Censorship

Office or dignity of a censor. Censual, ( sen's hu - al,) a. [From Lat.census.] Relating to, or consisting of, a census. Censurable, (sen'shūr-a-bl,) a. [See CENSURE.] Worthy of censure; blamable; faulty; culpable; reprehensible; as, censurable behavior. Cen's urablene , n. Quality of being censurable; fitne to be censured; blamablene . Cen's urably, adv . In a manner deserving of blame. Censure, (sen's hur,) n. [Fr., from Lat. censura , from censorcenseo. See CENSOR.] Act of blaming or finding fault; blame; reproof; condemnation; reprehension; reproach. "Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent." Swift. -Judicial sentence; condemnatory judgment; as, "The censures of the Church." - Hammond. v. a. [Fr. censurer.] To judge unfavorably of; to blame; to reprehend; to find fault with. Centau'rea, n. ( Bot .) A genus of plants, order As teracee. The species are very numerous, but not one is of any importance to man. The C. cyan us, the common Blue-bottle, Blue-bonnet, Blue- weed, or Bachelor's Button of corn-fields, is sometimes culti- vated for the sake of its many-colored flow- er-heads. The C. Ame- ricana, native of Ar- kansas and Louisiana, and naturalized in Illi- no is, is also cultivated in gardens, and has very showy, pale-pur- ple heads. Cen's us, n . [Lat. See CENSOR.] An official reckoning or enumeration of the inhabitants and wealth of a country. The practice of numbering the people appears to have prevailed in certain countries from a very early period. We are told that about 600,000 men of Israel went up out of Egypt, besides women and children, and there is reason to believe that they had borrowed the practice from the Egyptians, among whom they had been living. At a later period, David incurred the anger of Jehovah by numbering the people. Joab and the captains of the host were employed to do this work, and it occupied them nine months and twenty days, the number of valiant men in Israel being 800,000, in Judah 500,000. In these early times, the object of num- bering the people was chiefly to ascertain the number of fighting-men that could be brought into the field; and hence we find that no account is taken of women and children. At a later period, among the Greeks and Ro- mans, wealth came to be regarded as an important principle in the State, and the census was taken more for ascertaining the wealth of the people, in order to adjust the rights and duties of citizenship among the different cla es. Previous to the time of Solon, a cit i- zen's rights at Athens depended upon his ancestry; but that lawgiver substituted property for birth, and made a citizen's rights and duties dependent upon his prop- erty. Accordingly, all the citizens were divided into four cla es, according to their annual income. By the laws of Servius Tullius, the Roman citizens were di- vided into six cla es, according to the amount of their property. The Roman census was taken with great care, and was very minute and full. It indicated not only the number and respective cla es of all free per- sons, but their domestic position as husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters. The census, which at first was employed to ascertain the military strength of a people, and afterwards their wealth, may now be said to have in view the much more important object of ascertaining, in its widest sense, the social condition and progre of a people, with a view also to finding out those conditions, physical and moral, upon which social progre and well-being depend. Almost all civilized countries now take a census at regular in- tervals; being every three years in Austria, Belgium, and Pru ia; five years in France, and ten years in Eng- land. In this country, a general census is taken every ten years, in accordance with the provisions of the Con- stitution, the first having been taken in 1790. Inde- pendently of the Federal census, many of the States -a. Relating to a hundred; consisting of a hundred. have made provisions for a similar enumeration of -Occurring once in every hundred years.