Census

CENSUS. Every ten years a census taker comes to your house and asks a lot of questions—how many people live there, their ages, relation to each other, and so on. You know then that Uncle Sam is busy again " taking stock." But how does Uncle Sam put together the millions of answers gathered throughout the country into the The recent census reports have been published in more than 10 large volumes, of which about half deal with population statistics; the others give detailed information regarding agriculture and manufactures.

military strength of the different provinces. The Bible mentions the numbering of the tribes of Israel.

Rome regularly took a census of population and property values every five years, and this practice gave us our " census," which is the Latin word for estimating or assessing. In the Middle Ages attempts to take a census were rare. The most famous is the census of England taken by order of William the Conqueror and recorded in the " Domesday Book." These early censuses were highly unpopular because they were used as guides in exacting taxes and military service from the people. And even today many people make the work of the census-taker difficult because they do not understand the useful purpose of the modern census, and do not know that all information given is kept strictly confidential.

In addition to the United States census, many of the separate states take censuses at five- or ten-year intervals. All progressive countries also collect statis tics similar to those of the United States census.