CONTENTS. GENERAL INFORMATION ON SUBJECTS OF MATHEMATICS, NATURAL PHI- IV. The Approaching International Exhibition of 1862 V. Statistics of the United States for 1860 THE LEGISLATION, STATISTICS, ARCHITECTURE, AND PUBLIC IMPROVE- MENTS, AND CHRONICLE OF 1860-61. IX. Abstracts of Important Public Acts passed in the Third Session of the Eighteenth Parliament of Great Britain and Ireland :- XII. Chronicle of the Session of Parliament, 1861 XIII. Private Bills of the Session of Parliament, 1861 XV. Architecture and Public Improvements:— 1. General Progress :-Art and Buildings COMPANION TO THE ALMANAC FOR 1862. PART I. GENERAL INFORMATION ON SUBJECTS OF MATHEMATICS, NATURAL PHILOSOPHY, NATURAL HISTORY, CHRONOLOGY, GEOGRAPHY, FINE ARTS, PUBLIC ECONOMY, &c. I. ON THE CENSUS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM, 1861. THE general Census is at once the greatest statistical operation and the most comprehensive inquiry undertaken by the Government of this country. After the lapse of the usual interval since the last enumeration, the people of the United Kingdom were again numbered in April last; and we propose to notice some of the principal results of this numbering, so far as they have been made known by the preliminary abstracts compiled from returns furnished by the local officers, whose figures, however, are still subject to final check and revision by the central authorities, although considered to be sufficiently near the truth to be relied upon as materials for whatever general deductions may be fairly drawn from them. For the details regarding the occupations, ages, civil condition, and birth-places of the population, owing to the time which a minute classification of millions of separate items must necessarily occupy, the public must yet wait for some months. When the facts are given to the world, they will be noticed in the fullest manner practicable in the pages of this publication in conformity with the course pursued respecting the Population Returns of former years." * It is not the statist alone, highly as he may value the abundant materials furnished him for the profitable analysis of the most important combinations of human action and the facts of human life, who feels an interest in the Census. Its uses and objects are recognized by intelligent persons of every class, who readily perceive that a knowledge of our existing population enters more or less into the consideration of every social and economical question. Unless all legislation is to be mere haphazard work, information of this kind is Abstracts of the Returns and Observations on the Census of Great Britain, 1851 will be found in the Companions' for 1852 (p. 41) and 1854 (p. 16). The 'Occupa tions of the People, 1851,' are discussed in the volume for 1855 (p. 59). an obvious necessity in all collections of men pretending to a national existence, and enumerations of the people, more or less complete, have now found a place in almost all civilized nations. The injunction, "Know thyself," it has been well observed, applies no less to a State than to individuals; and that the knowledge gained by a Census contributes to the welfare of the State, is a truth now widely understood. The Census of 1861 is the seventh which has been carried into effect in Great Britain, and the fifth in Ireland, where no complete enumeration was made until 1821. Mr. Pitt's measure for taking the first Census in 1801 was introduced before the Union. We shall describe as briefly as possible the machinery by which the vast operation of numbering the inhabitants and houses of the British Islands was accomplished in April last. Under the authority of three separate Acts of Parliament the organization and direction of the arrangements devolved upon the Registrar-General acting in each of the three principal divisions of the kingdom, namely, Major George Graham in England, Mr. W. P. Dundas in Scotland, and Mr. W. Donnelly in Ireland, with whom Assistant Commissioners were in each case associated. The Lieutenant-Governors of the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man directed the proceedings within their respective jurisdictions. In England the local machinery created by the Poor Law and Registration Acts, by means of which the Census had been efficiently taken in 1841 and 1851, was again resorted to. The 631 Superintendent Registrars' Districts—for the most part identical with the Poor Law Unions were subdivided by the 2,197 registrars of births and deaths into suitable enumeration districts, so as to admit of every house in each of such districts being visited by an active man in the course of a single day. The enumerators, 30,862 in number, were selected from the general community, no difficulty having been experienced in obtaining the services of intelligent men of the class of clerks, small tradesmen, and rate collectors. Several clergymen also took part in the work by acting in the same capacity in their own parishes. Provision was made through the Board of Customs for taking an account of seamen and others on board vessels in harbour, and special measures were adopted for enumerating the thousands of bargemen and their families who live entirely in the boats and barges employed in the carrying trade on canals and other inland waters. In Scotland the machinery established in 1855 for the registration of births, deaths, and marriages was mainly that employed for the Census. The local arrangements were superintended by the sheriffs in the counties and by the chief magistrates in the burghs, about 110 in number, and the services of 8,075 enumerators were engaged by the 1,001 registrars. Ireland was divided into 261 districts, each under the charge of a Sub-Inspector, and 5,096 men of the constabulary force, 15 coast-guards, and 173 of the Dublin police were employed as enumerators. The preceding Census had been taken partly by the constabulary and police and partly by other enumerators, but upon this occasion it was determined to turn to greater account the local knowledge of the constabulary and their familiarity with in |
0 Ismertetők A Google nem hitelesíti a véleményeket, de nem valós információk észlelése esetén ellenőrzi és eltávolítja őket Ismertető írása |