The herald., 1895-04-15
4 H iItEHH AH Nd NOVEL NOVEL CENSUS CENSUS
Data as to Religious Beliefs to
Be Secured
THE CITY TO BE CANVASSED
Believers and Non.BeIievers Are All to
Be Listed
The Los Angeles Sunday Union Decides
to Compile Religious Census
of the City
THE CITY TO BE CANVASSED

census Of the city OF Los Angeles for
the purpose of ascertaining who are
Christians and believers in the Christian
religion is about to be taken under the
auspices of the Sunday School union of
this city.
The proposition is novel and unu Usual
one and the task is one of considerable
magnitude. 1t is admitted that there are
$4,000 people in this city and it will be
neither an easy nor pleasant task to
find out who the believers are and who
are scoffers.
The idea though is to make a house to
house canvass of Los Angeles and ascer
tain whether or not the citizen attends
church. If he does he will be asked to tell
what church he attends and what partic-
ular faith or creed he is believer in.
This will be a veritable religious CEN
sus OF the city and the information thus
CLEANED will, so the officers of the Sunday
School union opine. be valuable for flu
ture religious work to be done in this
field.
The Sunday School union includes rep
resentatives of every local Sunday school,
either mi sion or otherwise. 1t has been
decided that this census shall be taken
in one day.
The entire work will be proceeded
with Systematically. In the first place the
city will be divided up into census dis
trlcts by the committee of the Sunday
School union having the work in charge.
Then each Sunday school will be assigned
a certain district in which it will be ex
pected to secure the desired data. The
Sunday shcool is then to appoint com
mittee to canvass the district assigned
to it,
AS soon as all CT the committees are ap-
pointed in the various Sunday schools the
districts will be assigned and the day will
be named to take the census. The terri
tory will be SO subdivided that it will not
be hard for one person 10 get all the facts
expected of him or her from the residents
in the district he is expected to cover in
side of ten hours.
The individual census takers will report
to the Sunday school from which they
were appointed. Then the returns for
the district assigned to that school will be
compiled and when completed they will
he sent in to the central organization, the
Sunday School union.
Yesterday in many Sunday schools
throughout the city the subject was
brought up by the superintendent just be-
fore the close OF the exercises. In some
instances committees were appointed to
do the census work, and in others the
matter of appointing the committee was
left to the supeIintendch The officers of
the union are very DESTROYS of having all
committees appointed before they assign
districts and announce the official day Tor
work to commence.
This task will be an unpleasant one in
many ways. There are some people.
when approached upon ordinary subjects.
are quite agreeable. but asked by u
stranger as to their religion are quick to
take offense. They may regard the inter-
rogation as impudent and reply accord
ingly. OF course there are not many who
will take this view of the effort that is be-
ing made by the Sunday schools of the
city to tabulate some interesting statistics,
still there are enough who will to make
the job Of census taker unpopular. The |
further fact that no monetary considera-
ton attaches to the labor will not tend to
make volun teers for the work numerous.
A religious census has never before been /
taken in this city and when the an I
nouncement of it was first made it was
thought by some that there was purpose
in securing the facts not apparent on the
surface This is, however, Indignantly |
denied by the officers of the Sabbath
School union They assert positively that
the only purpose or the census is to Sc
cure data upon which to push systematic
Christian work without regard to creed
or faith. They admit that the census
will show the number OF believers in the
Catholic faith in the city and the number
If Protestant believers. But the story
that the information gained will be used
by any society other til IN a strictly re-
igious one they Indignantly deny.
The work of taking the census will not
until after the Fiesta, but once
t is started it will be finished rapidly.