CENSUS SECRETS.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 961, 31 October 1910, Page 8

CENSUS SECRETS.

WOMEN WHO WILL NOT TELL THEIR AGES. '

■ Women are'notoriously reticent about their age. Many of them would'sooner have a tooth pulled than reveal such information. Fresh . evidence of this cliaractcris'tic is provided by an articlo in the "Empire Review" on the approaching census. Dealing with the figures of the last census, tlie writer points out that there are more-of the-fair, sex aged about twenty-five than can be accounted for. This is how they are found out: ... . "Women of twenty-five in 1901 must have been fifteen in 1891; but the women entered in the returns as twentyfive exceed the young girls of fifteen, of whom they should be only the naturally diminished survivors!" The writer offers as a partial explanation the fact that twenty-fivo is looked upon as the golden age for matrimony,'to be older than which means facing at once the possibility of remaining an old maid. Any person who refuses to. give information, or who wilfully gives false information as to any. of the particulars in the census-schedule, is liable to a fine' not exceeding five pounds.' After all the .schedules for Scotland had been centralised in 1891, a lady, deeply veiled, handed in the sum of five - pounds, with half-a-crown for acknowledgment in "The Scotsman," mentioning that , she,-had entered her age wrongly. ■ . It is anticipated, that this census will provido valuable' information on the housing question. At previous censuses the English schedule 'asked a statement of the number of rooms only. whore tho rooms occupiod by the .porsons named wore fewer than five rooms. Hence-' forth there is to bo uniformity in this respect, and the occupier in England of a large houso will be required to state tho number of rooms in his mansion equally with the dweller in a small or slum' house. ' ,