LONDON’S CENSUS TASK

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 151, 29 June 1931, Page 8

LONDON’S CENSUS TASK

LODGING HOUSE DWELLERS. HUNDREDS OF INMATES. Some embarrassment was caused by the recent British census in London hotels, clubs boarding houses, and lodging houses, where the return, for all the residents had to be made by the management. The authorities learned that in some instances hotel managers were proposing to hand the schedule round among visitors individually, but they promptly drew their attention to the necessity of the manager himself, or a responsible deputy, making up the entries. In some of the biggest London hotels the difficulty was overcome by providing each guest with a form on which to furnish the necessary particulars, which were afterwards entered by the management on the general schedule for the establishment.

In the big common lodging housesit was found that the compiling of the returns worked much more smoothly than might have been expected. The proportion of men who sleep in the same lodging house night after night is usually very high —in one house 650 out of a total of 700 —and the task was made easier in consequence. In another house it was learned that some Of the inmates had been there for twenty-five years. The greatest difficulty among these people was to obtain accurate industrial and occupational details. Very few knew either the correct name ot the exact occupation of their employers, although in some cases the employers, in response to a request from the Registrar-General, had attached the necessary information to the pay sheets. Most apt to prevarication was the statement of age —a matter in which women are notoriously ‘ ‘ uncertain, coy, and hard to please.” Here the enumerator had to use his initiative. He had to chide gently the grey-haired flapper, and if she “stuck to her story” he went .away to institute delicate inquiries in that place where no secrets' arc hid on this side of the grave.