Page:The National Geographic Magazine Vol 16 1905.djvu/487

from us, the total being 16 million yards, valued at 1⅛ million dollars, as against less than 440,000 yards in 1904, valued at 55 thousand dollars.

Leather and manufactures of leather, fourth in importance in the list of manufactured articles exported, showed an increase of 4 million dollars, the total in 1905 having been 38 million dollars, as compared with 34 millions in the preceding year. In this class, also, Japan should be credited with the chief increase. To Japan we exported 16 million pounds of sole leather, valued at $4,146,428, as against 2 million pounds, with a valuation of about a half million dollars, in the preceding year. The increase in boots and shoes is principally in exports to the West Indies and Mexico, each of those countries being credited with about $400,000 in excess of the 1904 figures, while the total increase in boot and shoe exports to all countries was but little over $818,000.

Other important articles exported were: Agricultural implements, 20¾ million dollars; chemicals, drugs, dyes, etc., nearly 16 millions; wood manufactures, 12½ millions; cars, carriages, and vehicles, 10⅔ millions; scientific instruments, 8 millions; paper and manufactures of paper, 8¼ millions; paraffin and paraffin wax, 7¾ millions; fiber manufactures, 6¾ millions; tobacco manufactures, 5⅔ millions; books, maps, etc., nearly 5 millions, and india-rubber manufactures, 4¾ millions.

The Bureau of the Census has just issued a very useful report, Bulletin 20, presenting statistics of cities having a population of over 25,000. This bulletin contains comparatively few statistics relating to the population living in these cities, but is for the most part a compilation of data relative to the resources, transactions, plant, and machinery of the municipal corporations. One finds in these tables such facts as the length (in miles) and the area (in square yards) of the paved streets classified with reference to kind of paving; miles of sewer; number of street lamps; miles of street railway track; number of school buildings and number of teachers and pupils; the number of public libraries with the number of volumes they contain; the number of almshouses and orphan asylums with the number of inmates; the number of policemen and the number of arrests they have made; the number of firemen and fire engines, the number of fires occurring during the year, and property loss from such fires; the number of marriages recorded in the office of the city or county clerk and likewise the number of divorces. There are also tables showing the total population of each city, and the deaths and death rates from each of the principal causes of death.

But by far the greater part of the tabular matter consists of financial statistics presenting the expenditures and receipts of each city classified by departments and offices, the public debt, sinking funds, etc. By reference to these tables one may readily compare the cost of government and of the several departments of government in different cities.

In the aggregate the financial transactions of the 175 cities included in this report equal in magnitude those of the national government. The total corporate receipts for these cities amounted to $541,624,203, while the revenues of the United States government in the fiscal year 1904, exclusive of postal revenues, were $540,631,749. The total corporate expenditures of the cities were $535,804,200; the expenditures of the United States government were $582,402,321. The national debt in 1904 amounted to $895,157,410; the aggregate debt of the 175 cities, exclusive of sinking fund assets, was $1,134,578,783. The receipts, expenditures, and debt for the city of New York represent about one-third of the city totals.