The Bourbon news. [volume] (Paris, Ky.) 1895-19??, 1903-11-03
SKILLFUL MACHINES.
Electrical Devices That Act in an
Intelligent Manner.
Used in the Government Census Office
to Simplify the Work of Emu
northumberland of
Operation.

The most striking application Of ma
chinery to the purposes of counting is In
the electrical machines used in the CEN
olas. Last summer tens of thousands Of
enumerators all over the country were
busy writing down on large sheets OF pa
per the names of all the people in the
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 and
add them together. But the census ex-
perts wished to find out perhaps thou
sand other things; as how many native
born white men there are aged 20, rs,
ETC.; how many foreign-born white men
there are of these ages; similarly for
women and colored people; then there
are the questions of place of birth, occu-
patton, etc., to be answered, as how many
Texans were born in Ohio. Now imagine
that all the people in the United States
could march in few months before
thousand officials, each one of whom
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. 1t comes about in this way:
For each one of the 100000 people of
the country card little larger than a
postal card is prepared containing all
the information on the enumerator's
sheets except the name, number being
used instead. This information is ex-
pressed by punching holes in certain
places; thus 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
special facts. Going a step farther in
simplifying the work. instead OF the
official counters mechanical counters
may be substituted, and instead of try
ing to use thousand at once smaller
number may be used and the cards be
gone over several times. The machine
viii pick out the facts 1t is told to pick
out, and NO others.
The apparent intelligence of the ma
chine may be explained thus: when the
card is put into the machine some $50
spring needles are brought down on it;
wherever there is a hole one needle
goes through and down into drop Of
mercury. and so closes an electric cir
cult and causes the pointer on cOun-
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 to
count several items in combination. as
native-born white male doctors, and 1t is
intelligent enough to ring a bell and
refuse to count if the card is not put
in properly, or is punched to read wild
over aged len years. woman aged II,
female blacksmith, or any other of
score of improbabilities or impossible
ties.