ON THE CENSUS. 57 



Rej}0)'t of the Committee appointed at the Meeting of the British 

 Association at Liverpool, 1870, consisting of Prof. Jevons, R. 

 Dudley Baxter, J. T. Danson, James Heywood, F.R.S., Dr. 

 W. B. Hodgson, and Prof. Waley, with Edmund Macrory as 

 their Secretary, "for the purpose of urging upon Her Majesty's 

 Government the expediency of arranging and tabulating the results 

 of the approaching Census in the three several parts of the United 

 Kingdom in such a manner as to admit of ready and effective 

 comparison." 



Your Committee after their appointment held meetings in London, and 

 agreed upon the following Memorial : — 



" TJnifoemitt of Plan for the Census of the United Kingdom. 



"To the Right Honourable Henry Austin Bruce, M.P., &c. &c., Her Ma- 

 jesty's Princi]3al Secretary of State for the Home Department. 



" Memorial of the Committee of the British Association, appointed in Liver- 

 pool, September 1870, for the purpose of urging upon Her Majesty's 

 Government the expediency of arranging and tabulating the results 

 of the approaching Census in the three several parts of the United 

 Kingdom in such a manner as to admit of ready and effectual com- 

 parison. 



" Your memorialists beg respectfully to represent that the value of statistical 

 information depends mainly upon the accuracy and expedition with which 

 comparisons can be made between facts relating to different districts. 



"They also consider that the ease and rapidity with which researches in the 

 census tables can be made is one principal object to be held in view in de- 

 termining the form of their publication. They therefore desire that not 

 only should the enumeration of the jjeople be conducted in all places in an 

 exactly uniform manner, so far as is compatible with the terms of the 

 several Census Acts, biit that there should be no divergence in the modes of 

 tabulating and printing the results. They wish that the tables for England, 

 Scotland, and Ireland should form as nearly as possible one uniform and 

 consistent whole. 



" Your memorialists could specify a great many points in which there was 

 divergence between the tables for 1861, but they will mention only a few 

 of the more important cases. 



" 1. The detailed population tables of England, Scotland, and Ireland differ 

 as regards the periods of age specified. The Scotch report gives twenty-one 

 intervals of age, the Irish report generally twenty-two, and the English 

 only thirteen. Either one-third of the printed matter in the Scotch and 

 Irish tables is superfluous, or that in the English tables deficient. 



" 2. The classification of occupations is apparently identical in the three 

 reports, but there is much real discrepancy between the Irish and English 

 reports, rendering exact comparison difficult. 



"3. In the Irish report there is no comparison and classification of occupa- 

 tions according to age, classification according to religions being substituted, 

 although such a classification could not be made in England or Scotland. 



" 4. In the appendix to the English report appears a table (No. 56), giving 



