The Sun.
London, England, 1860-11-14 00:00:00

THE CENSUS OF 1861.

The Census will be taken by two distinct departmental
under the powers conferred by this act of Parliament,
the one applying exclusively to Ireland, the other being
applicable to England, Wales, and Scotland ; the islands
in the British Seas through the medium of the Home Office
and the English Central Office. The machinery by which
the objects will be obtained in England and Wales is basedi
upon the subdivision of the country, as introduced by thei
Poor Law and Registration Acts. There are 624 registra-
tion districts,each having a superintendent registrar, which.
districts will be divided into about 2,190 sub-districts, each
having a local registrar of births and deaths. These sub-
districts will be for the purposes of the Census again
divided into about 32,000 enumeration districts, each hav-
ing one enumerator, who will be required to complete
his enumeration in one day. Public institutions, such as
workhouses, prisons, asylums, hospitals, &c., containing
above 200 inmates will be visited by the Master, Gover-
nor, or head of the establishment, and those containing
less than 200 will be visited in the usual way by the enu•
merator. In this manner the whole surface of the country
will be divided into suitable districts. Provision will be
made for obtaining an account of all persons residing on
land, as well as of persons on board of vessels in harbours
and navigable rivers, through the ships of the Royal navy
and the Admiralty, and, all other vessels through the offi-
cers of the Customs. The first proceeding of the enumera-
tors will be to deliver, in the course of the week preceding
the Ist of April, 1861, to every occupier of a house or tene-
ment a "householder's schedule." The schedule will be
the form which every occupier will be required to fill up
with correct particulars concerning the name, relation to
head of family, condition, sex, age, occupation, birthplace,
&c., of every person who abode and slept in the house en
the 31st of March, 1861, distinguishing how many of them
are blind or deaf and dumb. For the use of the poorer
native population of Wales a certain number will be
printed in the language of that country. On the lst of
April, 1861, the enumerators will visit every dwelling-
house and collect the schedules which they had left. It
then will be their duty to see that the schedules have been
properly ascer
ontai by inquirynthat no per-
son who filledabod ue
inand
the to
house the previous
vious night has
been omitted, and that no person then absent was
included. The process of the enumerator being
completed by the collection of the scheduled, the enu-
merator will then copy the same into a book, and make a
total of the number of persons, houses, &c., and then for-
ward them to the registrar by whom he was instructed. An
examination and revision of the documents will then be
made by the registrar, and subsequently by the superin-
tendent registrars, after which the returns will be trans-
mitted to the Census-office in London, there to undergo a
final
revision.
In Scotland the Census will be taken
through the agency of the sheriffs of counties, their depu-
ties, and the provosts, and other chief magistrates of
burghs, by whom the enumerators will be appointed. This
requires the service of about 1,000 dividers or superinten-
dents and of 8,000 enumerators, who proceed in the same
manner as in England and Wales. In addition to this the
number of seamen abroad or at sea in her Majesty's service,
or in British merchant vessels, are obtained by the Regi-
stration-office of Merchant Seamen and the Admiralty ;
of the army, from the Commander-in.-Chief, and the
Europeans in the East India Company's service ; and
of British subjects residing in various foreign.
States, by the Foreign-office. Within three months after
the taking of the census all the householders' schedules,
amounting to between 4,000,000 and 5,000,000 distinct re-
turns, with the enumerators' books, will have been received
at the Census-office, and in June or July following a state-
ment of the gross population and number of houses, with
the distribution of the people, &c., will be communicated to
her Majesty's Secretary of State for the Home Depart-
ment, who will immediately give publicity to it. Some
faint idea of the labour that will be incurred in taking the
census of 1861 may be formed from the fact that in 1851
there were 30,610 enumerators, independent of the 2,190
local registrars and superintendent registrars employed in
the revision and examination of more than 20,000,000 eat-
tries, contained on upwards of 1,250,000 pages, and the
weight of the paper used by the enumerators for schedules
and books in Great Britain exceeded 52 tons.

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