NATION OF NUMBERS.

Mataura Ensign, 4 July 1914, Page 5

NATION OF NUMBERS.

PLAN TO TRACE EVERY CITIZEN'. On Juno 2, at St. George':*, Ilano- . ver Square, *12,187,003, son of the Into 37,01>2,053 . and Mi ry jy.WHjS'il, ne« H! 1, to Aline Maud Hti.'ild, Sahedillo 1), daughter of ll,(i'-ii,2li> aiul tho Hon. Mrs -11 ,(>32,21!), and granddaughter nj Viscount 12. Such a marriage announcement may bo a cnmmon|)im. i e of the fuuiro if the scheme elaborated at a meeting of tJie Royal Statistical Society in London were adopted ai)d pursued to its logical development. According to the .present ideals of the scheme, everyone on birth would be entered in the national records via the local registers and Somerset House, as a number and given an index-curd, to correspond.* When he became an adult and married, a brief reference of his marriage would be entered on the curd, and afterwards further references, of varying brevity, would testify to the size of his growing la.inilv. These cards , would have to l be produced by an individual "on such oiher occasions as Parliament and (i] sto in might from time to time require." It is uiged that the life-card, as it would be called, would aid considerably in the tracing of missing persons, prevent fraudulent marriages, and establish the domestic status of emigrants, which: there is some difficulty in doing at present. Cards Would be returned' to Somerset House when the holder was numbered among the dead. ,