2 THE CENSUS OF 1861. 



shewing what results may be considered as at least approximately" 

 correct, and partly to warn others from wasting as much time as I 

 have done on those parts which can do nothing but mislead. 



It may be desirable, as a preliminary, to explain the nature of the 

 work performed by the enumerators. In their lists the name of each 

 individual in a family is given, with columns to shew whether male or 

 female, married or single, and with a. column for the age next birth 

 day. There are also columns to shew the number of births and 

 deaths during the preceding year, and the age at which death 

 occurred; and this is all that relates to vital statistics, or to that 

 portion of the subject which we are examining. Now, it would appear 

 probable a 'priori, that with ordinary care, the facts then and there 

 present, viz. : everything relating to the persons living at the time, 

 would be given correctly enough. I do not think that there is any 

 reason to doubt the numbers living, the proportion of males and 

 females, and of married and single, very nearly representing the true 

 state of the population ; and the ages would, probably, be not very 

 far wrong, though there is much more doubt upon this subject. 

 Many persons do not know their ages with accuracy, and many may 

 have purposely misstated them. The tendency to guess at the age, 

 and to call it the nearest round number, is forcibly illustrated in the 

 Census of the State of New York, for 1855, by a diagram which 

 shews the immense preponderance of ages stated as 35, 40, 45, &c., 

 over airbther ages. But when past facts are recorded, as the births 

 and deaths which occurred perhaps many mouths before, we could 

 hardly look for the same. accuracy, and one would expect the births 

 and deaths to be considerably understated. An error of this kind is 

 not by any means peculiar to the Census of Canada. By the Census 

 of the State of New York, for 1855, the total deaths recorded are 

 46,297) which gives a percentage on the population of 1.3G, a suspi- 

 ciously low rate ; but in the same year, whilst the Census gave the 

 deaths in the City of New York at 11,022, the city registers recorded 

 23,042. If we merely correct the manifest error in the city, the 

 general rate would become 1.74, but if we suppose the omissions 

 there to be a test of what they were in other parts of the State, it 

 would beas high as 2.84; ; the true amount is probably intermediate 

 between the two. A very striking illustration of the omissions which 

 are likely to be made of facts, which occurred some time before th© 

 taking of the Census, is furnished by the United States Census of 



