condensation—a condensed idea for household
readers of the number and condition of the
households of Great Britain.

Every one (save perhaps people who never
remember anything, and the little new-weaned
child, whose locks begin to curl like the
tendrils of the vine, and who can scarcely yet
lisp, far less remember) will call to mind the
momentous thirty-first day of March, eighteen
hundred and fifty-one; on which an army of
enumerators, thirty thousand six hundred
and ten in number, went round to every
house in the kingdom; on which it rained
schedules, hailed schedules, snowed
schedules—all to filled up with the names,
ages, occupations, civil condition (whether
maid, wife, or widow, husband, father, or son),
birthplace, of every inhabitant of every house,
that night. What dreadful mistakes were
made! how ladies hesitated about their ages,
and were some indignant and some
amused; how careless writers blotted the
printed forms, and weakminded people did not
know what to say for themselves, giving in
incongruous descriptions, in which, filling
up wrong places, they declared themselves to
be Adolphus years of age, profession twenty-three
next birthday, and born at chandler's-shop-keeper,
with two Stratford-le-Bow children;
which descriptions, being obviously
absurd, had to be amended. All these are
matters of historics. Likewise how many
housewives dratted the census, and some
repudiated the schedules as county court
summonses, and some too ardent democrats
(not understanding, perhaps, much about the
matter) denounced the whole affair as being
connected in some vague manner with taxes.

On the whole, however, it is stated on
authority that the enumerators were
remarkably successful and accurate in their
researches. Although the legislature had
imposed penalties for the emission or refusal of
occupiers or families to answer circumstantial
questions respecting themselves or their families,
it was not found necessary to enforce the
penalty in a single instance. The information
was cheerfully furnished; and the working
classes often took much trouble to get their
schedules filled by better penmen than
themselves, and to facilitate the inquiry.
A few curious cases, and "difficulties"
occurred, but not a tithe of what might
have been expected from the enormous extent
of the information procured. One gentleman,
a magistrate, refused point blank to fill up
his schedule, or to have anything to do with
it; thinking, no doubt that it was like the
enumerator's confounded impudence to ask
him, a "justice of peace and quorum,"
questions. But he was written to privately,
and at length complied with the provisions
of the act without an appeal to Cæsar at the
Home Office. In another instance a clergyman
refused to return his schedule to the
parish clerk, who was the enumerator, and
sent it direct to the central office, alleging
that otherwise his wife's age would have
become food for gossip in the village alehouse.

Again, in some places there were found eccentrics
—hermits, misogynists, ancient females—
who admitted no society save cats and parrots,
who lived quite inaccessible to everybody,
and could not be got at anyhow. It is,
however, consolatory to know that the neighbour's
of these solitaries generally had quite as
much to tell about them as the enumerators
desired to know—and told it. There must,
have been some curious vicarious schedules
suppled respecting these eccentrics. I can
imagine "Old Fluffy; aged a hundred at least;
is supposed to have sold himself to the devil;
wears a beard as long as my arm; sleeps on
a mattrass stuffed with bank notes;" or
"Miss Grub, spinster; keeps fourteen cats;
wears a bonnet like a coal-scuttle; is as old
as the hills; hasn't been outside the house for
twenty years; lets off maroons and other
fireworks on Sunday evenings, and paints her
window panes blue every Easter Monday."

The census of the United Kingdom in
eighteen hundred and fifty-one was taken
under the authority of two acts of parliament.
Each successive census since eighteen hundred
and one (there were similar investigations in
eighteen hundred and eleven, twenty-one,
thirty-one, and forty-one) has been more
comprehensive than its predecessor, and this last
is more particularly replete with information
concerning the civil and conjugal condition of
the people; which the reporters have taken as
their key-note in their disquisition upon the
causes of the vast increase of population during
the last century.

For the purposes of enumeration the two
kingdoms and the principality of Wales
(the census of Ireland was conducted
separately) were divided into six hundred and
twenty-four registration districts. These were
again subdivided into two thousand one
hundred and ninety sub-districts, and the sub-
districts into thirty thousand six hundred
and ten enumeration districts, each being
assigned to one enumerator, who was required
to complete his enumeration in one day,
March the thirty-first. Within about two
months all the household schedules, numbering
four million three hundred thousand,
together with thirty-eight thousand enumeration
books, had been received at the central
office; and, on the seventh of June eighteen
hundred and fifty-one, the gross return of
inhabitants and houses was communicated to
the Secretary of State, and at once made
public. The grand result showed that on the
thirty-first of March, eighteen hundred and
fifty-one, the entire population of Great
Britain was twenty-one millions one hundred
and twenty-one thousand nine hundred and
sixty-seven. In this return were included
one hundred and sixty-two thousand four
hundred and ninety soldiers and sailors of the
royal navy and the merchant service who were
serving abroad or were on the high seas at the