ABSTRACT
The purposes of samples and indices are parallel. Samples are that form of vicarious or representative measure in which the values manifested by certain items are used to indicate the values of the same character manifested by other items, usually the complete set of items. An index is a specific character whose values are observed in order to represent the values of another different character. Evaluation of different forms of index character in common units along one scale is the process familiar to physicists as calibration. Where the items to be measured are of different types, as the different types of commodities purchased by working-class families, and where some of the types are known to occur more frequently, or in greater quantities than others, as purchases of bread compared with purchases of pepper, weighting of item-values is resorted to. Economic and political issues abound that provide no direct statistical measure of the characters immediately involved.
