Page images
PDF
EPUB

all the Portuguese settlements on the coast, as well as the Azores, Madeira, the Cape Verd, and the Canary Islands.

[ocr errors]

CAUCUS, a word in use in the United States of North Ameria, which is applied to public meetings which are held for the purpose of agreeing upon candidates to be proposed for election to offices, or to concert measures for supporting a party, or any measure of a public or local nature; but its use is more generally confined to meetings of a political character. The word is to be found in nearly every American newspaper, and the American Cyclopædia' states that it is one of the very few Americanisms' which belong entirely to the United States. It is used in Gordon's History of the American Revolution,' published in London in 1788. Gordon says, that more than fifty years prior to the time of his writing, "Samuel Adams' father, and twenty others in Boston, one or two from the north end of the town, where all ship business is carried on, used to meet, make a caucus, &c." It has therefore been supposed that "caucus" was a corruption of" caulkers," the word meeting being understood.

CAVALRY (remotely from the Latin caballus, a horse') is that class of troops which serve on horseback. In the British army it consists of the two regiments of Life Guards, the royal regiment of Horse Guards, seven regiments of Dragoon Guards, and seventeen regiments of Light Dragoons, of which the 7th, 8th, 10th, 11th, and 15th are Hussars, and the 9th, 12th, 16th, and 17th are Lancers. A complete regiment of cavalry is divided into four squadrons, and each of these into two troops. The full strength of a troop is 80 men; and to each troop there is appointed a captain, a lieutenant, and a

cornet.

The charge of the regimental establishments of the Life and Horse Guards in the year 1845, was-Life Guards, each regiment 29,8037.; Horse Guards, 26,2957. The number of rank and file in each of these regiments is 351; non-commissioned officers, trumpeters, and drummer 53; officers 32: total 436. The pay in the Life and Horse Guards is higher in every grade than for the cavalry of the line. Fourteen regiments of dragoons cost

altogether 239,4421. One regiment of Dragoon Guards (the 1st) contains 479 of all ranks, and costs 22,2641. The cost of six regiments of Light Dragoons, each with 791 officers and men, in service in India, is defrayed by the East India Company, and amounts to 34,6387. per annum for each regiment. The cavalry in the pay of this country for 1844-5 was 7970 officers and men, out of a standing army of 99,707, exclusive of cavalry in India; or including the Queen's troops in India, the charge for cavalry for 1844-5

[blocks in formation]

Dragoons are a species of light cavalry trained to act either on horseback or on foot as may be required. They appear to have been introduced into the English service before the middle of the seventeenth century; but the oldest regiment of dragoons in the army is that of the Scotch Greys, which was raised in 1681. Dragoons perform the duty of advanced guards and patroles; they escort convoys, and harass the enemy in his retreat; or, in reverses of fortune, they protect the dispersed and defeated infantry. The name Dragoon appears to come from the Latin Draconarius, the appellation given to a standard-bearer, who carried a standard or colour with the figure of a dragon on it. (Ammianus Marcell. xx. 4, and the notes in the edition of J. Gronovius; Vegetius, ii. 7.)

Hussars are also a species of light cavalry, which originally constituted the national militia of Poland and Hungary. They are usually employed to protect reconnoitring and foraging parties, and to serve as patroles.

The Lancers were introduced into the British service in order to correspond to the corps of what were called Polish Lancers in the French army. The long lance carried by this class of troops was supposed to be of use in a charge against infantry; and the fluttering of the flag at the extremity of the lance, by alarming the horse, to give an advantage over a dragoon otherwise armed.

In the late war a portion of the French | cavalry was furnished with cuirasses, and, in imitation of them, the English Life Guards and Horse Guards have since borne the same heavy armour. These troops carry a sword, two pistols, and a carabine; the heavy cavalry in general carry carabines, pistols, and swords; and the light cavalry very small carabines, pistols, and sabres.

In the French budget for 1845-6, the estimate for the army was for 81,689 horses and 340,000 men. There are fifty-four regiments of cavalry, of five squadrons each, in the French service, besides four regiments (the African Chasseurs), each composed of six squadrons. The fifty-four regiments consist of-Carabiniers 2; Cuirassiers 10; Dragoons 12; Lancers 8; Chasseurs 13; and Hussars 9 regiments.

In the Austrian service the number of regiments of Cavalry of the line is 37: Cuirassiers 8; Dragoons 6; Light-horse 7; Hussars 12; Uhlans, 4.

The Russian cavalry in 1835 consisted of 86,800 men, besides 4000 Cossacks.

The Prussian cavalry in 1843 amounted to 19,960 men.

CEMETERY. [INTERMENT.]
CENSOR. [CENSUS, ROMAN.]
CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS.

[PRESS.]

CENSUS, THE, at Rome, was a numbering of the Roman people, and a valuation of their property. It was held in the Campus Martius, after the year B.C. 432. (Liv. iv. 22; Varro, De R. R. iii. 11.) Every Roman citizen was obliged, upon oath, to give in a statement of his own name and age, of the name and age of his wife, children, slaves, and freedmen, if he had any. The punishment for a false return was, that the individual's property should be confiscated, and he himself scourged and sold for a slave. Taxation depended on the results of the census; many kinds of property were excepted, while, on the other hand, some sorts of property were assessed at several times their value. Constant changes were made by successive censors in the valuation of taxable property. Cato and Flaccus rated the taxable value of high-priced slaves at ten times the purchase-money.

(Niebuhr, ii. 402.) It appears from a passage in Livy (ví. 27) that the census also showed the amount of a man's debts and the names of his creditors.

According to the valuation of their property at the census, the citizens were divided into six classes; each class contained a number of centuries or hundreds. That a century did not always consist of a hundred men is clear, from the fact that the richest centuries were the most numerous, and consequently must individually have contained fewer persons than the centuries of the poor. (Hist. of Rome, by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, p. 21.) The first class consisted of those whose property amounted to 100,000 ases, about 3221. 188. of English money: the second class consisted of persons worth 75,000 ases; the fortune of the third class amounted to 50,000 ases; that of the fourth to 25,000; that of the fifth to 11,000; and the sixth class included all below the fifth, even those who had no estate whatever. This was naturally the fullest of the six, but was accounted only as one century. Now, as the richer classes contained far more centuries than the poorer, so much so that the first class contained more than all the rest together, and as the votes in the Comitia Centuriata were taken within the centuries individually, and then the voice of the majority of centuries was decisive, it is obvious that the influence of wealth was greatly preponderant in this assembly. Cicero (De Repub. ii. 22) assigns this as the object aimed at in the institution. The real object of the Comitia Centuriata was (as Niebuhr supposes) to bind the different orders of the state together in one consistent and organised body. In the Comitia Centuriata the people always appeared under arms, and each class had a particular kind of armour assigned to it.

The census was held at first by the kings, afterwards by the consuls, and, from B.C. 442, by two magistrates called Censors (Censores), who were appointed every five years. After the census a sacrifice of purification was generally, but not always, offered. The victims were a sow, a sheep, ard a bull, which were led thrice round the army, and then slain: the sacrifice was called Suovetaurilia.

It does not appear that the census was | two censors; let them hold their office for held with strict regularity. It was some- five years, and let the censorial authority times altogether omitted. (Cic. Pro Arch. be always continued. Let the censors faith5. 11.) The usual interval was five fully guard the law; and let private peryears; and in allusion to the sacrifice of sons bring to them their acta” (probably purification, the interval was commonly their vouchers or evidences). Thus the called a lustre (lustrum). Romans must have had an immense mass of statistical documents, collected every five years, from which the population and the wealth of the community at each quinquennial period could be accurately known. Florus (i. 6) observes," that by the great wisdom of King Servius the state was so ordered that all the differences of property, rank, age, occupations, and professions were registered, and thus a large state was administered with the same exactness as the smallest family." The Roman law fixed the age of legal capacity, and the ages at which a man could enjoy the various offices of the state. There must consequently have been a

When a person was duly entered on the books of the censors, this was taken as a proof of his citizenship, even if he were a slave, provided he had been registered with his master's consent. (Cicero, De Or. i. 40; Ulpian, Frag. tit. i. 8; Gaius, i. 17.) As the census was held at Rome, citizens who were in the provinces, and wished to be registered, were obliged to repair there on that occasion (Cicero, Ad Att. i. 18, &c.); but this was sometimes evaded, and was made a matter of complaint by the censors. The census, accompanied with the ceremony of the lustrum, seems to have fallen into disuse after the time of Vespasian; but the num-register of births under the republic; and bering of the population, and the registration of property, continued under the empire.

The term census is also used in Latin authors to signify the amount of a person's estate, and hence we read of census equestris, the estate of an eques, and census senatorius, the estate of a senator.

The nature of the Roman census may be collected from various particulars. One object was to ascertain the number of men capable of bearing arms; and another, to ascertain the amount of each person's property, and the various heads of which it consisted. Cicero's treatise on Laws, though it contains a picture of an ideal republic, appears in one passage (iii. 3, 4) to describe what the Roman census was as it existed in his time. He says "Let the censors take a census of the ages of the people, the children, the slaves, the property; let them look after the temples of the city, the roads, waters, treasury, the taxes; let them distribute into tribes the parts of which the people consist; then let them distribute the population according to property, ages, classes; let them register the children of the cavalry and the infantry; let them forbid celibacy; let them regulate the morals of the people; let them leave no infamous man in the senate; let there be

a constitution of the emperor Marcus Antoninus, as to the registration of births for a special purpose, is recorded. (Jul. Capitolinus, M. Antonin, c. 9.)

In addition to this we have from the Codes of Theodosius and Justinian various particulars as to the census under the empire, and particularly from a valuable fragment of Ulpian, entitled 'De Censibus.' (Dig. 50, tit. 15, s. 2, 3, 4.) These authorities have preserved even the form of the registration under the Roman census. These registers showed the number, class, age, and property of all free persons, and also indicated the heads of families, mothers, sons, and daughters; they also comprised the slaves, male and female, with their occupations and the produce of their labour. They also contained all the lands, and indicated the mode in which they were cultivated; whether as vineyards, olive-yards, cornland, pastures, forest, and so forth. They showed the number of acres (jugera), of vines, olives, and other trees. In fact, the Roman census under the empire was a complete register of the population and wealth of all the countries included within the limits of the Cæsar's dominions. These remarks are from Dureau de la Malle, Economie Politique des Romains,' who has given at the end of

one of his volumes the form of the registration tables.

CENSUS. Before the first enumeration of the people of this country, in 1801, the number of the population was a fruitful topic with party writers. By some it was contended that England was far less populous than it had been formerly. Arthur Young, writing in 1769, states (vol. iv. p. 556, Northern Tour') that these writers asserted we had lost a million and a half of people since the Revolution. Even so intelligent a writer as Dr. Price was of opinion that in 1780 England and Wales contained no more than 4,763,000 souls. The increase of manufactures, and the greater abundance of employment, which had of course the effect of raising wages, might also be regarded from another, though a one-sided point of view, as the result of the decline of population. It was in vain to tell such persons that all the circumstances of the country were favourable to the increase of population; and that while agriculture was improving, manufactures and commerce rapidly extending, wages higher, and provisions continued at a reasonable price, it was not in the nature of things that population should even continue stationary, but that it would be most likely to increase with great rapidity. It is now known that the popuÎation of England increased upwards of two millions and a quarter between 1750 and the end of the century; but it was not until a census was actually taken that an end was put to the disputes as to the amount of the population.

Having once obtained an enumeration of the people, it has been possible to apply the facts to antecedent periods, in order to form an approximative estimate of the amount of population. This task was undertaken by the late Mr. Rickman, who, in 1836, addressed a circular letter to the clergy throughout England and Wales, asking for their assistance in preparing returns from the parish registers of the births, marriages, and deaths at different periods. Out of about ten thousand parishes in England, one-half possess registers which were commenced prior to 1600, and of these, three-fourtus commence as early as the year 1570. From

[blocks in formation]

1750 6,066,041 450,994

1. Census of 1801.-The first census of Great Britain was limited to the following objects: 1, The number of Individual inhabitants in each parish, distinguishing males from females; 2, The number of inhabited houses, and the number of families inhabiting the same in each parish; 3, The number of uninhabited houses; 4, A classification of the employment of individuals into the great divisions of agriculture, trade, manufactures and handicraft, and a specification of the numbers not included in either of those divisions; 5, The number of persons serving in the regular army, the militia, and the embodied local militia. The inquiry under the fourth head entirely failed, through "the impossibility," as Mr. Rickman states, "of deciding whether the females of the family, children, and servants, were to be classed as of no occupation, or of the occupation of the adult males of the family. Datement of Progress under Pop. Act of 1830.) The results of the census were, however, very valuable in putting an end to doubts and controversy on the subject of the numbers of the people.

2. Census of 1811.-The second census embraced all the points which were the subject of inquiry in 1801; but the question respecting the number of houses was subdivided, so as to distinguish the number of houses building, which, in the

first census, were classed under the head of uninhabited houses. With a view also of obtaining a more accurate return of the occupations of the people, the form of inquiry under this head was modified so as to ascertain, 1st, What number of families (not persons, as in 1801) were chiefly employed in or maintained by agriculture; 2nd, How many by trade, manufactures, and handicraft; and, 3rd, The number of families not comprised in either class.

3. Census of 1821.-The heads of inquiry were the same as in 1811, with an additional head respecting the ages of the population. For the first time it was attempted to ascertain the age of every person, distinguishing males from females. The first head included persons under the age of five; and the quinquennial period was adopted for all persons not exceeding 20, after which the ages were classified in decennial periods; and there was a head which comprised all persons aged 100 and upwards. The ages of 92 out of every 100 persons were thus ascertained.

4. Census of 1831.-The new features in this census were an alteration in the form of inquiry respecting occupations. In 1801 the attempt to ascertain the occupation of every individual was, as already stated, a failure; and the inquiry in 1811 and 1821 had reference only to the heads of families; but this form was altered, in consequence, as Mr. Rickman states, of "the often recurring and unanswerable doubt as to what is to be deemed a family." The returns to the questions, as modified under the census of 1831, showed, as in 1811 and 1821, the number of families employed in, 1, Agriculture; 2, In trade, manufacture, and handicrafts; and 3, The number of families not comprised in either class; but they also showed, in addition to the information procured at any former period, the number of persons (males aged twenty years and upwards) employed in, 1, Manufacture or in making manufacturing machinery; 2, Retail trade or handicraft, as masters or workmen; 3, The number of capitalists, bankers, and other educated men; 4, Labourers employed in nonagricultural labour; 5, Other males aged

[ocr errors]

66

twenty years and upwards (not including servants); 6, Male servants aged twenty and upwards; and also male servants under twenty. The number of female servants was also returned under a separate head. The returns also showed, in reference to the occupation and cultivation of the land, the number of-1, Occupiers employing labourers; 2, Occupiers not employing labourers; 3, Labourers. The inquiry respecting age, which had on the whole been so successful in 1821, was abandoned, except in so far as it went to ascertain the number of males aged twenty years and upwards, on the ground that it imposed "too much labour in combination with the other inquiries," and that, for so short an interval as ten years, the information was unnecessary and inconclusive." With regard to males aged twenty and upwards employed in trade, manufactures, and handicrafts, an attempt was made to show the number employed in different branches of these employments. The following was the plan adopted for this purpose:-A form, containing a list of one hundred different trades and handicrafts, comprising those most commonly carried on, was furnished to the overseers in each parish or place required to make a separate return, to be filled up with the number of males aged twenty and upwards; and the overseers were authorized to add to the list such additional trades as were not included in the printed form. The absence of uniformity in describing occupations not inserted in the official formula, and the difficulty of testing the accuracy of that part of the classification which was left to the discretion of the overseers, were the principal defects of this plan. The number of distinct occupations returned in the census was 598.

The censuses of 1801, 1811, 1821, and 1831 were each superintended by the late Mr. Rickman, clerk assistant of the House of Commons, and the business of enumeration was conducted by the overseers of the poor in England and Wales, and by the parochial schoolmasters in Scotland.

Census of 1841.-This is far more complete and comprehensive than any preceding census. The heads of inquiry

« EelmineJätka »