THE IMPERIAL CENSUS.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VII, Issue 368, 27 June 1874, Page 3

THE IMPERIAL CENSUS.

(From the " Times.") The census of 1871 was a unique achievement in the annals of statistics. Ever since civilised Government became an organised institution among men, the desire to count and compute the forces at the disposal of the state has been dormant in the minds of men. The ambition was charged as a crime against the greatest of the Hebrew kings ; and the most powerful of Roman Emperors experienced much difficulty in executing his bold design. In modern times the complication of social interests, the jealousies of religious sects, and the growth of individual independence have impeded the accurate numbering of nations. Even the cool and careful computations of Sir William Petty and of Arthur Young were by no means trustworthy ; and historians had to grope in he dark while discussing the operation of many grave changes in society and legislation. It was not until the first year of the present century that any effective means were adopted for numbering the people of the United Kingdom, and the census of 1801 fell very short of the ideal, which, even then, a statistician would have exacted. The facts collected seventythree years ago by those pioneers of statistical science who organised the first English Census seem meagre enough in the full blaze of modern information, and the scope of the inquiry appears ridiculously straitened compared with the elaborate calculation now before us. In the palmiest days of Rome the Empire was numbered imperfectly and loosely ; but Gibbon, no reckless computer, fixed the population of the Imperial Dominion, with its vast area of 1,600,000 Bquare miles, at the moderate figure of 120,000,000. The British Census of 1874 makes it clear that Queen Victoria rules over uearly twice the number of subjects who were governed by the Emperor Claudius. The Imperial Crown of England is the symbol of Sovereignity to which "two hundred and thirty-four millions" of people lookup; and these inhabit - 7,769,449 miles of territory. They live and die in 44,142,651 houses or other habitations, and they are congregated for the most part in 2,200 towns and villages, of which London, with its population of 3,Boo,ooo— taking the "natural circular limits of a 15 miles' radius " is the centre. The whole of this 'vast domain has been either settled or conquered by the English race, drawing strength from these little islands, which now can boast, after having peopled another hemisphere, of a population of their own numbering nearly 31 millions. In attempting an enumeration of this mighty aggregate of human life, some uniform basis of calculation is necessary ; and the parochial system having outlived all other local divisions in England, the "Registration District," or Poor Law union of parishes, has been taken as the territorial unit of reckoning.

England and Wales stand first and separate upon the general report, the fourth volume of the great work ; and the machinery by which the estimate of their population was arrived at in itself deserves recognition. The enumerators who did the actual work of counting were 32,543 in number, and were supervised by 2,195 registrars, and 626 superintendent registrars. The labor undertaken* by these servants of the public was by no means light ; they had to get at the numbers, occupations, and ages not only of the people inhabiting houses, but of those living in tents and bafges, in vans and ships, of travellers, and of men working at night in mines, &c, and on the whole it must be allowed that the work has been admirably done. The popula-' tion of England and Wales on the Census day, the 3rd of April, 1871, was 22.856,164. The females outnumbered the males by 450,000, even though among the latter was reckoned 143,898 men employed in the Army, Navy, and Merchant Service, and absent from our shores on the night of enumeration. The proportions of this aggregate population, clashed under different ages, show a very trifling relative variation from the results ascertained by former censuses. Of "babes and sucklings " (under one year), we find there were, in 1871, 686,372; of '{infants" from one to five years, 2,294,442 ; of children from five to ten years, 2.734,932; of boys (10 to 15 years) 1,225,209 ; and of girls (16 to 15 years), 1,207,224 ; of youths (15 to 20), 1,098,192 ; and of maidens (15 to 20), 1,109,854 ; of younsf men (from 20 to 30) 1,888,070 : and of young women between the same ages, 1,980,586 ; of men of middle age, 2,547,084, and of women of middle age, 2,724,505. Of males 41, and of females 114, are returned as over 100 years of age, though there is a lack of satisfactory evidence in the majority of such caseß. These figures snggest many statistical problems of great speculative interest and not a little practical, importance, but we cannot enter into a discussion of such points of detail.

One fact which is prominently brought out in the very able report of the Census Commissioners is the extent to which what seems the hard realities of population may be made amendable to the exertions of human will. It is certain that wise administration might vastly diminish the death-rate ; and it is not less clear that the birth-rate varies largely with the means of the people. The " reserve " of unmarried women in England between the ages of 15 and 21 is set down at 1,246,000 ; so that an abrupt decrease of population is hardly a subject for serious alarm. The converse danger of over-population may be regarded as as equally remote white, as at present, 39 out of every 100 men are found to be unmarried between the ages of 25 and 30. It is a noticeable fact, however, that the English rate of births is nearly double the French. On this matter the authors of the report grow enthusiastic ; and, idealising the imprudence of the working man who has a large family, they exalt the courage of " the nation that conscious of its energy fought on through the conflict," with poverty, disease, and costly living, and in the end has peopled or subdued three-quarters of the globe. Families are generally understood to be synonymous with households ; bot, practically, in England families outnumber houses in the proportion of about six to five. In Scotland, as also in most Continental countries, where large piles of buildings are sab-divided and sub-let in flats or tenements, the disproportion is much greater. The number of inhabited houses in England and Wales for the Census year was 4,259.117. and the number of families 5,049,016.

The astonishing diffusion of the English race over the globe must be carefully taken note of ; bat scarcely less important or interesting is the imported element in the population of this kingdom. More than * million persons living in England and Wale» were, born elsewhere, the vaM,' majority of these being adults ; but aa §QQ f OOQ of these b^n jn Scotland,

Ireland, and the- Islands in the British Seas, and 70,000 in the colonies or in India, the actual foreign immigration is reduced, after all, to very modest proportions. No mure than 139,445 registered by the Census of 1871 were born in foreign parts.

The gathering of men together in cities and towns is made a special feature of comment in the census of 1871. It is very remarkable that the number, as well as the population of the places registered as towns, has increased enormously since the date of the last census. In 1861 there were 781 " towns" in England ; in 1871 there were 938 ; and the aggregate population had risen from less than eleven millions to more than fourteen millions. Thus Barrow-in-FurneßS and Middlesbrough, which were pretty villages 20 years ago, are now prosperous communities of 18,000 and 40,000 respectively.