Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-05-04

ton schedule relate to another important
inquiry, which q recent law passed BY
congress demands the superintendent to
make, and which is intended to ascertain
how many persons in the United States
own homes and their farms, and how
many rent their homes or are tenant
farmers. Also, to find out if these
farms are free from mortgage incum-
Drances, or, If mortgaged, the amount
of the mortgage. The enumerator will
not be called upon to ask the head of the
family, or whoever may give him the in
formation when he calls, the amount of
the mortgage debt, but he will simply
take down the address of the person and
the Information required by law will be
subsequently ascertained by correspond
ence, circular and by the aid of special
agents, who will be required TO visit the
houses of such persons who fail to give
this information to the census office.
1t will thus be seen that the population
schedule will require great deal of care
in filling out, and that the enumerstor
must not only be quick and accurate IN
his penmanship, but a man of intelli-
gence and courtesy to ask all these ques-
tions in q manner that will not be often
sive to the people and will elicit prompt
and correct replies. After each days
work, the enumerator is required to fill
out two postal cards, stating the exact
number of persons enumerated during
the day, and forward these cards, one to
the supervisor of his district and the
other 20 the superintendent OF census at
Washington. IN this way an absolute
check is kept on the work, and the CEN
sus office is able to tell exactly how far
the work is progressing.
The law requires that the population
shall be all counted IN fifteen days in
cities and in thirty days IN country dis
tricts. Having enumerated his district
and assorted his special schedules, cor
rected as far as possible the main sohed-
ule, the enumerator must forward them
to the supervisor, who, after examining
and approving them, packs them in q
large box and sends them to Washington.
On receipt in Washington what is known
as the Trough count is made. That IS
count which makes no classification,
but simply ascertains the number of per-
sons enumerated on each schedule.
Hence, as soon as all the schedules are
received it will be possible to give q
rough count of the population.
Few who have never been inside of q
census office have any idea of the labor
necessary even TO make a rough count,
to say nothing of the classification of the
population into all the different groups
required by the census law. BY the, va
rious methods heretofore employed the
returns have either been gone over and
over, tallying out first one set of facts
and then another set of facts, by making
little tally marks in squares or sheets of
Al
gregating these tally marks; or else the
returns have been transcribed to cards
by writing, and then these cards first
sorted by hand according to one scheme,
and then counted and then sorted &C
cording to another scheme and then
counted, and so on until finally ell the
desired data are obtained.
The eleventh census will be counted by
the aid of electricity. At first this seems
rather startling statement, but If any
of my readers would only come to the
census office and see the electrical count
ing and sorting machines now at work on
some of the special data, the lining would
be made clear TO them at once.
Now you will see that the enumerators
have furnished the census office with
quite a complete description of every
person living IN the United States, but
these records are not in a convenient
form for counting or tabulating. We,
therefore, first prepare card for each
person, on which we record the different
facts regarding that person with a
machine something like a typewriter,
only that instead of printing letters
or figures these machines punch round
holes. If the given person was a male
hole was opened in one place, while If
a female hole is punched in another
place. the position of the different holes
thus completely describing the person.
In this way the census Office will have q
card for every person in the United
States. A card with given number
printed on 1t will represent you, and the
little holes placed in this card will tell
how old you are, where you were born,
where your father was born, where your
mother was born, whether you could
read,, whether you could write, and so
on. These cords will be about the size
of postal cards, and if stacked in one
pile would make column over ten miles
high, and will weigh fully $50 tons.
The census Office will have to know how
many boys there arc ten years old, how
many eleven years, how many under
twelve years and so on and the same for
the girls. Again it must know how many
could read, how many could write, how
many were born in New York, how many
in Pennsylvania. and many other things.
To obtain this information from these
punched record cards, we use the cleo
trical tabulating machines. You see it
would be impossible to make machine
which could read writing or printing, but
our little typewriters punch holes instead,
and such holes can easily be read by a
machine. This is done as follows: The
cards are laid one by one in ma
chine something like printing
press, only, instead of type, little
needles or points are brought against the
cards so that where there is hole in the
card the little pointer goes through and
touches a drop of quicksilver, below
which closes an electric circuit, or tele-
graphs to q little counter or register.
These counters look very much like
clocks, but instead of the works of
clock we have an electro magnet so ar
ranged that when an electric circuit is
closed through it, 1t moves the hand
ahead one point. As the cards are rapid
" passed through the machine, they first
telegraph to one counter and then an
other, according, for example. as they
represent boys or girls; some other count
ers will at the same time count how many
eouId raad and how MANY could mot and