Norwich bulletin., 1921-11-01
ODD INCIDENTS N AMERICAN
 HISTORY
TAKING THE FIRST CENSUS.

The taking of the census of our co0n- try every ten years has grown to be an enormous task Each new census has added new features, until it requires a small army to accomplish the task. and | very heavy expense upon the govern | ment. but the result compensates for the i effort
 When the fran?ers of the constitution decided that population should be the bass of representation in the lower house of congress, provisions for 8. systematic national enumeration of the people of this country, became necessity. The constitution ordered that this enumera- ton should be made within three years after the first meeting Of the first con gress and within every subsequent term of ten years in such manner as congress should direct. Political necessity thus forced upon the new republic the first national census of modern times.
 Among the ancient peoples it is record ed that Moses numbered the tribes in the wilderness and that Satan provoked David to number Israel The word cen sus" comes from Rome, where long be- fore the Christian era citizens and their property were registered for purposes Of taxation,
 h England, William the Cenqueror, to make more certain the collection of his revenues, ordered a general survey of his 1 new kingdom, the results of which were embo1ies in the "Domesday Book" But l the first census of the United States taken in f79o. and having for it's primary I aim the distribution of political rights 1 instead of the Ievying of taxes. was the l first national census of modern times. l The taking of the first census in 1790 l was under the supervision of President 1 Washington. The work was delegated to 1 the secretary of state. at that time l Thomas Jefferson. Until the act of 1850, l consigning the work to the department of the interior, the department of state con- | tinued in charge. The first six censuses
 were ali. excepting minor modiGcationS taken in conformity with the act of con gress passed March 1. 1790
 The task allotted to Jefferson was 9 difficult one, as he had no precedents in
 the history of his own or other modern
 nations to guide him. He may have cor
 responded with the state governors an6
 the United States marshals as to the
 best methods of procedure, but, if so tht
 correspondence, like part of the sched
 uies of 1790, was destroyed when the
 British occupied Washington in 1912
 Some of our own legislators have been a!
 vandalistic in intention as the British In 1902. when the census office was mad
 permanent, the house of representative
 ordered the destruction of the schedule
 of the early censuses. Fortunately tn
 senate was at that moment less incono clasticaIly minded and refused to concu
 in the suggestion. Since then the directo of the census has. in obedience to an ac of congress, published in permanent forn the names of the heads of families re ; turned at the first census. The list 1 necessarily incomplete, as the schedule of Delaware, Georgia Kentucky. NeN ! Jersey, Tennessee and Virginia are miss 7 | ing
 The act of 17se made it the duty of tn l | marshals of the United States courts i ] | the several judicial districts to take tn 1 enumeration, appointing as many assis l | ants as they should deem necessary. Sex enteen nlarshals and comparativel f small number of assistants perhaps 60 7 were enough to canvass the country the a included in an area of 800,000 squal miles. The government seems to haN n specified the facts desired, all included
 one schedule and bearing on one subjec n the population, but it supplied no blank - Hence the schedules which have m 3t been destroyed, and which are kept - volumes of varying size, shape, pap ? l and ruling far removed. show many VI T. garies of size from the neat uniformi Il Il of the schedules issued in later years Al the census office. An enumerator of u a 1799 census in North Carolina used > piece of wallpaper to inclose his return
 and in the second census portion of tl
 Edenton Gazette, bearing an essay y Benjamin Franklin on methods of relic n ing insomnia. was used as a cover i d one of the sch edules.
 l. The results of the enumeration we ol transmitted to congress by Preside e- Washington Oct. 27. 1791, in small le port containing 56 printed pages. y showed a popuIation of S.92S,214. It e e. the government s44,377 to learn tn K with one representative for every g, O s. people, its lower house was composed tn 105 legislators.
 ne There were but F states in the uni or at the time of the act of 1790, governi he the manner of taking the census, W IT, passed, but the first enumeration inclu
 ed two which came in later. Rhode Isla
 and Vermont. The 1790 schedules s ~ in existence are those of Connectic .,I Maine New Hampshire, North Carolil All Rhode Island, Maryland, Massachuset :. New York. Pennsylvania. South Carroll U Uoh and Vermont
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