Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1903-11-06
INTELLIGENT MACHINES
Clever Electrical Devices Used fu tia
Work OF the Governments
Census once.

The most striking application OF ma,
chinery to the purposes of counting is IL
the electrical machines used in the cen
sus Office, writes c. X Wead, in st. Mich,
Olas. Last summer tens OF thousands o.
enumerators all over the country Wen
busy writing down on large sheets OF Pa
per the names Of all the people in liz
United States, their age, color, sex, place
OF birth, occupation. etc If the only
thing wanted were the number OF people
in the country, 1t would be enough to
count the names On all these sheets aud
aGd them together. But the census eX-
perts wished 10 find out perhaps thous
sand other things; as how many native
born white men there are aged %. -,
etc; how many fOreign-bcrn white mel
there are Of these ages; similarly Ter
women and co.Ored people; then there
are the questions of place of birth, cccu-
patton. etc, to be answered, as how many
Texans were born in Ohio. Now ina gine
that all the people in the United States
could march in a few months before a
thousand officials, each one of whGm
counted only the people of one particular
class or description, as white males,
white females. white carpenters, Italian
girls ten years old, negro farmers. etc.
then there would be obtained the various
facts for which the census is taken
The practical operation OF the census
gives the same results as this imaginary
operation. X Genes about Al this way
For each one of the az ,000, 900 people Of
the country a card little larger than a
postal card is prepared, containing all
the information on the enumerator-s
sheets except the name, a number being
used instead. This information Is ex-
pressed by punching holes in certain
places; thus a hole in one place means
white" another male" another ''35
years" another blacksmith" and so on
These millions Of punched cards rep
| resent one by one the individuals Of
the nation, and they may be passed be-
fore the eyes Of the supposed thousand
officials, each of whom is to note his
special facts. Going a step farther IN
simplifying the work. instead of the
official counters mechanical counters
may DE substituted, and instead OF try
ing to use a thousand at once a smaller
number may be used and the cards lie
gone over several times. The machine
will pick out the facts il is told 20 pick
out, and no others
The apparent intelligence ofsthe M
chine may be explained thus: when the
card is put into the machine some sc
! spring needles are brought down IL:
wherever there is a hole one needle
, goes through and down into a drop OF
mercury, and so closes an electric cir
cult and causes the pointer on a eoun-
ter to move forward one number
Thus as many of the items on the card
can be counted at once as the operator
finds desirable; then another card Is
put in the machine and the same items
are counted If they are on it. Besides
this, the machine can be arranged &c
count several items in combination. as
native-born white male doctors, and il is
! intelligent enough to ring a bell and
refuse to count if the card is not PVT
in properly, or is punched to read wild
over aged Ten years, woman aged u
| female blacksmith, or any other of
score of improbabilities or impossible
1 ties