Harper’s Index

You may already know how “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” ranked among all Christmas singles in sales last year, but do you know the percentage of third-graders in Oklahoma who say they chew tobacco or the number of Americans old enough to see Halley’s comet for the second time this winter?

Number of White House requests for arms sales to a foreign country that Congress has rejected: 0

Soviet nuclear-weapon tests this year: 7

U.S. tests: 13

Value of the items the Pentagon misplaced in 1984: $1,021,876,000

Value of the items it found: $1,013,697,000

Number of senators who receive a military or government pension: 20

Senators who own U.S. government securities: 27

Percentage growth in West Germany’s gross national product in 1984: 4.6

In East Germany’s: 5.5

Heroin addicts in Poland: 200,000

Portion of those addicts who are under 21: two-thirds

Percentage of all criminal cases in U.S. federal courts that involve drugs: 25

Average weekly increase in the population of state and federal prisons this year: 1,000

Percentage of fathers who win child-custody cases they contest: 70

Estimated number of “abortion alternative” centers in the United States: 2,100

Percentage of condoms that were bought by women in 1975: 15

Today: 40

Percentage of doctors in 1960 who said patients should be told the truth about their cancer: 18

Percentage who say that today: 70

Percentage of doctors in the United States who graduated from foreign medical schools: 22

Percentage of Ph.D. graduates of U.S. engineering schools who are foreigners: 59

Percentage of American high school seniors who identify Israel as an Arab nation: 40

Percentage of Jewish households in the United States that had Christmas trees in 1984: 12

Portion of the New York City Ballet’s annual ticket income derived from “The Nutcracker”: one-fourth

Rank of “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer,” among all Christmas singles, in sales last year: 1

Pieces of mail that end up at the dead letter office each year: 75,100,000

Estimated number of underground newspapers and magazines published in Poland: 250

Percentage of Americans who regularly buy a publication or watch a TV station owned by Rupert Murdoch: 11

Average number of industrial accidents involving toxic chemicals each day: 5

Percentage of capital spending by U.S. companies that went for pollution control in 1976: 5.6

In 1985: 2.7

Satellite dishes sold each month: 60,000

Number of Americans old enough to see Halley’s comet for the second time this winter: 11,294,000.

Value of insurance claims filed in the last six months for satellites that failed: $450,000,000.

Percentage of homeowners in California who have earthquake insurance: 10

Percentage of Iowans who say they listen “fairly often” to soul music: 13

Percentage of third-graders in Oklahoma who say they chew tobacco: 7

Number of people who attended the International Conference on Spelling Reform held in England last summer: 17

Number of people in the world who speak Esperanto: 50,000

Number of Americans who play the accordion: 2,200,000

From Harper’s Magazine