CENT 



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CENTAURUS 



Dominion of Canada. The first Federal cen- 

 sus of the Dominion of Canada was taken in 

 1871, and since then an official enumeration 

 has been taken every ten years. The work is 

 under the supervision of the Department of 

 Trade and Commerce. The fifth census, taken 

 in 1911, required the services of 264 com- 

 missioners and 9,703 enumerators. Because 

 of the large immigrant population, the birth- 

 place of each parent and details concerning 

 nationality, naturalization and date of immi- 

 gration are recorded. Complete statistics are 

 collected in regard to industries, products, oc- 

 cupations and religion, and tables are also 

 compiled showing the number of infirm and 

 illiterate residents of the country. B.M.W. 



Consult Merriam's America's Census-Taking 

 from the First Census; Wright and Hunt's His- 

 tory and Growth of the United States Census. 



CENT, sent, the name given to a copper 

 coin representing the one-hundredth part of a 

 dollar, the smallest in value in the United 

 States monetary system. The word is derived 

 from the Latin centum, meaning one hundred, 

 and in slightly-differing forms is applied to a 

 small coin of most countries. The word cent 

 has been in use in the United States since 

 1786, when Congress passed an act making the 

 dollar of one hundred cents the basis of the 

 coinage system. The composition and weight 

 of the cent have been changed several times, 

 but the coin was finally standardized in 1873, 

 when an act was passed authorizing the coinage 

 of one-cent pieces containing ninety-five per 

 cent of copper and five per cent of tin and 

 zinc, and weighing forty-eight grains. A cent 

 is legal tender for any amount not over twenty- 

 five cents in any one payment; if fifty pennies 

 are offered in payment of a fifty-cent debt 

 the creditor may legally refuse to accept the 

 proffer. Two-cent and three-cent coins, which 

 have been issued at various times, are now 

 very rare. 



The British system of coinage has been 

 found cumbersome, with its pounds, shillings 

 and pence, so Canada long ago adopted the 

 decimal system of the United States. The 

 British penny is equal in value to two cents, 

 United States or Canadian; the half-penny 

 is equivalent to one cent. Americans, in speak- 

 ing of their own coins, use the terms cent and 

 penny interchangeably. Italy, France, Chile, 

 Brazil, Peru and in fact all countries not 

 under British jurisdiction, have their coinage 

 based on the decimal system, the cent, centavo, 

 centesimo or centime being in each case a 



small coin which represents one-hundredth of 

 a coin of larger denomination. 



CENTAUR, sen'tawr, a mythical creature, 

 half man, half horse, supposed by the ancient 

 Greeks to live in Thessaly. Although wild 

 and lawless, the centaurs were represented as 

 capable of good attributes, for Chiron (which 



see) was one of 

 the wisest teach- 

 ers of the great 

 Greek heroes. At 

 one time, when a 

 certain king was 

 being married, 

 the centaurs ap- 

 peared at the 

 celebration and 

 tried to cany off 

 the bride. - The 

 battle which en- 

 sued was one of 

 the favorite sub- 

 jects in Greek 

 art. An interest- 

 i n g explanation 



THE CENTAUR CHIRON 

 AND CUPID 



of the centaur myth is that the early Greeks, 

 totally unacquainted with horseback riding, 

 saw occasional riders come out of Thessaly and 

 fancied that man and horse were one being. 

 See CENTAURUS. 



CENTAURUS, sentawr'us, a constellation 

 of the southern hemisphere which contains the 



CENTAURUS 



(a) Alpha, the third brightest Btar In the 

 heavens. (See, also, maps of the stars, In arti- 

 cle ASTRONOMY.) 



earth's nearest neighbor among the stars. It 

 has been calculated that this star, Alpha Cen- 

 tauri, is only 4.4 light years from the earth \dee 



