CENSUS. The utility to a government of knowing the extent of its resources in men and property is so obvious that some means of as certaining it were probably employed early in history; but there is no record of it on the Egyptian or Assyrian inscriptions, and the Chi nese accounts are dubious. The first we have reliable mention of is that of the Jews by David, including the males of 20 and over and the cattle; and the hatred and suspicion aroused by it are witnessed by the belief that God punished the whole people for the impiety. This appar ently irrational feeling was universal in early times, has always been so in the East and is by no means unknown elsewhere and later; its prevalence in 18th century America, and even later in England, however, is probably due to misunderstood Bible teaching. The real reason was, that the early census had for an object not statistics, but taxation and conscription; and it was not to the advantage either of offi cials or people that the government should have too minute a knowledge of what could be ex torted from them. Poverty and sparseness of population were too convenient excuses for not paying taxes or not remitting them to the cap ital. In the West, however, when constitu tional government replaced autocracy, the cen sus became a necessity for apportioning political rights and contributions; as in the Solonian constitution of Attica, where society was divided into four classes, with privileges graded according to income from landed estates. In Rome, whence the name (nassess ment") comes, it was much the same; and as the enumerations were valued merely for the ratings deduced from them, not from any idea that statistics by themselves were of any value, they were discarded as soon as their use had passed, to the irremediable impoverishment of history. These censuses were taken at long and irregular periods, sometimes nearly half a century elapsing. But as the empire grew and the provinces were farmed by proconsuls, these found the same need of a thorough detail of their temporary estates, to know whether their sub-farmers were cheating them, that a capi talist does of his business; and each took a census (professio) of his own province on his own account,. whose inquiries were sometimes almost as minute and exhaustive as those of the latest United States special census report on agriculture.
The medimval censuses were of the roughest and far apart, and made only by a few en lightened rulers. Charlemagne attempted one for his dominion; and the Domesday Book of William the Conqueror in 1181 is familiar. This was a register of estates, with the heads responsible for feudal duties, their slaves and cattle — a census of the primitive type for the primitive objects. • The mod.ern census, as a statistical review for its own sake, has a treble origin, in Sweden, England and the United States. In 1686 the Swedish parish clergy were required to keep a record of births, marriages and deaths, acces sions and removals of inhabitants, unusual hap penings, etc. Of course registration, which is
a record of changes, is not a census, which is a statement of condition at a certain time; but with a given basis it can be turned into one. By request of the Swedish Academy of Sci ences, in 1746, the clergy were directed to com pile statistics of population, etc., for a quarter century past; but these were kept rigidly con fidential till 1762. At their publication Dr. Richard Price, the founder of scientific life insurance calculation, based his first insurance tables on them. At first annual, then triennial, since 1775 they have been published once in five years. Meantime, in England, the London bills of mortality, first begun after the plague of 1592, had been recorded weekly since 1603, the year of James I's accession; and in the last half of the 17th century Sir William Petty, the noted political economist, used them as a basis for very valuable and stimulating works on the extent and growth of population, human fecun dity, effects of social and political causes, etc. Others took up the subject and made compu tations. In 1791 Sir John Sinclair undertook the most herculean statistical task ever at tempted, perhaps, by a single man — to compile a census of the population, agriculture, trade and industries of the entire kingdom, by in quiries sent to the clergy of the Established Church. He sent out schedules of 160 inter rogatories, received over 900 replies, and in 1798 published 21 volumes of results. His work, and his exhortations made weighty by his work, induced Parliament in 1800 to establish a census office; the first census was taken the next spring, and decennial censuses have been main tained ever since. That of 1851, like the Amer ican of 1850, was a long step in advance. The Russian census had begun earlier, but on the most ancient model, purely for military pur poses, and therefore with no count of females. There were a few partial censuses from 1700 on. In 1718 Peter the Great ordered all landed proprietors to give in an account of their slaves; and the same year organized a body of canvassers to visit all the provinces and make returns to him of peasants, mechanics, domes tics and people without occupation. In 1722 a ukase ordered a census taken every 20 years thereafter, and it was observed till 1782, another taking place in 1796. In 1802 a central bureau was organized and a census taken; and they have been taken in 1812, 1815 and 1834, decen nially 1850-80, then in 1886 and 1897. France began taking them after the Revolution, Prus sia in 1805; Austria, which had made rough counts for military conscription, organized a bureau in 1828; Belgium established one im mediately after winning her independence in 1833, and it has been perfected by the genius of and other eminent statisticians and furnished most valuable contributions to science. Our own census was entirely inde pendent of all these in origin.