Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1890-05-28


Eyes. but can't you remember when
it was born?
"'Well, it was just after Tom was sent
up
"'How long was he imp I say, jumping
at the cIew
"'Five years
"'And when did he get out?'
LAST Christmas
"'Then the child's almost skip
tsI guess so.'
"'And how old's your husbandP
"' dunno
"'Think now; did you never hear him
say@
"'Well, heard him say once he was
born in the year of the big wind in Ire
land
''More people in this generation were
born during, or after, or just before the
big wind in Ireland than in any ten
years before or since, 1 believe, but l
persevere.
"'Is he older than you?'
"sSure.'
"'How much@
Not much
"'How old are you?' .
"1t's none of your business, young
man; don't be askin' imperint questions
"'But must know. ma'am. If don't
ask you I'll be fined myself, and If you
don't answer you'll be fned.'
"'Well. I'm thirty-nine.'
''It's truly wonderful how many wom-
en- there are who are either nineteen, or
twenty-nine, or thirty-nine, or forty
nine. Do they hate to acknowledge that
they have at last left the decade In
which they have tarried for ten or If
teen years or is there an amazing but
hitherto unnoticed decrease In the birth
of girl babies one year out of every ten?
Still hold my peace and put down this
woman as thirty-nine, though she Is
forty-f1ve If she's day, and 1 put down
her man, who is not much older, as forty
two. This is about as near as you can
come with these people, and the woman
has done as we'll as the average in the
way of being willing to tell the little
she really knows.
"But then there is another class Of
! questions that generally causes more
trouble than the ages, because the peo-
pie are generally quite unwilling to tell
| the truth with respect to them. These
are the questions about the dependent,
defective and delinquent classes, as the
| last census sheets tabulated them. 1t
takes some gall to ask big, fiery wo-
nam, whom you have been pestering for
quarter of an hour about her age, If any
of her family are idiots, or deformed, or
criminals, and if SO, how many and what
are their special forms of disease or ras-
cality. Only hardened book agent,
| life-inSurance canvaSser or lightning
rod peddler can do it every time with
out quailing or minding the shower of
indignant abuse that comes thickest
and fastest from a mother who really
has a weak-minded son, or a hump
backed daughter, or jail-bird husband.
/ fancy that we get correct answers
in the affirmative to these questions
about once in fifty or so.
"But great deal depends on how you
put the question. Only greenhorn
would say: ANY of you crazy?' Your
expert book-agent says: All their minds
correct? Speech all right? Can every
body see? Is the hearing perfect with
all of your l tell you tact is what an
enumerator chiefly needs if he is going
to get through his work quick enough
to make any money out of it. It's no
soft snap. The temptation to sit down
and fill in the blanks, to the best of your
own Judgment sooner than spend half
an hour with an abusive and ignorant
family, is almost irresistible at times,
yet a heavy penalty attaches to such
work, and justly, too.
"At the last census many men applied
for the place of enumerator, thinking 1t
picnic, but when they received their
books and instructions and began to
grasp the size Of the job, they resigned
In large numbers. This year, to guard
against any such monkey business, an
enumerator who accepts his appoint
ment and then backs out without giving
satisfactory reason to the superinten-
dent, may be fined and imprisoned.
"The city is 80 divided that each
enumerator is supposed to have about
two thousand individuals to INQUIRE
about. But he often finds that his dis
trict is much more thickly populated
than he supposed. 1 remember last
time / got into room In wretched
house where four families dwelt to0eth-
er. The room was partitioned of into
four rectangles, but not in the usual way,
with wooden walls, but by chalk lines
on the floor.
CHOW do you all manage to live in
such crowded quarters?' asked, logged
out of my routine questions by their un-
usually sardine-like arrangement.
''Oh, we'd get on well enough growled
one man, If them Joneses wouldn't per-
sist in keepin' boarders. IN. Y. Trib-
une.
When some people set about writing