62 



CENT 



CENTENARIAN 



ular intervals, the next after that of 1860 having 

 been in 1877. The International Statistical Con- 

 gress, which consists of eminent statisticians from 

 all countries, has done much to improve the taking 

 of censuses, and now several countries, such as 

 Austria, Belgium, Italy, Prussia, Russia, and 

 Switzerland, have statistical bureaus for the pur- 

 pose, amongst other things, of controlling the taking 

 of the periodical census. In a few countries in- 

 formation as to the religion of the population, and 

 in some cases additional particulars, are obtained, 

 such as the census of ' useful domestic animals ' 

 in Norway. 



In the United Kingdom the practice is for 

 parliament to pass special acts directing the tak- 

 ing of each census. These acts provide that 

 the registrars of births and deaths shall be the 

 officers through whom the census is to be taken by 

 enumerators, of whom at the census of 1881 there 

 were upwards of 30,000 employed in England alone. 

 All the registrars' districts are so subdivided that 

 no enumerator has more houses than he can con- 

 veniently visit in one day. The enumerators have 

 to deliver schedules at all houses, requiring par- 

 ticulars concerning every person who is alive at 

 midnight preceding the census day, and on the 

 census day to collect them. Account has also to 

 be taken of all persons not dwelling in houses 

 wherever found, and of persons travelling, and 

 persons in ships, barges, &c. The enumerators are 

 authorised to require the information necessary for 

 the census, and persons refusing to answer or 

 wilfully giving false answers to the questions are 

 rendered liable to penalties. The particulars to be 

 required in each census are specified in the act 

 directing it to be taken. The Census Act, 1880, 

 required that the census of the following year 

 should show 'the name, sex, age, rank, pro- 

 fession or occupation, condition as to marriage, 

 relation to head of family, and birthplace of every 

 living person who abode in every house on the 

 night of Sunday the 3d of April 1881, and also 

 whether any were blind or deaf and dumb, or 

 imbecile or lunatic.' When the schedules have 

 been collected they are transmitted to the census 

 office, where the work of tabulation, which takes 

 about two years, is carried out. The census when 

 finished is presented to parliament in the form of 

 several bulky volumes. Hardly any two countries 

 agree as to the subjects on which information is 

 demanded ; thus some census schedules contain 

 inquiries as to whether there are in the household 

 infirm persons, blind, deaf and dumb, idiots, 

 insane persons, persons who have been convicted 

 of crime ; how many languages are spoken by the 

 persons entered ; how many are at school ; how 

 many exercise the franchise ; how many rooms and 

 windows there are in the house, and so on. In 1851 

 an attempt was made to obtain religious statistics 

 of the United Kingdom ; since that year the census 

 shows the religious statistics of Ireland only. 



The census of the United States aims at giving a 

 specially full conspectus of the condition of the 

 people, and is illustrated by a large number of maps 

 hearing on almost every branch of the census in- 

 quiries. Thus there are maps showing the pre- 

 valence of certain diseases ; others the area occu- 

 pied by various crops. The United States census of 

 1880 extended to 22 volumes, embracing statistics 

 of population, agriculture^ manufactures, mining, 

 taxation, public indebtedness, with special reports 

 on cotton-growing, petroleum, coal, coke, building- 

 stones, iron and steel products, &c. The census of 

 1890 is comparatively limited in the scope of its 

 inquiries. 



Cent and Centime (Lat. centum, 'a hun- 

 dred'), names of coins. The Dutch cent is a 

 copper coin, the 100th part of the guilder ( Is. 8d.) ; 



the United States cent is a bronze coin, the 100th 

 part of the dollar, or nearly one halfpenny English, 

 and the Canadian cent has the same value. The 

 centime, the 100th part of the French franc, and 

 of the value of T Vth of an English penny, has been 

 adopted in Belgium, and, under other names, in 

 Greece, Italy, and Switzerland ; and the Spanish 

 real ( 2|d. ) also is divided into 100 centimes. The 

 cental in the United States, legalised in 1878, is 

 100 Ib. avoirdupois (cf. CENTNER). See DECIMAL 

 SYSTEM. 



Centaur ea, a palsearctic genus of Cornpositse, 

 containing about two hundred species, all herba- 

 ceous annual and perennial, of which five or six 

 are natives of Britain. The species most familiar, 

 on account of its beauty, is the blue C. cyanus ( see 

 CORN-FLOWER), which is sometimes sown as an 

 annual ; while its larger perennial ally, C. mon- 

 tana, with white or purple ray florets, is a familiar 

 denizen of old-fashioned gardens ; C. americana is 

 a showy lilac-purple annual ( 3 or 4 feet ) ; while 

 the oriental Sweet Sultan (C. moschata) and 

 Yellow Sultan ( C. amberboa ) are also not uncom- 

 mon ; the latter two being often sold under the 

 name of Amberboa. Among perennials, the large, 

 downy C. babylonica* with yellow flowers, is often 

 cultivated ; also C. ragusina and C. candidisshna, 

 of which the silver- white pinnate leaves furnish an 

 admired contrast to bright-coloured bedding-plants. 

 Several species ( C. calcitrapa, &c. ) bear the name 

 of Star-thistle, from their spiny involucre. Some 

 are common wayside weeds, often troublesome in 

 pastures, notably C. nigra, the Common or Black 

 Knapweed, also called Horse Knot in Scotland ; 

 and the closely allied C. Scabiosa. The flowers or 

 roots of several species were formerly used in 

 dyeing, and the astringent roots employed by 

 herbalists. 



Cen'taiirs ('bull-killers'), a wild race of men 

 who inhabited, in early times, the forests and 

 mountains of Thessaly, and whose chief occupation 

 was bull-hunting. Homer, the first who mentions 

 them, describes them merely as savage, gigantic, 

 and covered with hair. They do not appear as 

 monsters, half-man and half-horse, until the age of 

 Pindar. The most ancient account of the Hippo- 

 centaurs, sometimes considered as distinct, but 

 more often confounded with the Centaurs, is that 

 they were the offspring of Magnesian mares and 

 Centaurus, himself the offspring of Ixion and a 

 cloud. The Centaurs are celebrated in Greek 

 mythology on account of their struggles with the 

 Lapithse (q.v.), and with Hercules. The most 

 famous was Chiron, the teacher of Achilles and 

 other heroes. In works of art the Centaurs were 

 represented as men from the head to the loins, with 

 the rest of the body that of a horse. It is worth 

 mentioning that the Mexicans, who had no native 

 horses, when they first saw the Spaniards on 

 horseback, believed that the horse and man 

 together made but one animal. 



Cen'taiiry (Erythrcea], a pretty little annual, 

 genus of Gentianaceae, with pink or rose coloured 

 flowers. They possess the tonic and other medi- 

 cinal virtues of gentian, and the Common Centaury 

 (E. Centaurium) has especially been esteemed in 

 medicine since the days of Dioscorides and Galen ; 

 and although no longer in the pharmacopoeia, its 

 flower- tops are still sometimes gathered and dried 

 by country-people in England and the Conti- 

 nent ; while the allied Sabbatia angularis enjoys 

 similar repute in the United States and Canada. 

 The Yellow Centaury is Chlora perfoliata ; but 

 plants belonging to the wholly distinct composite 



gsnus Centaurea (q.v.) are also sometimes called 

 entaury. 



Centenarian. See LONGEVITY. 



