Sessional_Paper_1911 — Page 169

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As far as possible, they should be told off to sections with which they are acquainted, and near where they live.

It will be advisable at the next Census for the Police Officers in charge of the various Districts in Kowloon to get a list of local men who are willing to act as enumerators. This is specially needed in the case of Kowloon City, Sham Shui Pò and Hunghom. At Shau- kiwan, this should be done also.

Shortly before the Census day, arrangements must be made for the enumerators to come up in batches to receive their instructions, be told off to their sections, and (if in Vic- toria) to meet the District Watchmen who are to acco mpany them. Each enumerator, when he is originally approved, should be given a slip of paper telling him on what day and hour he is to come up. The Census Officer should keep a corresponding list. It is as well not to arrange for batches of more than 20 t come up at any one time. In certain cases it may be necessary to pay enumerators traveling expenses. Those employed on the Census of the Floating Population of the Harbour should get higher pay than those working on land.

3. Books of Schedules.—These are very useful for village work, and in districts where few of the people can write. They were used for the first time at the present Census, and were very popular with the Police and civilian enumerators. The filling up of the books has to be done by the enumerators on the spot, but the necessity of making a second visit house for the purj ose of schedule collecting is done away with. The books are also very much more convenient for card-copying than loose schedu'es. Another advantage is that they are properly filled up and in legible han writing. In case of loose schedules, to be filled up by the people themselves, a large number have to be re-written by the enumer

to every

rators.

When enumerating villages by means of these books, enumerators must be careful to do one village completely before going on to another one. In Sham Shui Pò District great confusion ensued become some of the enumerators failed to follow this rule. They visited certain houses in one village, made the entries, went off to another village, finally returning and finishing the first one. The result was that the totals could only be found by searching through the books and collecting the scattered items. It was only in Shan Shui Po that this happened. The work was correctly done elsewhere.

4. Preliminary Returns.-These should not I think be sent in until the Age Tables are completed. Taking the figures from the totals at the end of the enumerators' books is very risky. Most serious mistakes are often made by the enumerators in totalling up their books, though the individual entries may be correct.

5. Tabulation. Each clerk should be provided with a set of pigeon-holes, the holes being large enough to hold a card comfortably. If the cards can only barely enter, it makes the work of sorting very much more tedious. The Age Tables should be the first ones to be taken in hand. It is of no great consequence which ones are done next, but the Chinesc Occupations and Birth Places should be done last. These two Tables are exceedingly difficult to compile. They take more time than all the others put together.

Each clerk should do about 3,000 Ages per day, together with a couple of the smaller Tables, such as Infirmities and Married State. These can be done simultaneously.

The Occupations and Birth Places are done at the rate of about 1,500 or 1,690 a day. 6. Non-Chinese work. The Census Officer has to do practically all this himself. Even the ordinary $60 Chinese clerk, with a good knowledge of English, cannot be relied upon not to make serious mistakes, if left to prepare particulars of Nationalities and Birth Places. On the present occasion I had to copy nearly all the Non-Chinese cards myself, in addition to preparing the whole of the Tables.

7. General.-(1.) The various Census Sections should always be made to correspond with the boundaries of Health Districts and Sub-Districts. The exact population of the latter is difficult to arrive at otherwise. It is especially important to remember this in the case of Kowloon.

(2.) The officer in charge at Sham Shui Pò should only enumerate that portion of his district which lies in the New Territories. Fuk Ts'un Heung, Tai Kok Tsui, etc., which are in Old Kowloon, should be done from Yaumati.