Next yaar a census will be taken through, out the British dominions, and the Eng lish papers are deploring the. fact that Great Britain is still a good deal behind several of her colonies, to say nothing of some of her nearer , neighbours on tha Conitinemt, in regard ■ to this periodical stock-taking of th© _ation.- Under the Romans fin. ttho ' Middle - Ages the census, such as it* was, was taken merely for taxing pur poses. In England it was not till the beginning of-the present century, that the people were enumerated for purely statis tical purposes, fn the time of Adam Smith, and eve*i long afterwards, as one authority points out, the number of the inhabitant* of the British Mas could only be guessed at, as the populousness of China is at *he present day. It was tho then assistanit-clerk of the House of Com mons, Mr Rickman, who was instrumental in gebtang ihe first census carried out in 1801. The results at first, however, were some, what confused and unsatisfactory. It was not until 1837 that a uniform system of registration of births, marriages and deaths was established -in. England, and this, of course, greatly facilitated"' the taking of the. census, .and ensured the greater* ac curacy of the- results. Even at the pre sent time the arrangements in England are capable of considerable improvement. For example, the censu* is taken once in every ten years instead of once in 'every five, as in most of the colonies, in Ger many, France,' Sweden, and several States of America. Jfo account is taken of the religious beliefs of the. people, enquiries on this head .being apparently considered too inquisitorial. Information as to labour, manufactories, etc., still has to be eougbt from tfee record* of the Board of Trade, or from private sources, such as the Labour oehsus of La—dan, conducted by Mr Booth. Tie New Zealand census i» far mere complete as regards the informa tion it ailorcLf, and in this respect it Jeavcs little room for improvement. It gives, for example, <th, 3 , number and de. acriptioas of th« dwellings, the extraction «ad place of bw& of the peopkv their

religious donomination, whether suffering from sickness, ardent, or infirmity, w&etber ciblo to read or write, etc. 