The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-07-17 00:00:00

TAKING THE CENSUS.

The Times has a leader on the Bill for taking the Census,
which was moved by Lord Enfield in the House of Lords on
Monday evening, and from which we make the following
extracts :

Lord Enfield's explanations remind one that the
undertaking is no light one. It envolves the employ-
ment of an army of some 32,000 collectors or "enume-
rators," and 2,000 registrars. It requires' not merely
the services of the Registrar-General's department
but also of a host of ov,erseers, constables, and reliev-
ing officers. The mere operation of taking the census
will occupy only a day or two. It is proposed next
year to follow the course taken in 1871; that is, to
leave the papers with the householders on the night
of ScAurday, the 2nd of April, and to collect them
on Monday, the 4th April. When, however, the
" enumerators " have copied the schedules and
handed in their returns, the work has but begun. The
task of digesting and classifying the materials remains,
and it is arduous. The Registrar-General will pub-
lish a preliminary report by June of 1882. But the
entire work may not be completed until more than
two years have elapsed. In fact, the time spent in
preparing the Scotch and Irish final reports of 1871
was much longer, the former not having been published
until May of 1874 and the latter having appeared in
September of 1875. Some notion of the vastness of
the work is to be derived from the cost, which was
about £lOO,OOO in 1861, and which has grown by about
£20,000 on each occasion.
The chief difficulty in arranging a census is to
decide what is to be omitted in the inquiry. Parlia-
ment must turn a deaf ear to many advisers on
this subject. If some statisticians had their way,
every householder would be compelled, not merely
once in ten years, but once in five, or even three,
to answer a long string of searching questions.
There is no limit to a statistician's curiosity, and
this chance of gratifying his appetite for figures,
which comes among us only once in ten years, cannot
be resisted. He would ply the unhappy householder
with questions as to education, religion, as to
whether he had married a cousin or a deceased
wife's sister, as to politics, amusements, and wages.
He would thoroughly cross-examine every audit, and
set the whole kingdom to work for several hours fill-
ing up schedules. He would desire the collectors to
obtain nothing less than a concise but exhaustive bio-
graphy of each person residing within their districts,
and he would not mind in the least whether his victims
objected to being thus interrogated or resented the
questions put to them as impertinent intrusions. In-
formation reluctantly given would be sure, he would
explain, to be the most interesting. It is obvious
that a national census must be conducted accord-
ing to principles different from those which might
please an irresponsible and ravenous statistician.
We must be content to ask little if anything is
to be answered accurately. Fines of £5 imposed
on ?bstructrve.s who refuse to give information will be
of little avail in procuring trustworthy returns if the
questions are in themselves offensive or too minute.
Some countries, such as G-ermany and Spain, submit
to a census every three years; others such as France
and Italy, resort to it once in every five years. But
Englishmen resent minute or repeated prying into
their affairs, and, looking to national habits, a decen-
nial census has been thoughti sufficient. From a some-
what similar reason t has been found advisable to
leave out all questionsi with respect to religious per-
suasions. Objection is taken, especially by Nonconform-
ists, to inquiries beinc made in the schedule papers as to
this point. They say that many of them still keep up
a dm, imperfect connexion with the Church of
England; that some of them resort to her ministra-
tions on the occasion of births, deaths, or marriages,
though they usually go to chapel; and that persons
who are really of no religion would generally return
themselves as Churchmen. The matter has been dis-
cussed a dozen times in Parliament and in the assem-
blies of most religious bodies, and it has always been
strongly contended that the result of a denominational
census would be to convey a false impression respect-
ing the relative numbers of Churchmen and Dissenters.
The attempt made in 1851 to procure a religious census
is not encouraging. Returns were obtained from all
registered places of worship of the persons present at
each of them on a specified Sunday. Never did
figures give more offence and for more diverse
reasons

The particulars which householders will be required
to give will relate, as in other years. to the names,
sex, age, rank, profession or occupation, condition as
to marriage, relation to the head ef the family, and
the birthplace of the inmates of his house, and as to
whether any of them are blind, deaf, or dumb, im-
becile, idiots, or lunatics. This is meagre information,
no doubt. A physician would desire to possess full
details as to the health of each person. An economist
would be curious to obtain returns which would help
to verify hypothetical calculations as to the aggregate
income of the wage-receiving classes'. It would be
interesting and instructive to get, as a Committee of
the Statistical Society has recommended, information
as to the number of rooms in each house, with a view
to elucidate the operatip of sanitary laws; and
we can imagine light being thrown on problems of
taxation by discriminati i
ng n the returns between
dwelling-houses and those used for stores, warehouses
offices &c., and also between dwelling houses
which are actually oceupied and those which
are to be let or are being built. But we fear that it
will be impossible to procure by house-to-house visit-
ing much more than the particulars hitherto obtained,
and, indeed, we may be thankful if these are collected
with intelligence. We must look elsewhere for
the information which the census does not furnish.
The Education Committee, the Board of Trade,
the Local Government Board, and other public de-
partments, and our great railways and banks, will
help to fill up the gap. In the meantime it is well 0
improve the details of the census while keeping it
within its limits; and too much care cannot be taken
in regard to the column for employments. This por-
tion of the enumeration has always been open to just
suspicion. Obvious mistakes lurked in it, and some
returns, such as that which stated the number of land-
Owners, n
instructionser as o filling s gavertisetlg p the papers to profound
pmisecros shouldncepti lave n
misconceptions. The
one in doubt as to what ought to be put in the column
of employments. • . •

In the current number of the "Fortnightly Review"
there- is an -article on American railways, in which it is
stated that, in Dakota, wheat is cultivated on an enormous
scale in some fields, the vastness of which may be estimated
from the fact that each single furrow of the plough takes a
day to run without once turning. From these huge fertile
tracts of course the wheat is brought in millions of bushels,
and from the time it is planted until the time it is made into
bread in the great towns, no manual labour except that
neNled to direct machinery has been engaged in its produe,
tiom