"The age seems clear, too," said Hamilton, "you punch the five-year period nearest to the age and then add on. For instance, the way it looks to me is that if a fellow was sixteen, you would first punch the '15' and then the '1' in that little cornerwise bit at the bottom of the next section. But I don't see what the '5' is for."
FACSIMILE OF PUNCHED CENSUS CARD. Example of record made for every person in the United States, this card being the actual record of the author.
"That's for babies in the sixth division of the first year, or from nine to eleven months old; the first division means under one month, and the rest either one, two, or three months apiece."
"I see it all now," exclaimed the boy, "you have to punch two holes for age for every person. For a boy of ten, you would have to punch the '0' as well as the '10,' I suppose, to make sure he isn't older and the extra years forgotten."
"That's the reason exactly."
"The meaning of the section next to the age is easy, too," Hamilton continued. "'S' for Single, 'M' for Married, 'Wd' for Widowed, 'D' for Divorced, 'Un' for unknown, any one could guess. But this 'Mother Tongue' business has me going."
"I thought it would," was the reply. "But it's not so hard if you remember a few things, particularly that the language of a country is not always spoken by the greatest number of its inhabitants. Now the mother tongue of Wales is Welsh, but a large proportion of the people do not speak Welsh. Thus an English-speaking Welshman's card would be punched 'OL,' meaning Other Language, or the language next in importance to the mother language of the country."
"On that basis," said Hamilton, "if the second most important language of Denmark is German a card that was punched 'Den' for the country would have to be punched 'OL' if the person whose census was registered had spoken German as his native tongue, but 'LC' if he had spoken Danish, which is the native tongue of the country. But I should think there would be some cases that would not come under that rule."
"There are—a few," the foreman replied, "but the way in which those are to be punched will be noted on the schedule by the schedule editors."