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These reflections upon the character of the statistics returned are designed to promote a more intelligent understand of the results reached, without, however, an undue disparagement of their value, -- to point the way to better methods, without decrying the improvements already attained. The kind of knowledge which the census gives is of more moment than its amount or variety. "The tendency toward complexity in the nature of the returns must always be checked," says Dr. Farr, "by the liability of the people at large to make blunders and create confusion where they are required to attest facts not of the most obvious nature, and by the difficulty of getting a sufficient number of subordinate officers to understand and carry out a complex classification." The time will doubtless come when, instead of relying upon the statement of individuals that their children are "dumb" because of the "Massachusetts school system," or "idiotic" because "marked with a snake," or "blind" because "moonstruck" the compiler of statistics of the disabled classes will feel full confidence in his facts, knowing that in the course of their primary enumeration they have been submitted to uniform standard tests, such as are applied for example by the oculist who determines the degree of blindness in his patient by means of the test type, or by the aurist who ascertains deafness and its amount by the distance at which the ticking of a watch is heard. The science of vital statistics is one of slow growth. Experience will continually point out retrospective defects and suggest improved methods. Perfection in the census of a people, as in all other human undertakings, is attainable by slow approaches, if it be attainable at all. The approximations offered in the present instance are the result of a system matured with exceptional care, and are believed to be possessed of exceptional value in point of freedom from the errors both of omission and commission.

The Blind.

The number of persons who reported themselves in this class is 2,512. (2) This number gives a rate of fifteen blind persons in every 10,000 of the population of Massachusetts, or one person blind in every 657. This ratio is greatly in excess of what has been found by the census of this State in previous years, and in excess also of the proportion deter in other countries. In 1865 the ratio was one in 1,663, and in 1855 it was one in 2,404; both of these enumerations probably fell far more short of the truth than the number in 1875 exceeds the truth. In 1871, in England, the ratio was one blind to every 1,052 persons; in Scotland it was one to 1,112, and in Ireland it was one in 852. The magnitude of the aggregate in Massachusetts, as set forth in the census, is to be explained in two ways: partly by the fuller returns made, but mainly by the fact that many have reported themselves as blind who, if special inquiry were made, would be found to be, not totally blind, in the meaning and intent of the prior schedule, but deprived of sight to a very considerable degree; the enumeration has determined a near approximation to the number of persons in Massachusetts who are destitute of vision to a degree which incapacitates them for the usual avocations of mankind.

The subjoined table shows the distribution of these numbers of the blind in the several counties. It will be observed that the proportion of the blind to the population is largest in the rural counties, and least in the counties containing the cities, and large towns.

Persons reported as Blind, their number in each County in 1875, and their proportion to the Population.

The number of those reporting themselves as blind, and their number in proportion to the people, is seen to be in excess, as a rule, away from the centres of population. The cities and manufacturing villages attract the young and the sound from the agricultural sections and from across the ocean. The old, decrepit and infirm are thus left in excess in the country. These, observations are further illustrated by the ratio of blind persons to population in some of the Massa cities. Thus, in Boston (the inmates of the Perkins Institution and of the Massachusetts Charitable Eye and Ear Infirmary being excepted from the account), the proportion was one blind person to every 926 of the people; in Lowell, one in 1,156; in Cambridge, one in 1,167; in Fall River, one in 1,334; in Lawrence, one in 1,126.