Note 52 — PART I ORGANIZING THE FORCE AND EMERGENCY METHODS

This classification was adopted for the purpose of determining the number of rations required by the family, and for that reason the dividing line between children and adults was placed at twelve years, the allowance for a child under twelve being placed at half the standard ration. “Men” and “Women” meant respectively the number of males and females twelve years of age and over, who were not aged and infirm. The heading, “Aged, etc.” (see card, Appendix II, p. 425), was an unfortunate one for statistical purposes, especially as on some of the cards it was printed “Ages, etc.” It was intended to be used, as the instructions to the enumerator clearly stated, for recording the “number of persons so old, sick, or crippled, as to be presumably unable to support themselves by labor.” This information would have had much practical value, but the cards show plainly that the ambiguity of the heading on the card was not corrected in the enumerators’ minds (as such ambiguity can rarely be corrected) by the careful explanation in the instructions. In many cases, when an entry was made under it, it was the ages of the children; in other cases it was apparently the number of adults in the party who were not immediate members of the family. The figures which have been tabulated are only of significance as recording so many additional adults. They do not indicate the proportion of aged and infirm, or the amount of physical disability among the refugees.