CKH80E 



CENSUS OF THK UNITED KINGDOM. 



Ml 



tional authorities, or is guilty of defamation and libel agairut any one, 

 in which cue he shall be fined by the tribunals. 



The constitution of the Netherlands of 1816, which is "till in force 

 in the kingdom of jHoIland, says. Art 227, " the press being the fittest 

 means to spread knowledge, every one has a right to make use of it to 

 communicate his thoughts, without needing previous permiwion. Hut 

 all authors, printers, editors. or publishers, are UMwentde fr those 

 writings which attack the righto either of society or of individual"." 



By Art. 18 of the constitution of Belgium, the press is declared to 

 be free ; no censorship can ever bo established. Authors, editors, and 

 printers are not required to give security. Offences committed through 

 the press are tried by the ordinary court*. 



In Denmark, an ordinance of C'hriirtian VII., dated September, 1799, 

 on the subject of the press, abolishes the previous censorship, nut 

 imposes severe penalties on those who offend through the pres ; death 

 is the penalty for any person who shall excite rebellion or provoke .> 

 fundamental change in the constitution of the monarchy. Whoever 

 censure* or defames or excites hatred or contempt against the consti- 

 tution of the kingdom and the government of the king, either on 

 general grounds or on the occasion of any particular act, shall be 

 banished Jor life ; and if he returns without permission , shall be sent 

 to hard labour for life. Whoever shall censure or vilify the monarchical 

 form of government in general shall be exiled from three to ten years. 

 Any libel against the person and honour of the kinc, or any member 

 of the royal family, shall be punished with exile. Whoever publishes 

 a work tending to deny the existence of God, or the immortality of the 

 soul, or to cast censure or ridicule on the fundamental dogmas of the 

 Christian religion, is to be banished likewise. Any one who shall 

 attack or ridicule the tenet* of the other Christian communions tole- 

 rated in the kingdom, shall be punished by a short imprisonment on 

 bread and water. The same punishment is assigned to those who shall 

 offend public morals by their writings. Any one defaming a foreign 

 prince friendly to Denmark, or ascribing to his government any unjust 

 or disgraceful act, without quoting any authority, shall be sent to hard 

 work in a house of correction for a limited period. 



The constitutions of the various states composing the North Ameri- 

 can Union, admit the absolute liberty of the press. There is, of course, 

 in each State a law of libel sufficiently strict In the slave States 

 there are very severe laws against interfering by the press with the 

 great question of slavery. It has been stated that abolitionist news- 

 papers are seized at the post-office. 



The republics of Spanish America likewise acknowledge the prin- 

 ciple of the unfettered liberty of the press, however often it may have 

 been violated in practice amidst the never-ending factions and civil 

 wars of those countries. The constitution of the Brazilian empire 

 establishes the freedom of the press without any censorship ; but an 

 author is liable to punishment in such cases as are provided by law. 



CENSUS, THE, at Rome, was a numbering of the people, and a 

 valuation of their property. It was held in the Campus Martius. 

 (Liv. iv. 2B; Varro 'de R. R. 1 iii. 11.) Every Roman citizen was 

 obliged, upon oath, to give in a statement of his own name and age, of 

 the name and age of his wife, children, slaves, and freedmen, if he had 

 any. The punishment for a false return was, that the individual's 

 goods should be confiscated, and he himself scourged and sold for a 

 slave. Taxation depended on the results of the census ; many kinds of 

 possessions and of actual property were excepted, while, on the other 

 hand, some sort* of property were msesscd at several times their value. 

 Constant changes were made by successive censors in the valuation of 

 taxable property. Cato and Klaccus rated the taxable value of high- 

 priced slaves at ten times the purchase-money. (Nieb., vol. ii. p. 402.) 



According to the valuation of their property at the census, the 

 citizens were divided into six classes ; each class contained a number 

 of centuries or hundreds. That a century did not always consist of a 

 hundred men is clear, from the fact that the richest centuries were the 

 most numerous, and consequently must individually have contained 

 fewer persons than the centuries of the poor. The first class consisted 

 of those whose property amounted to 100,000 tun, about 3221. 18*. of 

 English money ; the second class consisted of persona worth 75,000 

 <ua ; the fortune of the third class amounted to 50,000 ate* ; that of 

 the fourth to 25,000 ; that of the fifth to 11,000 ; and the sixth claw 

 included all below the fifth, even those who had no estate whatever. 

 This wu naturally the fullest of the six, but was accounted only as 

 one century. Now, as the richer classes contained far more cen- 

 turies than the poorer, so much so that the first class contained 

 more than all the rest together, and as the votes in the Cumilia 

 Oenturiata were taken within the centuries individually, and tic n 

 the voice of the majority of centuries was decisive, it b cMra th.it 

 the influence of wealth was greatly pre|>onderant in this assembly. 

 Cicero (' De Repub.' ii. 22) assigns this as the object aimed at in the 

 institution. The real object of the Comitia OaUturiata was (as Niebuhr 

 supposes) to bind the different orders of the state together in one 

 eooshUot and organised body. Every one in the nation had a vote on 

 national business; and in thu aweml.ly was laid the bans of p..,.ul.,, 

 liberty. In the Cnmilia CaHorlata the people always appeared under 

 arm*, and each class had a particular kind of armour assigned to it 



The censiw wan held at ftrrt by the kings, afterwards by the consuls ; 

 and, from A.I-.C. 311, by the censors. After the census a sacrifice of 

 purification WM generally, but not always (Liv. iii. 22), offered. The 



rictims were a sow, a sheep, and a bull, which were led thrice round 

 the army, and then slain : the sacrifice was called SuotriattrHia. 



It does not appear that the census was held with strict regularity. 

 It was sometimes altogether omitted. (Liv. iv. 8 ; Cic. ' pro Arch.' 

 5. 11.) The usual interval was five years; and in allusion either to 

 the sacrifice of purification, or to the fanners paying their taxes at 

 thiK tiiur ( V..~. Etyinolog. Ling. Lat.' I'M luttrvtn), the interval wa< 

 commonly called a liuttre (liatrum,). It is obvious that the census must 

 have been of great use in ascertaining the actual strength and capabili- 

 ties of the state. 



Wli.-n a person was duly entered on the books of the censors, thin 

 was taken as a proof of his citizenship, even if he were a slave, pro- 

 vided he had been registered with his master's consent (< 

 i. 40 ; [Tip. i. 8) ; but many enactments were made to regulate and 

 ' this legal principle. As the census was held at Rome, citizen* 



lio v, ,'iv in the provinces, and wished to be registered, were obliged 

 to repair there on that occasion (Cic. ' ad Alt' i. 18, Ac.) ; but this 

 was sometimes evaded, and was made a matter of complaint by the 

 censors. The census, accompanied with the ceremony of the Itutrum, 

 seems to have fallen into disuse after the time of Vespasian ; but the 

 numbering of the population, Ac., continued till a late epoch of t Ii.- 

 empire. 



As to the census in the provinces, under the empire, nee Tacitus 

 ('Ann.' i. 31, 33, Ac.), and the ' Kxcursus' of Lipsius. See also ' Dig.' 



50, Tit, i .-;. 



The term eenms is also used in Latin authors to signify the amount 

 of a person's estate ; and hence we read of crntut eqnetter, the estate of 

 an eques, and cerutu tvnatoriiit, the estate of a senator. (1'itinc. ' Lex. 

 Antiq. Rom.) 



CENSUS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM. The first 

 ascertain the population of England, and to determine its increase or 

 otherwise, by ascertaining the number of births and burials, wag made 

 at the beginning of the 18th century. This method could at best 

 afford merely an approximation towards the truth, which can only Iw 

 satisfactorily ascertained by actual enumeration; while as i 

 many other important questions connected with the condition 

 people, it is clear that deductions drawn from registers of births and 

 burials, if even they were perfectly accurate (and up to 1839 they were 

 very far from being so), would give no information whatever. 



The first actual and official enumeration of the people of England 

 and Scotland was made in 1801, and subsequently in 1811, 1821, 1831, 

 1841, and 1851. In Ireland the earliest enumeration was made in 

 1813, since which time a census baa been taken, as in Great Britain, 

 in each of the years 1821, 1831, 1841, and 1851. It will be sufficient 

 here to give first a summary of the returns of 1821, 1831, and 1841, 

 being the earliest in which Ireland is included at the same period, and 

 then the details of that of 1851, which embodied a number of inquiries 

 that were unattended to in the preceding censuses. 



Great Britain 

 Ireland 



14,353,800 16,643,058 18,844,434 

 6,846,949 7,767,401 8,175,154 



United Kingdom . . 51,200,749 24,410,429 27,019,558 



As we have already stated, the census of Great Britain in 1851 

 differed in several respect* from any previous census. In some points 

 the range of its inquiries was more minute and precise; in many 

 others wider and more comprehensive. The word?, of the elaborate 

 Report of the Registrar-General, prefixed to the volumes of I'o;> 

 Tables, printed by order of Parliament, will l>est indicate what the 

 census of 1851 sought to accomplish : 



" At the present census it was resolved to exhibit not merely the 

 statistics, as before, of parishes, and, more completely, of parliamentary 

 and municipal boroughs, but also of such other large towns in England 

 and Scotland as appeared sufficiently important for separate mention, 

 and of all the ecclesiastical districts and new ecclesiastical parishes 

 which, under the provisions of various Acts of Parliament, have, during 

 the last forty years, been created in England and Wales. In addition 

 also to the inquiry concerning the occupation, age, and birthplace, of 

 the population, it was determined to ascertain the various i 

 (such as husband, wife, son, daughter) the civil condition (as married, 

 iiiiin.-iiriiil, widower, or widow) and the number of person- blind, or 

 deaf and dumb. Kurther, under the impression that the fifth section 

 of the Act would authorise such an inquiry, the design was formed of 

 collecting statistics as to the accommodation afforded by the vaiiou,-; 

 churches and other places of public religious worship throughout the 

 country, and the number of persons generally frequenting them ; and 

 also M to the existing educational establishment*, and the actual 

 number of ocholarn under instruction. It wan, however, subsequently 



