Census Forms from British Guiana — "Me name is James Homer"

1899

Lucid

The opportunities which the census affords to eccentric people in the way of furnishing strange answers to plain questions are seldom neglected. In foreign countries, where the standard of education is lower than in the United States, the variety of answers affords astonishing problems to the officials whose duty it is to catalogue them. An Englishman, high in the civil service in British Guiana, gives some ludicrous specimens of native talent, selected from recent census returns.

One citizen gives his name as "John." He is the "head of the family," and by birth "a male." Then in the column of "Profession, Rank or Occupation," he puts down:

"Can't get nothin' to do for the last six months, and can't pay house rent. Has got four children. They in Barbados now, but is coming to Demarara."

Farther down the list, this same column of "Profession, Rank or Occupation" is filled with interesting information. One person's occupation is put down as "sickly." One is "an idler" and another, more ambitious, enrolls himself as "a scoller."

In the column devoted to infirmities, one man protests that he has no "infurrities." The next writes "dito" below this statement, and the next declares he is "romantic" [presumably for "rheumatic"]. A fourth has "no orflections," while a fifth, less content, says he "has been black from birth."

Another gentleman writes, "My wife is a female. She is close washer. She is not inflicted, and is got two boy children and two is dead. They can't read or write yet."

One poor man, ignoring the division of the paper into columns, gives the following pathetic tale:

"Me name is James Homer, i is 32 years old and i works punts in the river. i is married but i keep one servant who died November last year. She name Rebecca Kemp, clothes washer, 48 years, and I too sorry for she." — Youth's Companion.