Photo of SCP-7067 in use in ██████, Lousianna, recovered from the Juneau estate.

Item #: SCP-7067

Object Class: Safe

Special Containment Procedures: SCP-7067 is to be stored in a standard Medium Object Locker (MOL) in Site-111, Safe Item Containment Wing. Efforts to censor/destroy archived U.S. Census data gathered with SCP-7067 began on 1962/12/03 and were declared complete on 1965/03/09.

Description: SCP-7067 is a wooden box measuring roughly 0.5 m by 0.5 m by 1.5 m, consisting of glued wooden planks with steel reinforcements on its edges. A slot is situated on the forward face of the box, marked with 'PAPER' in painted block letters. Located underneath the slot, there is a chute exiting the box and a horizontal tray, marked with 'ENUMERATION RESULTS' in the same font. A steel lever is located on the right face of the box, marked similarly with 'ENUMERATE'. The only other marking on SCP-7067 is a United States Marshal Service property stamp, which has been overstamped by a United States Census Bureau property stamp.

SCP-7067 contains a male human corpse of unknown identity, designated SCP-7067-1. CT scans taken of SCP-7067 during its intake on Site-111 indicate that SCP-7067-1 is sat down against the left face of the box in a fetal position and is in a state of mild decomposition, inconsistent with the expected progression of decomposition after approximately 200 years. Subsequent CT scans indicate no further decomposition over time. SCP-7067-1 is surrounded by a large mechanical system of gears and pinwheels, similar to that of a 19th-century style mechanical calculator. Two wires originate from SCP-7067-1's body and run to various pieces of machinery within the box: one from where its heart would approximately be, one from the base of its skull.

When the lever attached to the box is cranked and paper is supplied through the slot, SCP-7067 will output a tabulated overview of census statistics corresponding to questions asked during the United States Census of 1870 (e.g. sex, color, marital state, parentage) for all individuals present within visual range of the box. It has been theorized that SCP-7067-1 plays a critical role in the mechanism by which SCP-7067 performs this tabulation, but this remains poorly understood at the time of writing. This tabulation includes sum total and percentage make-up, but infrequently, it will also contain statistics outside of the 1870 Census questions, ranging from distributions of religious belief or political standing to nonsequiturs such as ‘number of horse owners’ or ‘average length of left index finger’.

Recovery history:

SCP-7067 was acquired on 1961/02/21 as a result of a routine examination of U.S. civil records. One field agent was dispatched to the small bayou town of Perry, Louisiana, after the archival examination indicated that Perry had kept extensive census records from 1890 to 1940 containing nonsequitur statistics, such as the 'average number of crawfish caught per capita', 'virgin men and woman', 'number of liars'. The field agent, posing as a historian, questioned elderly citizens on the way censuses were historically performed in the town.

One retired citizen, Thomas Beauregard, previously employed as a parish clerk, recounted a story told to him by his father about a young man "with a knack for numbers", who would "always help the marshal1 by writing up the table at the town's meeting in a flash". Beauregard was found to be in possession of SCP-7067 (having "saved it from the scrapyard"), which the town started to use in Beauregard’s youth, "a short while after the boy's family moved away".

On request by the field agent, Beauregard demonstrated its function. SCP-7067 was subsequently purchased by the field agent under the guise of it being a potential museum piece, in addition to documents related to SCP-7067 (see Addendum-7067-01). Deployment of amnestics was deemed to be unnecessary.

Addendum-7067-01:

Document description: A transcript of a letter purchased alongside SCP-7067. When the field agent inquired about the nature of the letter, Beauregard noted that the document was 'simply stored with the machine', and had not personally seen any connection between it and SCP-7067.

16th of June, 1869

Respected democrat of the General Assembly,

You will most likely agree with me that the last election results for the House have been disastrous. Louisiana has a strong history of representation by the Democrats, which has been lost after the war between the states. Without appropriate action, I believe we may permanently lose what we have fought so hard for.

Photo recovered from the Juneau estate, dated 20/08/1869.

With the decennial national census only half a year away, I see an opportunity to better organize the boundaries of our congressional districts. Combating the Republicans must begin by ensuring that our voters have fair weight in each district. The Marshals are willing and able under my supervision to help during the enumeration. A talented associate of mine will be able to offer crucial assistance.

I hereby humbly invite you to the town hall of Baton Rouge on the 20th of August to discuss details with you. The Marshal service shall show you it offers no small feats.

Yours respectfully,

D. G. Juneau,

Chief Deputy Marshal of the United States District Court for the District of Louisiana

D.G. Juneau was determined from U.S. Marshal archival data to be Daniel G. Juneau, born 1820/01/02 in Perry, Louisiana. Foundation analysis indicated that, following the United States Census of 1870, redistricting in 1872 in Louisiana led to large changes in the borders of the existing congressional districts and the addition of a sixth one; all of these were heavily biased towards the voting base of the Democratic party. Notably, Juneau was elected as House of Representative delegate for the 3rd congressional district of Louisiana in 1875, serving two terms, before becoming Senator in 1879, serving two terms again.

Experiment-7067-01:

The anomalous ability of SCP-7067 to tabulate a crowd of people was experimentally verified by placing groups of D-Class personnel around SCP-7067, providing it with paper and pulling its operating lever. 15 D-Class personnel were picked at random, resulting in a group of 9 male and 6 female subjects. When tabulated, output was as follows:

QUESTION/STATISTIC
RESPONSE

NUMBER OF ENUMERATED
16

SEX
10 men (62.5%), 6 women (37.5%)

PROFESSION
1 fisherman (6.25%), 1 financialist (6.25%), 1 physicist (6.25%), 2 merchants (12.50%), 4 journeymen (25%), 5 unemployed (37.5%)

… REDACTED FOR BREVITY …

ATTENDED SCHOOL WITHIN THE YEAR
4 yes (25%), 12 no (75%)

CANNOT READ OR WRITE
3 illiterate (18.75%), 13 literate (81.25%)

DEAF & DUMB, BLIND, INSANE, IDIOTIC, PAUPER OR CONVICT
15 convicts (93.8%) - 8 murderers (53.3%), 4 rapers (26.6%), 3 burglars (20%) & 1 innocent (6.2%)

Tabulation results indicate one person more than expected was accounted for in the experiment. SCP-7067, allowing for this off-by-one error, was able to correctly tabulate the experimental subjects on all census questions.

Experiment-7067-02:

To better determine the state of SCP-7067-1, it was decided to visually inspect the inside of SCP-7067. To minimize damage to SCP-7067, a small hole was drilled where CT scans had previously indicated no machinery was present. A fiber optic cable with a camera was fed through to inspect inside.

SCP-7067-1's state of decay was confirmed to be unexpectedly mild for its projected age: skin has begun to slough off and pallor and livor mortis are apparent, but all other soft tissues are intact. When SCP-7067-1's eyes were examined, it was found the eyelids remain open and that the eyes followed the light of the cable. After the cable was retracted, SCP-7067 began ejecting tabulation results from its chute unprompted until its supply of paper had run out. All tabulations were identical:

NUMBER OF ENUMERATED: 1

DEAF & DUMB, BLIND, INSANE, IDIOTIC, PAUPER OR CONVICT: innocent innocent innocent innocent innocent innocent innocent innocent innocent innocent innocent innocent innocent innocent innocent innocent innocent innocent innocent innocent innocent innocent innocent innocent innocent innocent innocent innocent innocent innocent innocent innocent innocent innocent innocent innocent innocent

Experimentation was terminated and no further testing is scheduled.

Footnotes

1. The U.S. Marshal Service was responsible for taking the national census every decade up until 1870: local deputy marshals would travel from village to village to collect census data, which would be tabulated manually afterwards by workers called ‘enumerators’.