nality, which is often usefully supplemented by
the return of mother-tongue. Nor should it be forgotten that the
internal classification and the combinations of the above subjects are
also matters to be treated upon some uniform plan, if the full value of
the statistics is to be extracted from the raw material. On the whole,
the progress towards a general understanding on many, if not most, of
the questions here mentioned which has been made in the present
generation, is a gratifying tribute to those who have long laboured in
the cause of efficient enumeration.

THE BRITISH EMPIRE

_England and Wales._--Up to the beginning of the 19th century the number
of the population was a matter of estimate and conjecture. In 1753 a
bill was introduced by a private member of the House of Commons, backed
by official support, to provide for the annual enumeration of the people
and of the persons in receipt of parochial relief. It was violently
opposed as "subversive of the last remains of English liberty" and as
likely to result in "some public misfortune or an epidemical distemper."
After passing that House, however, the bill was thrown out by the House
of Lords. The fear of disclosing to the enemies of England the weakness
of the country in fighting-material was one of the main objections
offered to the proposal. By the end of the century, however, owing to a
great extent to the publication of the essays of Malthus, the pendulum
had swung far in the opposite direction, it was thought desirable to
possess the means of judging from time to time the relations between an
increasing population and the means of subsistence. A census bill,
accordingly, again brought in by a private member, became law without
opposition at the end of 1800, and the first enumeration under it took
place in March of the following year, the operations being confined to
Great Britain. The inquiry was entrusted in England to the overseers,
acting under the justices of the peace and the high constables, and in
Scotland, to village schoolmasters, under the sheriffs. A supplementary
statement of births, deaths and marriages for each parish was required
from the clergy, who transmitted it to parliament through the bishops
and primates successively. There was no central office or control. The
schedule required the number of houses, inhabited and otherwise, the
population of each family, by sex, and the occupation, under one of the
three heads, (a) agriculture, (b)