THE LATE MR. MULHALL

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXIX, Issue 16, 18 April 1901, Page 7

THE LATE MR. MULHALL

Dk. William J. Choke has published a collection of nomn vpry interesting notes regarding the late Mr. Michael G. Mulhall, the eminent ntatistician. After enumerating the many works published by Mr. Mulhall, Dr. Croke goes on to cay :—: — ' Yet his genius had to emerge and combat against unusual difficulties and hindrances. A collection of notes about him showb that he was what is called a self-made made man : one of the greatest of the kind, but withal one of the most typical ; a student who had rough-hewed out of journalism the means to satisfy those compelling necessities of his nature by which he has become " the wizard of statistics." Stumbling-blocks proved stepping stones to a giant of his skill and courage. He had received his higher education as a candidate for the priesthood at the Irish College here in Rome. He began life as a journalist in South America. He ended it as the prince of an important branch of sociology, a landed proprietor in his own country, and a Papal Chamberlain in the City of the Soul. Thus, he explained the occasion of his opus magnum in the following words, which I have preserved. "Being for 25 years editor of a daily paper in South America, the Buenos Ayres Standard, I felt the want of a dictionary of statistics. So, giving up the paper, I set to work. The newspaper? generally seemed to appreciate the use of the work. I made it my aim to produce a statistical dictionary, where you could find everything. It was the only one in the language. It took me nine years." ' The special direotion of his work he outlined thus : " The drawback in statistical science hitherto has been that each Government and country worked apart. My task has been the study of international statistics, the comparison of country with country. The first who took up this branch of work was M. Block, about 1852, a Frenchman, as you know. Then a student named Neumann — Spallart worked very successfully in the same lines. He died about 1888. His mantle has fallen on Jurascheck, a very good man, another Austrian, who is the author of a survey of the industries of mankind, ' Überdichten,' etc. Two others should be mentioned in this pphere of statistical investigation. Meyr, now retired, who was official statistician to the Bavarian Government, and Herr Engel, who was the official statistician to the King of Prussia. . . . There were in all but four, or perhaps only three others of us who labored in this province of statistics : Levasseur, James, and myself. Levasseur does very grod work." ' These may fittingly be the last words I shall quote from him, for they show him to be as he always was : generous, innocent of envy, frank and unsparing in the praise of others, and. not least of all, in praise of Italy and its principal statistician, Senator Bodio, whom he more than once described to me as the greatest of all statisticians — his own title on the lips of other men." '