Of the Comeys whose literacy was recorded, 80.8% could both read and write, 1.9% could read but not write, and 17.3% could do neither. Women came out slightly ahead, 82.1% reading and writing against 79.2% of men. Bear in mind these figures include young children; the census itself only counted people aged nine and over when calculating illiteracy, on the grounds that it was unfair to label a child illiterate before they'd had a chance to learn.