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show that women working full-time in shops, or from home, were quite common in the area.

The "Occupations" statistics, when read against the population figures for the individual settlements given in the 1911 Census also throw a good deal of light on urban life in the New Territories. As mentioned a number of times, the towns of Southern District were more important to the society of that District than were the towns of Northern District In both 1911 and 1921 a far higher percentage of those with recorded occupations who were working in “urban” occupations was recorded in Southern District (see Table 27).

Table 27
Persons in Urban Occupations, 1911 and 1921 Censuses

District Total population In urban occupations % Northern District 1911: (M) 22770 3859 16.9% (F) 14387 105 0.7% Northern District 1921: (M) 34753 4669 13.4% (F) 12320 924 7.5% Southern District 1911: (M)*• 11036 5017 45.5% (F)*• 2270 Southern District 1921: (M)* 18418 4894 26.6% (F)* 4329 1100 25.4%

* Includes New Kowloon
• Does not include the floating population

While the problems arising from the inadequacies of the "Occupations" tables in the two censuses make the detail of Table 27 not to be fully depended on, nonetheless the much more heavily urban character of the Southern society comes out clearly. The 1911 Census, which gives details of the population of every settlement, also allows us to see the relative size of the towns, which in Northern District were tiny when compared with those in Southern. The details are at Table 28.