Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 January 1911 — Census Quiz Jars Germans [ARTICLE]

Census Quiz Jars Germans

Subjects of Kaiser Perplexed by Some Searching Questions —Total May Be 65,000,000. Berlin.—Germany is in the throes of a census which will not end for many weeks'. When It is over the fatherland expects to wake up and find itself the possessor of 65,000,000 souls, or a gain of 4.50p.000 sln.ce_l9fliL The German population experts are deeply impressed by this week’s announcement that the United States has over 90,000,000 inhabitants. The American rate of increase during the

last ten years is double tbo*rate at which Germany is growing. \ i. The census of Germany is not taken by official question askers, as in the United States, but by means of a series of intricate blanks which every householder in the country is obHged to fill out. Millions of otherwise intelligent Germans spent last week wrestling with the mysteries of the cenßUßfortur. 7“ These are some of the searching questions which the kaiser’s perplexed subjects had to amfwer: “If you don’t know the exact date oil your birth, how many full years ola are you?” “What’s your main occupation la life?” “Were your babies nursed on their mother’s breast or by wet nurses, or from a bottle?” “Are you subject to epileptic fits?* “How many of your house windows look out on the street?” “What was your mother tongue— German, Dutch, Frießan, Danish, Wal* lonian, Polish or Lithuanian —and what are the names of the various rooms In your dwelling?” "What is the religion of your ser* vants?” “How many bathrooms have you?” “Do you 000 k with gas or other fuel?” “What rent do you pay?” German economists cherish ambitious hopes for the future of Germany's population. One authority says there will be 150,000,000 by 1 1980. Another expert. Prof, von Schmolter of the University of Berlin, peers into the distant future as far as J 5135, when he sees a vision of 208,000,000. “Such increase,” he writes, ‘Should, will and must come if we wish to remain a great and powerful nation, but we must have fruitful colonies abroad to take care of the surplus.”