Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1888-05-31
CHINESE POPULATION.

No Means of Arriving at the Number
OF Inhabitants OF the Empire, Ex-
cept by Guess-work.
The last two meetings of the Pekin
Oriental society may be considered to
have snnihilated the last vestige of cred
| IL which attached to Chinese statistics
of population, says The Chinese Times
published at Tientsin.) The supporters
of the accuracy of those records select
ed their own field their own time; the
field was eminently favorable as being
near the very center of authority; yet
with all these advantages the best case
that could be made out for the official
returns was hopelessly pulver zed in
the first instance by the caref nj and
measured criticisms of Mr.. Bullock,
and in the second by spirited and
meroiless expose of Mr.. Jordan. The
result is agreeable to common sense;
! it is hard to understand how any SER
ious person could attach weight to otli-
cial statements which rested on so un-
real basis. The archaic interest OF
statistics which in one form or another
have been handed down from very an =
cent times is quite different matter
from their accuracy. 1t is, in fact the
same in kind as the archaic interest in
flint arrowheads, or tho Ptolemaic sys-
tenn of tho heavens.
No one, foreigner or Chinese. can tell
within a few hundred thousands what
is the population of such places as Pc
kin or Tientsin. A high official. born
and living nearly all his life in the cap.
ital. told II foreign friend quite serious
w that there were 3. 900, 900 families in
Pekin. No foreigner accustomed TO COM
pare great cities would allow so much as
half million souls for the population
of that city. and most good judges put
1t considerably below that figure. IL is
doubtful whether the population Of the
smallest town or village in the empire
is accurately ascertained. and yet, when
the whole OF these unknown quantities
are thrown together and mixed up with
deserts and mountains, fertile plains
and desolate lagoons. and spread over
an immense territory the very geo.
graphy of which is imperfectly known.
then forsooth, we are supplied with most
precise figures which profess to tell us
the population of the empire to n unit!
There is not apparently anv means of
arriving at the population OF China, eX-
cept by actual inspection and such
rough guesses as may be based thereon.
Travellers with good powers observation
accustomed to the study of other
countries whose population is known.
especially British India, may form esti-
mates of the population OF certain dis
triets, and, from the area which would
in course of time get to be known by
this method, est mates more or less wi d
might be made as TO the rest But
those who would contribute to this
primitive process of census taking
must begin at the beginning, establish
ing their data on ever so small scale
so long as they make sure of the accur-
acy of their unit. knowledge must
proceed from the center outward, not
from the circumference inward, and OF
all knowledge derived from the inverted
order we have right to be ''vehemert-
ly suspicious"
We have heard that Il foreigner living
in or near Foochow has actually under
taken laboriOuS task of counting the
inhabitants OF that large city. He h rs
already spent some years on the work.
and good many more years must
elapse before his task is accomplish cd.
But, when it is. We shall have Il
pretty fair notion of the populousness OF
at least one city in China. Were the
example of this rigid scientist to be fol
lowed by n fair proportion of the foreign
ers, who are now scattered over the
eighteen provinces, we should, in course
of ten years have some reasonable data
on which TO speculate on the population
of the empire, worth more than all the
records Of the board of revenue. which,
indeed, so far as the numbering of the
people is concerned. have had their
worse than worthlessness completely
demonstrated.