t 8‘1‘ 3 CHAPTER XIV.

Ai REMEDY SUGGESTED FOR A GREAT EVIL.

THE Census of 1861 is taken, and yet it' is not 'aken. Enumerators, as‘ appointments, have in some nstances proved dis-appointments, and an estimate of whole that depended on the accuracy of'its parts, as to be glued together by suPpositions and imagi- ary data; important items of inquiry have been sa- isfied by dissatisfying answers, and in many cases, quotations would embarraSs the subject still more) ‘deas‘ofinquisitiVeness, of taxation notions, ofland- lordisms, and of mistaken independence, have served to nullify the most important step a country can take to make itself known, and appreciated before the v‘orld. Domestic servants and children have often been allowed to confuse enquiry, to offer erroneous eths, and supply defective information. Farmers, whose highest progress and prospects depended on the most accurate statements of their cropping capa- bilities, have allowed, from ill-judged motives, a par— tial survey of their industry, and thus given their countenance to statements that wear the coiul‘ of fraud, and place' them disadvantageously before their fellows. Were some of the agricultural returns really true, Prince Edward Island might well blush through her red clay, and tremble, as her poplarS, before the breath of honest enquiry; but they are not true, as a whole, and may be considered as falling below the real facts, not perhaps as to the number of the Population, but in the enumeration of the quanti. - ties of products.

The science of census taking is but in its infancy in Prince Edward Island, and while political reasons influence the selection of the enumerators, it will never approach nearer the real truth than what may be understood by the term “ approximation.” There ought to be in each Electoral District an intelligent

and well-informed census oflicer, not mixed up with. 11?.