THE CENSUS OF 1851.
The earnest care of the Government to know the exact number of people that the parish of Clumpley-cum-Bogglesmere contained on an especial night—how many folks slept in 43, Parson's Court, Upper Bloater Street, Chandler's Market, on the same occasion: who populated the police-cells; who put up at hotels; who dozed the night away in cabs and coffee-shops—on billiard-tables and heaps of cabbages—anywhere, everywhere, and nowhere—this great investigation of those who cannot believe their Census any longer, is about to come off again, and again to furnish its utterly false returns.
We say utterly false, for the means taken to insure correctness, as to the number of persons who slept in a particular place on a particular night, are contemptibly inefficient. With the smallest foresight, we can furnish a number of tables proving its inaccuracy; and from the mass of evidence taken by the Census Committee of Inquiry after the last return (which evidence has never been made public) we can also bring forward conclusive facts. To show the futility of expecting a correct return from houses we subjoin the following information, taken quite at random, from different individuals.
Case 1.—Mr. Mark Lane.—I am a single man, and on the Corn Exchange. I never slept anywhere on the night in question. I went to dine at the Divan, and then I went to the play, and then I went to the Albion, and then I went to the Cyder Cellars, and then I went about, and then I went to a coffee-house, and then I went to Westminster Bridge to see the sun rise, and then I went to my office and then I went to bed on the counting-house table, and upset the inkstand into the wafers; and then I went to sleep till the clerk came.
TAKING THE CENSUS.
Case 2.—Joseph Badger.—I'm a cabman. I didn't sleep not in no house on that night: I haven't done for years. I took a party from Doory Lane, Julyun's, to Pentonwill; and afterwards nodded on my box a bit, just a wink, cos no cabs as never no call there. Then I took a gent as was a little overcome, and thought he was at Paddington, as far as the Edg'er Road, by St. Paul's and the Regency Circus; and then I went to the Great West'un, and dozed a bit again, inside, and set on my whip and broke it, just like anythink, as you might say. Next fare I got was a up-passenger from Exeter, and took him to the Piazzy Hotel, and then I got another wink in Bedford Street, and there I was till morning.
Case 3.—Mr. Gregory Barnes.—I am a surgeon and chemist in Seven Dials. I certainly never slept in any house on that evening. I was rung up at eleven o'clock to an obstetric case in Endell Street; and sent from there at two, to an Irishman who'd got his skull fractured in St. Giles's, by a quart pot; and was obliged to leave him to cut down a tipsy tailor, who had just hung himself in Crown Street, and was two hours coming round; and then I had his wife in hysterics for the same time; and then it was morning, and I was obliged to go off to the Old Bailey on a trial of manslaughter.
ALARMING INCREASE OF
THE POPULATION.
But these examples might be multiplied to the ages of Sinclair, Widdicombe, Braham, and any other "veterans," as they are termed, combined. The people unnumbered in the Census compose waiters, tramps, stokers, carriers, gamblers, piemen, breakfast-stall-keepers, steamboat stewards, mail-train passengers, moon-shooters, show-folks, Vauxhall lamp-men, and renowned individuals of all sorts, whose night's repose is doubtful; such as Mr. Braidwood; the toll-keepers at the bridges, the beadles of the arcades, Mr. Green, if on a night ascent; the editor of the Times; and, on certain debates, Mr. Chisholm Anstey.
We are told that population doubles in a certain number of years. If so, when it doubles itself again, what the dickens will the crowd do in Cheapside at four o'clock in the afternoon; or the people on the roof of the Cremorne omnibuses homeward-bound; in the pit of the Adelphi; the Derby-day cheap trains; the Blackwall whitebait houses on fine Sundays; or the Watermen steamers from Greenwich Fair?