The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-12-11 00:00:00

THE GERMAN CENSUS.

On December 1 the census of the whole popula-
tion of the German Empire was taken. This is
the third census, the first having been taken in
1871, the second in 1875. The whole work has been
done gratuitously, every head of a family filling LID a
card for each member of the household, and the Col-
lection of these cards being likewise performed
gratuitously by certain citizens in each district, so,
it is supposed, saving the Government £loo,ooo.—The
census gives Berlin 1,118,630 inhabitants. On Ist
December, 1875, Berlin had 964,240, which shows a
considerable increase during the past five years.

In remarking upon the great number of questions to be
answered, the Evening Standard remarks :

It will be remembered that when the late Artemus
Ward gave his idea as to what a census paper ought
really to ask, he thought it well to make the house-
holder declare on oath "whether he had the measles,
and, if so, how many ?" with other inquiries of similar
weight and purport. The German authorities have,
to all appearance, been studying the great Showman's
works; and, though they do not exactly follow the
suggestions therein contained, they ask a number of
questions which are of about equal practical value
with those which he suggests. It is no wonder that
the correspondent of a contemporary, fresh from the
exhausting task of writing up his form, should have
been reminded of the humorist's famous questions.
Every householder in Berlin has been directed
to fill up some half-dozen closely printed forms,
containing over two hundred questions. Name,
nationality, age, of course, head the list; and then the
perplexed householder is desired to state without
equivocation or reserve how many rooms he has fitted
with stoves, and how many without; also the number
of windows in the house, how many look on the street
and on the yard or garden, with other queries of the
same importance. It is no light task for a man with
a large haulm to count all these little items, and there

is the gravest reason to fear that some German stoves
will be left uncounted, and many windows, if they are
not omitted altogether, described as looking on to a
yard when in reality they look into a side-street.
Very often a window may look on to a yard
and on to a street as well, and what will happen
to the luckless householder who finds when his returns
are checked, that the police official differs from him
as to the aspect of the window? There may
possibly be some wise reason in the demand for these
returns, but what this reason can be is a mystery.

In noticing the increase of population in Berlin, the
Stoulard remarks :

"The increase of population of the City of Berlin
is altogether unparalleled in the history of capitals.
In 1860 its population was five hundred and twenty-
eight thousand nine hundred; while according to the
Census taken on Wednesday last, it now contains
one million one hundred and eighteen thousand
six hundred and thirty, an increase of more than
twofold in twenty years. Rapid as has been the
growth of American towns, it is questionable
whether anything equal to, this could be shown
across the Atlantic. There are towns, indeed,
which in a similar time have sprung from ten
inhabitants to a hundred thousand, but not one, we
think, which has grown from half a million to a
million. This increase in the size of Berlin is the
more singular inasmuch as Berlin possesses no natural
advantages whatever. It is not a port, or a great
centre of trade, or a great manufacturing city. It is
not, like Chic..-go, the point at which products of an
immense extent of countrSf -ccincentrate ; it does
not owe its greatness, as do some of our manufac-
turing towns, to the neighbourhood of vast natural
treasures of coal or iron. "IF lies in a flat, ugly
country, and its river is only a stream of the third
class. Berlin owes its increase to the immense
though temporary prosperity induced by a plethora
of money after the wave of conquest on the crest of
which the Germans swept through France. People
flocked there frem the provinces after the war because
they believed—as people in rural districts once be-
lieved of London—that the streets were almost paved
with gold. For a time all went well; speculation of
every kind was rampant; building operations afforded
employment to immense hosts of labourers; factories
sprang up, and immigrants flocked in. The reaction
came in due time, and it is probable that for years
past the position of the average working man at
Berlin has been worse than that of his confrere in any
other capital in Europe, with the exception of St.
Petersburg. Hence that• spirit of discontent and
Socialism has arisen which Prince Bismarck has tried
so hard, but so vainly to crush. It is probable that
Berlin would be better off than she is now could the
population be reduced from its present total to that at
which it stood twenty years since."