Since to the average newspaper reader it would not mean much to say that the cost of the public schools amounted to several hundred thousand dollars a year, a special feature writer calculated the relation of the school appropriation to the total municipal expenditure and then presented the results as fractions of a dollar, thus: 

Of every dollar that each taxpayer in this city paid to the city treasurer last year, 45 cents was spent on the public schools.  This means that nearly one-half of all the taxes were expended on giving boys and girls an education.

    Of that same dollar only 8 cents went to maintain the police
    department, 12 cents to keep up the fire department, and 13 cents
    for general expenses of the city offices.

    Out of the 45 cents used for school purposes, over one-half, or 24
    cents, was paid as salaries to teachers and principals.  Only 8 cents
    went for operation, maintenance, and similar expenses.

How statistics may be effectively embodied in an interview is demonstrated by the following excerpt from a special feature story on a workmen’s compensation law administered by a state industrial board: 

Judge J.B.  Vaughn, who is at the head of the board, estimates that the system of settling compensation by means of a commission instead of by the regular courts has saved the state $1,000,000 a year since its inception in 1913.  “Under the usual court proceedings,” he says, “each case of an injured workman versus his employer costs from $250 to $300.  Under the workings of the industrial board the average cost is no more than $20.

“In three and one-half years 8,000 cases have come before us.  Nine out of every ten have been adjusted by our eight picked arbitrators, who tour the state, visiting promptly each scene of an accident and adjusting the compensation as quickly as possible.  The tenth case, which requires a lengthier or more painstaking hearing, is brought to the board.

“Seven million dollars has been in this time ordered to be paid to injured men and their families.  Of this no charge of any sort has been entered against the workers or their beneficiaries.  The costs are taken care of by the state.  Fully 90 per cent of all the cases are settled within the board, which means that only 10 per cent are carried further into the higher courts for settlement.”

PROCESSES.  To make scientific and technical processes sufficiently simple to appeal to the layman, is another problem for the writer of popular articles.  A narrative-descriptive presentation that enables the reader to visualize and follow the process, step by step, as though it were taking place before his eyes, is usually the best means of making it both understandable and interesting.