New Britain herald. [microfilm reel] (New Britain, Conn.) 1890-1976, 1917-07-19
The Method for the Drawing.


The Method for the Drawing.
In each group every registration
card has a red-inked number written
on its face and these numbers run in
a single series from unity CD to the
= number corresponding to the great
Vest number of cards, in the group.
Normally this is from unity Cd to
about 5000.
Exact copies of the cards in each
group have been attached and sent
to the various state capitols. Lists
showing the names of each man in
each group and the serial number Of
his card have been posted in the Office
of the board published in the press
and one copy is on file in Washington
There is, therefore, no chance of any
mans number being changed without
detection, or of any card being lost
beyond replacement.
Idea of Central Drawing.
Suppose there were just 5000
names and numbers in every group. 1t
is at once apparent that it would be a
very simple thing to have a central
drawing that would control the or
der of every name and number in
every group of the whole 100000
and draw them out one at a time.
The first number drawn out would
place the 4,557 cards bearing that
particular number at the head of
every list in the United States The
second number drawn would put the
cards bearing that number second on
all the lists, and so forth.
Nov, the thing cannot be done in
precisely this way, because there are
not precisely 5000 numbers in every
group. But the same idea with a
few necessary notifications is the
idea on which the present drawing Is
based.
Drawing BY Thousands.
ITO draw 10000 separate numbers
would take ten hours and would null
tiply the chance of error. Moreover,
if the nine-tho usands, the eight thou
sands, the seven thousands and the
six-thousands were scattered all over
the master list indiscriminately the
cancellation by boards having small
groups would be very tedious and
would open the way to numerous err
rors. All this is easily avoided.
suppose we drew only 1000 num-
bers. We could then provide that the
drawing of the number 1878, 2S78,
1878, 4S7S, 5S7S, 6S7S, 1878, SS7S and
9S79.
In that way only 1000 numbers
need be drawn and by making our
master list consist of one sheet for
each 1000 we could provide a master
list easily applicable to lists with only
5000 numbers, since such boards
could disregard all except the first
three sheets.
1--WE should do this but for the
men in the first thousand would be
called first, men in the second thou
sand next. and men with high serial
numbers last of all.
"Since the assignment of numbers
is also done by chance, this does not
interfere very greatly with the even
chance of all men, but it does inter-
fere to some extent. For this reason
1T was decided to have one drawing
to determine the order within any
group of 1000 and another drawing
to determine the order in which the
sheets of 1000 each should appear on
the master list. instead of arbitrarily
assigning the sheets of 1000 in their
natural order. This reduces the whole
matter to an absolute equality of
chance
Details Of the Drawing.
cone group of numbers from 1 to
I 900 and a second group from naught
to ten. have been carefully imprinted
on Opaque slips of paper, black on one
side, counted and checked. These
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