Burma: Census of India 1901 Vol. I - Khamkoo

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REPORT ON THECENSUS OF BURMA.
number of males, (c) the total number of females, (d) the total number of persons
,of both sexes, were despatched forthwith to the Census Commissioner, Calcutta,
and to the Superintendent, Census Operations, Rangoon. Steps had been taken
several months before the final enumeration to see that no time was wasted in
carrying out the procedure described, and, where delay in the compiling of the
circle summaries seemed inevitable, arrangements had been made for utilizing
advance copies of the summaries, based on the unrevised figures of the preliminary
enumeration, and sent by Supervisors, immediately that enumeration was
finished, to Charge Superintendents. These measures enabled the Deputy Commissioners
of all the districts in the province except Salween to despatch their
telegrams giving provisional totals to the Census Commissioner and to this office
by the nth March. The first district telegram was received from Magwe on
the 4th March. The Rangoon figures were calculated soon after 8 p.m. on the
2nd. The provisional totals for the province were as follows:
Males
Females
5,323,910
5,144,280
Total
10,468,190
18. As soon as the final enumeration was completed the enumeration books for
The
each district were sent, with district, charge and circle
work of abstraction.
summaries and circle lists, to the Abstraction office
in Rangoon. The first instalment was received on the 4th March, and by the
end of April the books for the whole of Burma, excluding the Shan States, had
been deposited in the office record-room. The Shan States schedules, which
'
in some cases had to be copied on to the printed forms from Shan paper forms
after the final enumeration, were not sent till later. After being numbered and
.registered in the record-room the enumeration books were made over to the
office. for abstraction. The system adopted for obtaining the required data from
the schedules was that known as the slip system of abstraction. It is described
in some detail in the Administrative Volume. Here it will suffice to say that its
most distinguishing feature was the process by which each individual person
enumerated was represented for abstraction purposes by two slips or pieces of
paper about the size of a carte de visite photograph. The colour of the slips denoted
the religion of the person concerned,* their shape (according as corners were
or were not cut off) his or her sex and civil condition. On the slips were copied
in an abbreviated form the entries made against the person in the enumeration
book, some on one slip some on the other. Thus, after having been dealt with as
above, the population of each block assumed the form of two bundles, of slips of
different shapes and colours with different particulars regarding age, occupation,
birth-place, &c, noted on them. These bundles were then sorted by the
Abstraction staff, now in one way now in another, according as it was desired to
ascertain this or the other set of facts for the Census tables, and the result of the.
sorting was entered in its appropriate column in a printed form called a tabulation
sheet. Altogether five processes were gone through by the Abstraction staff.
In the first place, for the names of the occupations entered in the occupation
columns of the schedules, numbers were substituted by a gang of clerks who
formed what was known as the Occupation department. The schedules were then
made over to the Posting department, where the slips were written up by a staff
of posting clerks. The posters' work was next checked by the Checking department,
and the schedules and slips were then passed into the Sorting and Tabulating
department, where the slips were sorted for the various tables and the results
entered on the tabulation sheets. The last stage of the work consisted in.compil-"
ihg the various tabulation sheets into the Imperial and Provincial Tables. This
was. the duty of the Compilation department. There can be no question that the
system was an improvement on the method of abstraction adopted at the 1891
census, which has been described in paragraphs 343 to 349 of Mr. Eales' report.
Mention has been made in the Administrative Volume of the strength or the
various departments on various dates and the average amount of work they turned
-*. InrBurma, the.colours selected were—
Brown for Buddhists.
Red for Hindus.
Green for Muhammadans.
Yellow for Animists.
Blue for Christians.
White for Others.