Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/86

76 the law in one day. For this purpose a vast army of enumerators is appointed from the central office. The organization under the British Census Act is under the control of the Local Government Board, and the immediate chief is the Registrar-General. Local registrars of births and deaths must divide their subdistricts into enumerators' divisions, in accordance with instructions from the Registrar-General, and subject to his final supervision and approval. Every registrar of births and deaths must furnish to his superintendent registrar lists containing names, occupations, and places of abode of a sufficient number of persons qualified, according to instructions, to act as enumerators within a subdistrict, and such persons, if approved by the superintendent registrar, shall be appointed enumerators for taking the census. The board causes to be prepared a table of allowances to be made to the several enumerators, registrars, superintendent registrars, and other persons employed in taking the census; and such table, when approved by the Treasury, is laid before both Houses of Parliament for their action. Under the act the schedule comprehends eleven inquiries, relating to the members of the family, visitors, boarders, and servants who slept or abode in the dwelling on the night of Sunday, April 5, 1891, and the schedule was called for on Monday, April 6th, by the appointed enumerator, whose business it was to see that the schedule was properly filled by the head of the household, and, if not, to cause it to be so filled. This method seems to be the one that attracts the attention of statisticians as the ideal method. Under it, however, much complaint exists in Great Britain, not only as to the processes of carrying out the law, but relative to the inaccuracies in the returns; and I have been informed that much difficulty is experienced in obtaining well-filled schedules. It is unreasonable to suppose that in a population varying widely in the intelligence of its individual members a schedule can be properly filled or so well filled as to secure a reasonably scientific result. The English census has been extolled for its accuracy. I do not believe it is any more accurate than any other census taken by other methods. I have before me a discarded schedule—that is, an improperly filled one—left with an intelligent mechanic, well educated, of wide experience, a machinist by trade, and perfectly competent to write an article for a magazine; and yet he could not, or did not, properly fill the schedule left with him, and on an examination of it it is not strange that he did not. When the difficulties of filling the simple English schedule are considered, it becomes