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Subject: Re: [SUNDERLAND] date`s
Date: Thu, 4 May 2006 08:59:15 EDT

From "The Times" 21 Jan 1911.

"The Disclosure of Age"
'That is the point where trouble generally arises, if trouble there is.
Women who are no longer very young and not yet very old have a traditional and
unconquerable objection to saying exactly how old they are. One curious result
is that the number of women who return themselves as aged from 20 to 25
exceeds at every Census the number of girls returned as from 10 to 15 at the
previous Census. A certain number of women householders, though deterred by fear of
a £5 fine from absolutely refusing information, will send up their answers
direct by post to the Registrar-General, hoping it will be hidden at least
from the eye of any neighbour, even from the confidential enumerator. The
Registrar-General will politely acknowledge the schedule - and send it back to the
local registrar for inclusion in the district returns. It never occurs to any
of these ladies, apparently, to adopt a really effective method by
undertaking the duties of an enumerator herself. In that capacity she could not only
conceal her own age, but find out every one else's.
Many people of both sexes deliberately falsify their statement of age to
bolster up a previous falsification. At the last Census (1901) according to the
official report, it was found that servants had misstated their age to get
higher wages, and workhouse inmates to secure a better dietary and other
advantages, or that an understatement had been made to deceive an insurance
company. Consistency here is not a jewel; and if the culprits realised that the
Census details would not be used as proof against them or for any purpose except
to make up statistical tables, they might for once be inconsistently
accurate.'

Regards Stan Mapstone
www.mapstone.org

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