions of the new legislation regarding tobacco and cotton statistics. The estimates do not call for special sums to enable the Bureau to carry out these acts individually, but the required expenditure has been assigned to the item of clerical salaries and the lump item, "collection of statistics."

TABULATING MACHINES.

The card tabulating machinery of the Census Bureau was fully described in my last annual report. Mention should be made, however, of a very great improvement to the tabulating machine used in summarizing the results of the population census, upon which the experts and mechanicians of the Bureau of the Census have been engaged for the past year. The machines as constructed for use in the Thirteenth Census printed the results of the tabulation of each unit of area, and therein were more satisfactory than the machines used in the Twelfth Census, in which the results were recorded on dials and had to be copied off on sheets. The results, however, were printed

on narrow strips or ribbons of paper, a form which was found to be physically very inconvenient for the further processes of tabulation, and in order that different units of area might be combined conveniently it was necessary to transcribe the figures immediately from the strips upon posting sheets. The improvement, which consists of a new counting and printing attachment, greatly reduces the space occupied by the counters and prints the results for a series of areas one below the other directly on a result sheet of convenient size. This does away entirely with the process of copying the data from the strips of paper onto the original posting sheets. Fourteen machinesseven automatic and seven hand, or semiautomatic-will be equipped with these new devices. Two machines have been completed and are in actual operation, and the others will be completed in time to handle the population cards for occupation statistics. It is fully believed that the improvements will enable the Bureau to handle the cards of the occupation runs at an expense of between $40,000 and $50,000 less than would be necessary with the former machines.

While it may be possible before the census of 1920 is taken to devise such improvements as to render obsolete the present tabulatingmachine equipment of the Bureau, there can be no doubt that the machine equipment purchased or constructed by the Bureau for the Thirteenth Census saved money as compared with leasing machines from private concerns, as was done for the census of 1900. There is good reason to believe, however, that the present improved machine, with perhaps minor alterations, will be available for the next census. In that case part of the machine expenditure for the Thirteenth Census will represent an investment which will correspondingly reduce the cost of taking the next decennial census of population.

Moreover, the Bureau has developed a corps of expert machinists and inventors who will be able to keep abreast of improvements in the art of tabulation by machinery, so that the Bureau will be able in the future to avail itself of the most improved machinery at reasonable cost. Furthermore, it is proposed to utilize this corps of experts and mechanicians after the present machine improvements have been completed in devising a card tabulating machine with an integrating counter; that is to say, a machine which will not simply count the holes in the cards, but will add figures indicated by holes. Such a machine would be adapted to general statistical and accounting work for other Government bureaus and departments.

The suit of the Tabulating Machine Co. against the Director of the Census, on the ground that the alterations made by the Bureau in the sorting machines which had been purchased from the Tabulating Machine Co. were practically equivalent to the construction of new machines, and, therefore, an infringement on the company's patents, was dismissed on May 23, 1912.

BUREAU OF IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION.

IMMIGRATION IN GENERAL.

ALIEN ARRIVALS AND DEPARTURES.

It appears from the report of the Commissioner General of Immigration that 838,172 immigrant aliens entered the United States during the past fiscal year, compared with 878,587 in the fiscal year 1911, the decrease being 40,415. The months in which immigration was heaviest were March, April, May, and June, the figures for which range from about 91,000 to 114,000 per month. In addition to the 838,172 immigrants, 178,983 aliens of the nonimmigrant class entered, making a total of 1,017,155, compared with 1,030,300 for the previous fiscal year. During the year, however, there departed from the country 615,292 aliens, of whom 333,262 were of the emigrant and 282,030 of the nonemigrant class. In the previous fiscal year 518,215 aliens left the country, of whom 295,666 were of the emigrant and 222,549 of the nonemigrant class. A comparison of these figures shows that the actual increase in the alien population for the fiscal year 1912 was 401,863, as compared with 512,085 for the fiscal year 1911 and 817,619 for the fiscal year 1910.

AGES, LITERACY, AND FINANCIAL CONDITION OF IMMIGRANTS.

The statistical tables furnished by the Commissioner General disclose many interesting facts with regard to the 838,172 immigrant aliens admitted during the year, of which the following are especially significant:

The ages of 678,480 of these aliens ranged between 14 and 44 years, 113,700 were under 14, and 45,992 were 45 or over. Of the 724,472 aliens over 14 years of age, 177,284 could neither read nor write and 3,024 could read but could not write.

Of the aliens over 14 years of age admitted in the fiscal year 1910, 28 per cent were illiterate; in the fiscal year 1911, 24.5 per cent were illiterate; and in 1912 the percentage was approximately the same as in 1911.

The total amount of money shown to inspection officers by arriving aliens during the past fiscal year was $30,353,721, or an average of about $36 per person. There is no way to determine how much of this was sent to applicants by relatives or friends living in the United States.