The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-05-12
LODGING THE CENSUS MAN.
Englishwomen Resort to Any Trick or Trouble Rather Than Tell
 Their Ages.

London Mail
 If the average man mildly resents the cersus. the average woman positively abhors 1t. The filling in of the sched- ule involves the revealing of her age! That is all.
 The law requires that the age as well as the other particulars shall be .acou- rately stated on pain of penalties dark ly hinted at. Most men, being more courageous and less squeamish in such matters, would if so disposed, knock half a score of year off their age with out a blush. It is different with the fair ones. A government document, even if it come in the questionable guise of a census schedule, fills them with much awe that to write a false statement on it would be almost akin to sacrilege.
 "Fibbing" being, therefore, out of the question, the woman who declines to give her age has recourse to one or the other of several purely feminine plans for avoiding the census altogether. The formation of "all night cycling clubs" may be expected in suburban and ru- ral districts.
 An institution. of this kind consists of ladies living in a particular neigh borhood who are opposed to giving their age, and who have bicycles, meet ing at a given rendezvous few min utes before midnight on the day of the census and going long rides to the homes of relatives or friends. They are careful to make no call before the clock has struck 12, and are, therefore, residents of nowhere at the time the law stipulates.
 Until about noon they remain under no roof long enough to be described
 nd Ghn11ld the anunnAr- ator call while they are present they make painful efforts to appear as if they had just looked in casually. All this trouble seems out of proportion to the object in view, but authenti- cated cases show that some women cheerfully suffer the greatest inconve- nience rather than confide their age to the census people.
 In the 1891 census, spinster resident in a Northern village sat all night in a cold and drausflty railway station so as to escape making the objectionable declaration. The lady in question was we'll known to the villagers, the fair ones of whom suspected that she was older than she represented, herself to be-viz, 27. The census, they thought, would settle the point once and for all. They would talk pleasantly to the enumerator after he had collected her schedule and try to wheedle out of him the correct figures.
 "In my district in 1S91' says a Lon don enumerator, T heard of three la dies walking about all night HSlder the impression that if they were not under their own roofs as the clock struck l2 they would escape filling in the sched- ule and incidentally stating their age. The ladies lived within stones throw of one another. Being nervous, they dared not go far afield, and walked to and fro past their own homes. They were thus foolishly perambulating up and down when one of the ladies sus- pected that she saw light in teh base ment of her home and a dark figure walking stealthily about.
 They were agreed that it was a burglar. and pluckily determined to put a stop to his depredations. Entering the house in a body they locked them selves in the darwing room and began to noisly move the furniture about with the idea of soaring off the burglar below. Presently a vigorous knock sounded against the dor, and a gruff voice said. I've got you, my man. You d better submit quietly. for I'm armed" It was the lady's father.
 Having discovered an escape of gas In his bedrom he had come down stairs to turn off the meter. The burgler' was thus engaged when the noise in the drawing room overhead convinced him that the house was being broken into. Mutual explanations followed. and in the mdist of the conversation the ladies. suddenly stopped, exchanged despair ing glances, and one of them actually wept. The church clock across the road was striking 12.
 T got them all," added the enumera- tor, with grim satisfaction, and two of them were scheduled as guests"