Our Public Debts [pp. 205-222]

THE PRINCE TON RE VIE W.
Debt." A division was made of the bonded debt, and a col
umn, presumably of floating debt, appeared under the captioc
"All other." The sinking funds, and other assets and credits set
aside for the payment of the debt, were not taken into considertion at all.' The result of this investigation may be briefly epit
omized as follows:
DEBT OTHER THAN NATIONAL, AS REPORTED BY U. S. CENSUS, I870.
CLASSES OF DEBTS. Gross Debts. Per cent
State debt................................. $352,866,698 40.62
County debt.............................. I87,565,540 21.59
City and town debt........................ 328,244,520 37 79
Total............................... $868,676,758 Ioo. oo00
In the right-hand column of the above table I have worked
out the per cent of each class of debt according to the report of the Ninth Census. Of the debts found by this inquiry
over 40 per cent were State debts, over 2I per cent county
debts, and nearly 38 per cent the debts of cities, towns, etc.
Before undertaking any comparison of the results of the twos
census investigations it will be necessary to briefly allude to themethod adopted in I88o.
This branch of the Census work, the Wealth, Debt, and Taxation Division, as it was termed, was carried on entirely in Washington, and the facts were all obtained by the aid of direct correspondence with the local offices throughout the United States
Schedules were prepared with a view to suit the size of the
places to which they were to be sent. To the large cities elaborate schedules were mailed, which not only called for an exact
statement of the bonded and the floating debt, but also for thedate of issue of the various classes of bonds, the date of maturity, the rate of interest, and the purposes for which the bonds
were issued; also the amount of sinking fund or other assets.
and credits set aside for the payment of the debt. To the —
smaller cities and towns and villages a still simpler form of
I The census of I88SSo shows that these assets in 311 cities and towns aggregate
$II7, I91,506.
2I2