The host with the most

Continuing our occasional series 'People with very unusual jobs indeed'. No 70: A Man who Estimates the Numbers in Crowds

"There is a lot of pressure on a crowd-counter to fix the figures," Ralph Target admits. "When we are hired to estimate the number of people on an anti-war march, for instance, they are desperate to show that it is bigger than the last big march. It was very important for the anti-war people last weekend to show that they were bigger than the last countryside march."

And were they bigger?

"Absolutely," says Ralph. "Unless you count the springer spaniels and gun dogs brought by the Countryside Alliance. In which case, the countryside march was bigger."

He winks.

What he is meaning, though not saying, is that figures are flexible.

"It is beginning to get out of hand now, this business of crowd-pulling for demonstrations, rather like Hollywood box-office grossing. We have heard so often that a new movie from Hollywood has broken all box-office records, that people are slightly surprised when the records aren't broken. It's all become devalued. I would hate for crowd numbers to get devalued, because that's our business, but it's going that way."

Jos Target & Co, Crowd Estimators, have been in business for more than 100 years. Ralph's great-great-grandfather, Joseph Target, was a private detective in the 1890s who found himself hired to do some work on the great jubilee day in 1897, and was asked by a newspaper reporter to estimate the crowd size. He came up with a surprisingly exact figure: 456,780 people.

"The Victorians liked exact statistics," says Ralph, "and no one questioned that figure. So he was hired again for the Coronation of Edward VII. This time, he estimated the crowds at 456,780."

What? Exactly the same number as before? Isn't that something of a coincidence?

"Methods were primitive," winks Ralph. "It seemed to be a figure that people liked. Why change it?"

Jos Target & Co were also hired to estimate the numbers of the crowd scenes at the end of the Great War (1,456,780), the Coronation of 1936 (1,456,780) and the Jarrow march (350). Surely there were more than 350 on the Jarrow march?

"The Jarrow march was not one of our finest moments," admits Ralph. "We hadn't measured a march outside London before; nobody was quite sure where Jarrow was, and by the time we got there, the march had moved on. So, to be quite frank, we went entirely by hearsay and guesswork. To be even more frank, guesswork is still one of the best methods. People imagine that we take aerial photographs and then count every one of the marchers by computerised scan... "

But wouldn't that work? You would be able to see everyone from the air, wouldn't you?

"Not necessarily. If it's raining, for instance, and everyone on a march is under umbrellas, how do you know how many people are under each umbrella? If they have one each, that's a huge difference from three people to an umbrella. No, we have a much better system than that."

Which is?

"Don't tell a soul," says Ralph Target, "but we take the police estimate, which is always low, and the organisers' figure, which is always too high, and we pick a number half-way between the two. It's always about right."

And how many people were there on the anti-war march last weekend?

"Half a million."

Exactly?

"No. The exact figure was actually 456,780."

Seems familiar.

"Yes, it's a very trustworthy figure. But we never issue such exact statistics. People never trust them. Have you noticed that when you hear that a football match was attended by 14,631 people, you always mentally round it up to 15,000? Well, we do the same, but before the figures are published."

And what will be the next big march?

"We hear that Ken Livingstone is aiming to slap a congestion charge on big demos in central London. We think there will be a huge march against that."

How many, roughly?

"Oh, about 456,780, at a guess."

It seems about right.