A HUMAN DOCUMENT

Taranaki Daily News, 26 August 1931, Page 5

A HUMAN DOCUMENT

. QUESTIONABLE PURSUITS. SOME CENSUS REVELATIONS. .... The Bureau of the Census in Washington is responsible for the most human document of the year. Government statistics are generally dry, but the classified returns of the United States’ 50,000,000 employed offer unprecedented sidelights on human interests and occupations. Not the least surprising part has been the frankness with which illegal or questionable pursuits were confided to the Government census enumerators.

Bootlegging as a livelihood was freely admitted by such entries as “proprietor, bootlegging ring,” “master mind for bootleggers,” “bootlegger mean whisky.” One citizen declared that he was employed in “cutting down whisky,” another that he “syphoned whisky out of barrels," others that they were agents, bottlers or truck drivers for bootleggers. Chicago returned ten “racketeers,” one “grafter” and a couple of “gangsters.” Professional pride in one case dictated “super-rack-eteer” to the enumerator.

Kansas produced a , “schemer, all kinds.” Boston an inhabitant who “diluted perfume for an importer.” Two New York girls stated that they were employed in sewing Paris labels in Ameri-can-made hats. The “manager of a ‘shady’ dance hall” did not hesitate to record his employment, nor did the three “gigolos.” A “witch” declared herself as such in Berks, County Pennsylvania. “Moon-shiners” in the south and “hijackers” along the Canadian border are officially listed. Some seem to have experienced difficulty in describing what they do for a living. Others certainly find it hard to do what they describe. In the first cate.gory is the* “foreman of a hair mine,” the “labourer fifteenth skunk,” the “secretary, necessity of life.” The second includes a “night-mother of a day-nurs-ery,” the “second butchei’ in a hospital,” the “delivery boy in a hospital,” the “salesman, infants,” and “owner of baby exchange.” It is harder to place “the manipulator of sickness” and “the trick doctor.” Such activities aa superintendents of egg-laying contests, and blooddonors, for instance, must appear hectic, compared with the employment of the “genius, independent,” the “analyst, human nature,” the “philosopher at home,” the “ruminator, public affairs,” oE'“the lady reformer.”