TAKING THE CENSUS IN THE LONDON SLUMS.

Timaru Herald, Volume LII, Issue 5155, 30 May 1891, Page 3

TAKING THE CENSUS IN THE LONDON SLUMS.

(By a special correspondent of the Daily Neus.) " No, sir j ain't sin hone of 'em j and when I do ccc 'em they'll 'avo to fill up their oen»ers paper theiraelves." " What ! Not flilod up your paper jet ?" "No, that I ain't, I uin't no scbolard myself, and my ole man been ahod those three year, and it'd be all the came if he was up. He oan't read nor write, and I don't know nobody as can." " Well, I'll fill it for you." The old lady looks as though she has found a friend indeed, and she toddlos along towards her room with moro than the sprightliness of [ three score years and twelve. But suddenly she halt 3 and a shada of perplexity has come over her. "Ye' ain't such a thing as a bottle o' hinfc about yer sir, '&ie yer?". "Ho, I haven't really. Hav'n't you any m?" "No, nor no pens neiiher. They, comes and borrers yer hir.k, and they Dever brings itbaok," she added ; hut T think it was only a pretonce put forth for the sake of appearances, anil I doubt very much whether the old couple ever had a bottle of ink m their lives. While the stranger is bethinking himself as to whether there was or ib not anything m the official instructions on the uae of pencils instead of pen and ink, the old lady dives into a neighbouring doorway on a borrowing expedition heraelf, and presently comes forth triumphantly displaying a pen. " Got a pen, but ain't got no hink," she exclaims, and vanished into another doorway c, little way further along, and from this she ptesi>ntly emorgeß, fully equippid for the Registrar General and all bia aemunda. HaH I been tho Grand Inquisitor himself the filling up of that paper could hardly have been a moro a >lemn mid serious piece of business. But it was evidently a disappointing proceeding after all. The ridiculous document took no notice of jußt the moat important matter m all the world to them. Hore was the old man bedridden, and the wifo over seventytwo yeara of age, fagging away at a heavy sewing machine for a shilling a day ; and this extraordinary censua-puper asked never a question aa to why the Spitalflelds Guardians would'nt make the slightest allowance to the old oouple out of the lioubb, but was particularly anxious about their Bex and the parish they were born m far away m the early century. The vivacious old woman "a'poaed eoine'i; 'd couio of it," but evidently wasn't over-Banguine. In largo numbers of cases the papers were presented blank, from the tofal inability of the dark-eyed foreigners to make head or tail of them. Sometimes when they were fillud up they were rather worse than tho absolutely blank. The dreadful puzzle of Polish-Kuasiun name 3 wore m many na«es ontered m the most topsy-turvy fiahion One rosy-cheeked good-tempered looking woman, whose eyes would have done for a Madonna, handed over her paper with evident pride. Hers was filled in — not like thoae that the rest had boen scolded for ; and it was something like thiB — Esther, Just go out work m Where there is river — Your British subject 1884, birth 26 Mar. Ruohen Polen 1860, 22 May. Amendment was hopeleßß, and another schedule had to bo substituted. Another creates hopeless confusion by putting the right entries m wrong lines, thus making all the malo names stand for fonialoß, and putting all the elders at school, while the juveniles ara the employers of labour or the heads of families. " Why, look hore at theso agos," says my comrade. They were all patriarchs of a truly Biblical type. Head of family. Albert Jenkins ; age last birthday, 407; Mury Ann Jenkins, 401 ; Thomas Jenkins, 201 "How's this?" we want to know. Why do people live so long m that insalubriouslooking house? " Albert Jonkina 401 !" exclaims a cadaverous youth m the dark, steep staircase, " why that's the ole man ! " " Yea I should rather think it is," and there ia a roar of laui liter from up above, " How old's thole man ? " shouts up Thomas. " Fortyseven," tays the missis, shaking with mirth at the idea of a head of the family four good centuries old. Ah, that's it, then— 4o and 7 m the " 010 man's " edition of Cocker mako 47, and bo with all tho roat.