BRITAIN’S BIG ROLL CALL

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 145, 22 June 1931, Page 10

BRITAIN’S BIG ROLL CALL

CENSUS IN A CHURCH. HOMELESS AND DESTITUTE The census—the great roll-call nl Great Britain—was taken on the night of April 26. In one case census forms were filled in in the vestry of a church—that of Holy Trinity, Gray’s Inn Road, whch was dedicated some time ago by the Bishop of Stepney as a shelter for homeless and destitute men. No fewer than seven large forma, each holding tho details of 37 people, were required, and about half a dozen helpers worked feverishly for some hours filling in the particulars of tho men. A great °round up” of the homeless in the street and on the Thames Embankment lasted from midnight until three o’clock in the morning. Policemen with census forms took tho names of people sleeping on benches, or took them to shelters, where, they were entered on the lists. Hundreds were accommodated at Salvation Army refuges and the London County Council shelter in Northumberland Avenue. The governor of Walton Gaol, pool, had to write down on one of th< prison census forms the name of Wil* Ham Herbert Wallace, who was awaiting his fate in the. condemned cell. Wallace had been sentenced to death at Liverpool Assizes on the previous day fol the murder of his wife, and he was set out. on the official form as <4 lnsurane< Agent—Widower. ” The death sentence was afterwards quashed by the Appeal Court. The task of taking the census in th* great London hospitals occasionally presented unexpected problems—such n® per-oiis. the x ietiins of accidents, being taken to the institution unconscious and unable to give particulars of their identity. Then, too, there were the case® of persons suffering from loss of memory, admitted to various institution! throughout the country.