The census for 1870 reaped the benefits of the new determination; yet
even of this General Walker was forced to write: "This census concludes
that from one to two hundred thousand workers are not accounted for,
from the difficulty experienced in getting proper returns. The nice
distinctions of foreign statisticians are impossible." And he adds:--

"Whoever will consider the almost utter want of apprenticeship in
this country, the facility with which pursuits are taken up and
abandoned, and the variety and, indeed, seeming incongruity of the
numerous industrial offices that are frequently united in one
person, will appreciate the force of this argument.... The
organization of domestic service in the United States is so crude
that no distinction whatever can be successfully maintained. A
census of occupations in which the attempt should be made to reach
anything like European completeness in this matter would result in
the return of tens of thousands of 'housekeepers' and hundreds of
thousands of 'cooks,' who were simply 'maids of all work,' being
the single servants of the families in which they are
employed."[17]

This census gives the total number of women workers, so far as it could
be determined, as 1,836,288. Of these, 191,000 were from ten to fifteen
years of age; 1,594,783, from sixteen to fifty-nine; and 50,404, sixty
years and over, the larger proportion of the latter division being given
as engaged in agricultural employments.

In the first period of age, females pursuing gainful occupations are to
males as one to three; in the second, one to six; and in the third, one
to twelve. The actual increase over the numbers given in the census for