The Indianapolis Journal

BRITISH CENSUS-TAKING.

What It Costs to Count Noses in the British Empire-Difficulties of the Enumerators Public Opinion.

A department committee, arranged by the local government, has been receiving evidence and preparing a report for the purpose of advising the government as to the best mode for carrying out the next decennial census. The chairman of the committee is Mr. Leonard Courtney, and the registrar-general, Sir Brydges P. Henniker, is one of the members. A writer in the Standard, after pointing out that a religious census is taken out in Ireland, and referring to the imperfect religious census taken in England in 1851, observes that if the religious census can be carried no further than it was in 1851 it had better be omitted entirely. Parliament must pass the required census act in the present session, authorizing the necessary arrangements for the enumeration in the spring of 1891. The day for taking the census has varied from time to time, ranging between March 10 and June 7. But, on recent occasions, an early date in April has been selected. The theoretical moment of the census is, in reality, not in the daytime, but at midnight.

With respect to Great Britain, the passing of the population bill in 1800 was the first provision for a statutory census. The original proposal for such a measure dates from a period some fifty years earlier, when a bill 'for taking and registering an annual account of the total number of the people' was brought in by Mr. Thomas Potter, son of the Archbishop of Canterbury, a barrister of the Middle Temple and member of St. Germans. The project was violently opposed, Mr. Thornton, member for the city of York, declaring in the House that, until then, he 'did not believe there was any set of men, or indeed, any individual of the human species, so presumptuous and so abandoned as to make such a proposal.' This gentleman declared his conviction that the project was 'totally subversive of the last remains of English liberty.' 'Moreover,' he added, 'an annual register of our people will acquaint our enemies abroad with our weakness.' This denunciator of the census was not alone in his antagonism to the scheme. The feeling was widespread. There was a fear that the proposed census would prove the precursor of fresh taxes and would prepare the way for conscription.

By the returns of baptisms and burials, reaching back in the case of many parishes to the year 1571, estimates of the population have been framed which show marvelous results when compared with recent statistics. It seems almost incredible that the population of England and Wales in 1651 was actually less than the present population of what is called 'Greater London,' a designation which includes 'Inner London' and the 'Outer Ring.' Yet a good authority tells us that the figures may be relied upon as sufficiently correct. It thus appears that the population of England and Wales underwent an increase of less than a million in the hundred years which ended in 1751, whereas in the next century the increase was nearly twelve millions. Between 1851 and 1881 there was an increase exceeding eight millions, bringing up the total for England and Wales to 26,000,000. This point being reached, it was calculated that the population in 1891 would prove to be about 29,843,898. According to the yearly estimates since 1881 there is every prospect that this forecast will be found to approximate very closely to the truth. A feature of great importance in regard to 1881 was that it afforded the first instance in which a census was taken of the entire population of the British empire, the total at that date being found to be nearly 235,000,000. The undertaking was described as 'the vastest census that had ever been taken in one empire.' At the last census the number had risen to more than 254,000,000, the increase in the United Kingdom being 3,400,000.

The most laborious, tho most costly, and after all, perhaps, the least satisfactory part of the census is officially declared, in regard to England and Wales, to be that which is concerned with the occupations of the people. One of the difficulties consists in the enormous number of distinct manufactures and industries. Early in the history of the census it was found necessary to have a special dictionary for the nomenclature of occupations. About 7,000 names sufficed until 1851, when the list became enlarged so as to include nearly 12,000 appellations, grouped under 400 headings. Some of the terms were of the most inexplicable character. What was to be understood by an 'iron bolster-maker,' a 'blabber,' a 'doctor-maker,' a 'duler,' a 'barker,' an 'all-rounder,' a 'horse-marine,' a 'bull-dog burner,' or an 'oliver man?' The various meanings of the same term also created embarrassment. 'Bank manager' ordinarily means the manager of a bank, but in mining districts it occasionally has a very different signification. 'Drummer' may indicate a musician or a blacksmith's hammerman, and a 'muffin maker' may be simply employed in the china manufacture. A 'collar-maker' may be a seamstress or a harness-maker, and an 'engineer' may mean-as often occurs- either a maker or a driver of engines.

The cost of the last census was £172,000 for a population of 26,000,000. But the cost is increasing on each occasion. For England and Wales the cost per 1,000 of the population was £4 15s 5d in 1861, rising to £5 5s 7d in 1871, and £6 12s 6d in 1881. In regard to the census of the United Kingdom, the English portion is the least expensive pro rata, Scotland and Ireland costing more per 1,000 of the population. The number of enumerators employed in the last English census was nearly 35,000, and some advance on this number will, of course, be necessary in 1891. Probably the number will not be far short of 40,000.