Our Public Debts [pp. 205-222]

THE PRINCE TON RE VIE W.
tics is complete and satisfactory. Every municipal incorporation of over Iooo population has sent in a correct report,
which has been amended, approved, and tabulated. There still
remain scattered over the country a few post-towns in the South
and backwoods places in the North-west and in the Territories,
from which no returns have been received. But these delinquents cannot affect the results, and for all practical purposes
the report is complete. The counties, too, have all reported
their indebtedness, and substantially the same holds true of the
hundred and five thousand school districts.
The result of this inquiry, so far as it relates to the large
cities, is known in the Census Office with certainty, but only a
preliminary addition has been made in the county, township,
school-district, and small city branches of the work. The following table must therefore be taken with some allowance for possible corrections:
DEBTS OTHER THAN NATIONAL, AS REPORTED BY U. S. CENSUS, I880.
CLASSES OF DEBTS. Gross Debts. Per cent.
State.....................................
County..................................
Township................................
School district...........................
Cities and towns over 7500 population......
Cities and towns under 7500 population.....
Total..............................
Returning to the point of digression, we find that the State
debts which in I870 represented over 40 per cent of this burden of debt, to-day represent only 21I per cent of it. The
county debts, which undoubtedly included all the school-district
and township indebtedness discovered by the marshals, represented 2II per cent of the total debt, instead of only IOl per
cent. The cities and towns now bear about 64 per cent of the
burden, whereas in I870 about 37 per cent was their share.
If the township and school-district debts are included in the
county debts, and all municipalities are placed together, the following would be the relative showing for I870 and I88o:
214
Gross Debts.
Per cent.
CLASSES oF DEBTS.
$250,722,08I
I25,OOI,258
27,423,084
i8.844,415
7IO,535,924
. 55,009,836
$1, I87,536,598
2I. II
I O.'5 2
2.31
I. 59
59- 83
4.64
100.00