it is merely the reports as received that are being considered, and not the total sum of accidents that have occurred during the period covered.

For the sake of completeness in the treatment of the accident reports received, those from the mines have been included in the following compilations. The subject of mine accidents, however, will be found more fully considered in the division of this report devoted to the subject of "Mines and Mining."

ACCIDENT REPORTS BY MONTHS.

A monthly record of accident reports received during the past two years shows that there is no particular season in which accidents are more numerous than at any other. In 1899 accidents appear to have been the most numerous during the months of September and November, while the largest percentage of fatalities were reported for June and October. In 1900 the largest number of reports was received during June and August, the largest number of fatalities being recorded for the months of March and June. The following table shows in detail the number of killed and injured as reported to the Labor Bureau during the twenty-two months ending Nov. 1, 1900:

MONTHLY REPORTS OF FATAL AND NON-FATAL ACCIDENTS.

Of the 1,367 accidents reported during the period named, 116, or eight and one-half per cent., were fatal, while the number reporting loss of limb or limbs forms less than two per cent. Fortunately, by far the largest number of accidents reported are those of minor importance, about three-fifths of the total number belonging to this class. The injuries in this list range all the way from slight cuts and bruises to the loss of one or more fingers. Injured eyes and fractured limbs balance one another in number. each forming a trifle over six per cent. of the whole. The loss of

eye or eyes forms the smallest group in the entire classification, there being but three cases in the whole number, or one case to each 450 accidents reported. The following shows the subject in detail:

ACCIDENTS GROUPED ACCORDING TO INDUSTRY.

An attempt has been made to classify the reported accidents according to industry. The result, however, is without much significance, since there are no means of knowing how near these reports come to representing the whole of the industry for which they stand. Omitting the mining accidents, which are covered in detail in another part of this report, those of the railroad business apparently head the list so far as numbers and percentage of employes are concerned. Considered in relation to the total number of accidents reported, those of the railroads form over thirty per cent. The next largest group consists of those reported from saw mills and lumber yards, being about twelve and one-half per cent. of the whole.

Four of the nine industries classified in the following table report accidents resulting in death, viz., railroading, nine per cent. fatal; lumber industry, 4.39 per cent.; milling, 2.66 per cent., and mining, 41.66 per cent. Of the 166 unclassified accidents, twentythree, or 13.85 per cent., were fatal. The percentage of fatalities for the whole number reported is 8.5.

CLASSIFICATION ACCORDING TO INDUSTRY.

DIRECT CAUSES OF ACCIDENTS.

The following table shows, so far as ascertainable from reports submitted, the various instrumentalities through which death or injury has been inflicted. Of the several causes enumerated it will be seen that all but two have been productive of death. It is noticeable that, of the 136 accidents caused by planers, jointers and edge tools in general, not one has resulted fatally. In marked contrast to this is the result shown for explosions and caving of earth, ore or rock (mostly mine accidents). In the case of explosions sixteen out of twenty-eight casualties were fatal, while caving caused the death of ten, to six injured. The number of fatalities caused by falls from scaffolds, ladders, etc., also, is surprisingly large in proportion to the total number of accidents due to this cause. Of the seventy-nine cases reported, sixteen, or twenty per cent, are shown to have been fatal. The railroad accidents appear in a group, without distribution according to cause, for the simple reason that, in most of the reports received, there has been no cause stated, a request for a statement of the cause having been turned down by the reply that the law does not require it.

AGE OF THE KILLED AND INJURED.

A classification of the killed or injured into age-groups, with a range of five years for each group, shows the largest number of killed to have belonged to the one ranging from twenty-five to thirty years, while the largest number of injured are seen to have belonged to the class under twenty years of age. The latter fact is not so much due to the preponderance of employes under that age as to the inexperience and lack of care incident to youth. It will be seen that only a small percentage of the largest number

of accidents reported for this age have been fatal,-just four per cent, while the next two groups, including persons twenty to twenty-four and twenty-five to twenty-nine years of age, show a percentage of fatalities of 7.73 and 10.11 respectively. The number reported killed or injured in each age-class is here shown in

PART II.

WAGE STATISTICS.

The investigation of the subject of wages, although for many years carried on by the Labor Bureaus of several other states, has not heretofore been attempted by the Labor Bureau of Minnesota. The reason of this is not clear, for certainly there is no feature connected with the subject of labor of greater interest than that of wages. To the buyers and sellers of labor the matter of wages is as full of interest and importance as is the price of other commodities to those who buy and sell them. It is true that reliable data on this subject are frequently difficult to obtain, and information of this kind has often been so grossly perverted in the compilation as to render the results utterly valueless. Various misleading methods have been employed, either through a desire to conceal actual conditions, or with a view to proving a state of affairs having no existence in fact. In this way statisticians have been known to prove that average wages for all were higher than the highest paid to any individual in the group under consideration. This has been done by adding the largest and smallest amounts of money paid in wages during any given period, and dividing the result by the average number of employes during said period-apparently a very innocent and fair operation, but wholly false as to the results shown, as anyone may ascertain upon trial of the method. The more common method, however, has been to add the daily, weekly or monthly wages received by the different employes, dividing the result by the total number of persons, thus obtaining a general average for each. How incorrectly this method reflects conditions may be seen by taking an example: A employs ten men at two dollars per day; B employs nine men at the