An American Almanac and Treasury of Facts, Statistical, Financial, and Political, for the Year 1878. Edited by Ainsworth R. Spofford, Librarian of Congress. New York and Washington: The American News Company.
Few persons in this country are more competent to compile a volume such as this than the Librarian of Congress. Himself a practical bookseller, he brought years of the necessary experience to his aid. The results of this experience are manifest in the intelligently-arranged and trustworthy volume before us. It contains a vast amount of really useful information, on agriculture, politics, banks, finances, libraries, the census, chronology, commerce, the post-office, gold and silver coinage, education—in fact, on every practical subject about which persons need ready and accurate information. Its statistics can be relied on as trustworthy. It is preceded by a short “History of Almanacs,” in which Mr. Spofford enumerates several that have appeared of late years, though he has forgotten to mention the Illustrated Catholic Family Almanac, now in its tenth year. This, we presume, was an oversight; for, if we are not mistaken, it has been a guide to some of the statisticians in Washington with regard to the statistics of Catholic colleges and institutions of learning conducted by Catholics.
Footnotes
[1]. Macaulay.
[2]. Marble Faun, vol. ii. p. 129, Tauch. Ed.
[3]. John Dwight’s translation.
[4]. See Sum of St. Thomas, i. 2, cviii.
[5]. Words of Pius IX.