Kovacsics József: A történeti statisztika forrásai (Budapest, 1957)

Angol nyelvű összefoglaló

various minutes of hearings etc. On the basis of a correct appraisal of the conscription data, historical statisticians may draw valuable conclusions which provide for wide possibilities to get a picture on the life of the largest stratum of the country, that of the working people which bore the tax burden of Hungary. A FORGOTTEN CONSCRIPTION: THE 1848 "CENSUS OF POPULATION" IN SOPRON. The first constitutional Government of Hungary which was formed as a result of the Revolution of March 15, 1848, ordered already in April 1848 the conscription of the population in the autonomous towns (then so-called "Royal Free Towns"). This conscription served administrative and Town Council election purposes. In the archives of the town Sopron the author discovered and made accessible for the purposes of histórico-statistical investigations the original material (registers) of the conscription which took place in this town, lying on the western frontier of Hungary and looking back to many centuries of historic and cultural development. After careful study and elaboration, this material has proved itself in many respects a very valuable source concerning the housing, demographical and family conditions of the town in 1848, and especially concerning the social,occupational and confessional structure of the population. The author had worked on this material shortly before his death, in 1940—41. The present publication consists of the not quite finished text of the author's analysis and of a summary of the principal results of the not yet analysed statistical tables which were found in his literary remains. From statistical point of view the conscription has several deficiencis. Occupation, social and family status are individually shown only for the heads of family; the family members and other persons of the household (servants etc.) appear only globally for each dwelling, family and/or household respectively; the number of the whole population is classified in the registers only by religion and by dwellings. In spite of its deficiencies, however, the conscription was well carried out and its material is almost equivalent to a census of population. When confronting its material with the data of other contemporaneous conscriptions we find that it is reliable. One of its advantages is that — in contrast to previous conscriptions, but similarly to the 1784 population census — it embraced the whole population, inclusive of the nobility. Consequently, the discovery and analysis of materials of the same conscription carried out in other towns simultaneously would be very helpful for investigations of the conditions prevailing in these towns towards the middle of the 19 th century. Following the data of the conscription, in the town of Sopron the number of the houses increased by 17,8, the number of dwellings by 28,8, the population by 33,3 per cent (the latter from 12 578 to 16 774) between 1785 and 1848. Thus, the development was rather considerable and its character, as it may be seen from the growing proportion of the larger houses, was urban. The average number of dwellings per house was, however, only 4 even in 1848, that of inhabitanst per house 18. Thus, on the average, 4,5 inhabitanst lived in one dwelling. Taking into account that the proportion of dwellings consisting of more than one room may not have been large, this is a sign of a fairly considerable, but not abnormally great, congestion. Similarly, the average size of families (households) was not all too large: the average was (inclusive of the head of the family) 4,55. The ratio of dependents against the active population is only relatively high (150 : 100). The occupational structure of the population (following branches of economy) shows a rather urban