The most careful precautions were taken to ensure that all who signed were properly entitled to do so, by requiring evidence to be furnished of their Ulster birth or domicile, and references able to corroborate it. The declaration in the Covenant itself that the person signing had not already done so was in order to make sure that none of the signatures should be duplicates. When the lists were closed--they were kept open for some days after Ulster Day--they were very carefully scrutinised by a competent staff at the Old Town Hall, and it is certain that the numbers as eventually published included no duplicate signature and none that was not genuine. Precisely the same care was taken in the case of the Declaration by which, in words similar to the Covenant but without its pledge for definite action, the women of Ulster associated themselves with the men "in their uncompromising opposition to the Home Rule Bill now before Parliament."
It was not until the 22nd of November that the scrutiny and verification of the signatures was completed, and the actual numbers published. They were as follows: In Ulster itself 218,206 men had registered themselves as Covenanters, and 228,991 women had signed the Declaration; in the rest of Ireland and in Great Britain 19,162 men and 5,055 women had signed. Thus, a grand total of 471,414 Ulster men and women gave their adherence to the policy of which the Ulster Covenant was the solemn pledge. To every one of these was given a copy of the document printed on parchment, to be retained as a memento, and in thousands of cottages throughout Ulster the framed Covenant hangs to-day in an honoured place, and is the householder's most treasured possession.
Although the main business of the day was over, so far as Carson and the other leaders were concerned, when they had signed the Covenant in the City Hall at noon, every hour, and every minute in the hour, until they took their departure in the Liverpool packet in the evening, was full of incident and excitement. The multitude in the streets leading to the City Hall was so densely packed that they had great difficulty in making their way to the Reform Club, where they were to be entertained at lunch. And, as every man and woman in the crowd was desperately anxious the moment they saw him to get near enough to Carson to shake him by the hand, the pressure of the swaying mass of humanity was a positive danger. Happily the behaviour of the people was as exemplary as it was tumultuously enthusiastic. _The Times_ Special Correspondent thus summed up his impressions of the scene: