Evening star., 1937-04-17

loose sheets. A suction roller carries
the pages under the lens of this ap-
paratus as rapidly as they can be fed
down a sloping tray, and the sheets are
filmed on the move. The other two
cameras photograph pages in the
bound volumes, with a carriage moving
the large books back and forth auto
matically to permit each of the two
facing pages to be shot successively.
A special film has been made for the
bureau which is extremely fine in grain
and sensitive to any color of ink used
by Census enumerators through the
years. 1t is estimated that a 95 per
cent saving in storage space will result
from putting Census records on films.
The 100000 pages of Census reports
now in storage occupy almost mile Of
shelving. Copied on film. all of the
records can be stored in % standard
size file cases, humidity controlled.
In fact the robot stage may be said
to have been reached with respect to
activities in the Census Bureau. Ma
chimes OF well-nigh magic powers are
in constant operation, to befuddle
anyone to whom the simplest arith-
metic problem is a challenge. Inn
agine, if you will, a machine that adds
up As columns of figures at one whack.
You drop in a card, punched at va
rious places The machine goes to
work on it, and before you can say Mr..
Robinson'S first name Jack out come
As columns of answers, perfect as you
please. That means that cards with
As columns of figures will only have
once to secure answers to each of the
As items.
Both of the best-known types of
equipment for mechanical tabulation
were invented by employees of the Gen.
sus Bureau and some one is con-
stantly at work in the bureau i'm
proving upon them. The Government
retains the right to use these ma
chimes, free of royalties, but the en-
ploye who invented them retains all
commercial rights to them Three
types of machine are used for the
mechanical stage of the census
'punchers" 'sorters" and "tabula-
tors The punch-card machine per-
forates the cards that are lined off as
statistical table, with rows of serial
numbers under each heading. Each
perforation has its own meaning and
it's wise census bureau-ite who can
translate those perforationS into vital
statistics. The original schedules are
filed away in safes.
THE sorting machines will pick out
from thousands of cards only
those for certain claSsiflcations. 1t
will require some one more mechanic
ally minded than feature writer to
explain how those grocery store cards
separated themselves from the hard
ware store cards and what turned the
drug store data into the proper chan
mel!
AS for that tabulating machine-we
throw up our hands! In go sorted
cards and out come printed result
Slips" containing all the data sep
arated and totaled and arrayed by
classification of the cards. All day
long these remorseleSs machines
weighing nearly ton each swallow
cards and spew forth classified data.
Perhaps it is because he likes to see
the look on somebody's face when he
remarks, offhand and casual-like, Did
you know there we're $4,000 mar
riages in the United States in 1892
and 100000 divorces; that $4,000 of
these divorces were granted to hus-
bands and 117,000 to wives? With
1000 annulments? And that there
was ratio of one divorce to every six
marriages."