Census. Occasional

censuses were taken in individual colonies. The Constitution of 1787 requiring that the representation of each State in Congre should be in proportion to its population, it became nece ary also to provide for enumerations. The Constitution provided that they should be made decennially. The first was made in 1790 (the first of Great Britain was taken in 1801), and consisted simply of an enumeration of the population, taken by the U. S. marshals, Since then the censuses have been made increasingly elaborate. The office of Superintendent of the Census, in the Interior Department, once decennial, is. now virtually perpetual, since it takes ten years to publish the results of a census.