FYI - you could save a miniscule amount using fewer shell processes and CPU cycles, by using this command to count the syslog processinstances:

ps -ef | grep -c syslo[g]
[download]

Notes:
The -c does the equivalent of piping to "wc -l".
The [g] prevents the grep from finding itself. See https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/74185/how-can-i-prevent-grep-from-showing-up-in-ps-results.