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The Wisconsan Lumberman.
evident that you don't want any civil
rights."
"Notanyting mo', I tank you," replied
Billy. "Nearly done ruined now. Hev to
pay my own doctor's bills; lost all my
money in de Freedmen's Bank; nobbber
got no forty acres an' de mule deypromised
me; an' can't hoIp myself to alittle chicken,
fryin' size, without gwine to de penirenti-
ary. I'se got 'nuff cibbal rightal"
The above is no production of the fancy.
It is a true incident, honestly told, and it
is impossible to talk to the country negroes
without hearing just such things as I have
related.-The Independent.
The Matter With Munich.
In Lippincott's for March, the paper on
"Munich as a Pest-city" is as likely as
any other to be read and remembered,
especi Liy by intending tourists to Germa-
ny. Why that city has an exceptionally
-bad reputation as the nest of cholera and
typhus, why "diseases of the throat and
lungs are very common," and why "the
whole population suffers more or les
.from catarrh," is explained by the writer
in a way to carry conviction. The situation
-of Munich-"upon a high, barren plain,
sixteen hundred feet above the level ofShe
sea, exposed to the full power of the sun in
summer, brooded over by chilly fogs
in   spring    and     autumn,    and
.swept   the    whole  year   through
by all the storms that accumulate upon
the mountains filling the horizen to the
south and east"-seems cause enough for
a large amount of sickness and mortality,
-and a permanent and immitigable cause
of both. The soil is an equally fatal
factor, having once been the bed of a lake,
and consisting to the depth of several feet
of a loose gravel, in which no useful or
ornamental vegetation can be made to
thrive except by artificial aid, and through
which all fluid-matter deposited on the
senrface percolates to the rocky substratum,
.and there stagnating, generates poisonous
gases. Scarcely a third of the seventy-five
thousand tons of refuse matter annually
thus   deposited  is  taken   out  of
the  city. Sewers are   of very   re-
cent  introduction,  and,  being  im-
perfectly  constructed  and  not syste-
matically flushed, rather serve to aggravate
the evil of the undrained soil. The state
of the city cellars, generally shared in com-
mon by the occupants of flats, and permit-
ted to be used even for butchering; the
crowding and frequent upturning of the
-cemetries; the foulnems ofthe water, which
is drawn from wells "in close proximity to
the vault, the refuse-pit, and the drain;"
the imprudent open-air habit of the pop-
ulation, their indifference to pure air and
to cleanliness within doors, their bad di-
et-are still other counts in th's sanitary
indictment, evidence of the truthfulness of
which is to be found in the fact 6hat
nearly half the children born in Munich die
in infancy, and that "the death-rate for the
whole population is nearly forty in a thous-
and." It was in a street bordering on the
English Garden that the cholera broke out
in 1873, and that Kalubach sickened and
died of the disease. The writer's account
of this park would seem to be somewhat
darker than was necessary; at all events,
it is in marked contrast with the descrip-
tion of the same pleasure-ground given by
an American consul in Ellis's life of Rum-
ford, to whom Munich is indebted for it.
Doubtless, if the Count were alive to-day,
he would be as prompt to recognize and
strive to improve the sanitary condition of
the -ity as the present authorities are slow
in dealing with it.
Recording Votes by Electrici ty.
A clerk employed in the French tele-
graph office (M. Jaquin) has conceived a
system of recording votes by electricity.
It is thus described: "Refore every deputy
two ivory buttons are placed, iike the but-
tons of electric bells. If the deputy wishes
to vcte 'Yes,' he presses the button on
his right; if he wishes to vote 'No,' he
presser the button on his left. The voter
establishes by this means an electric com-
munication, which is transmitted to sn ap-
paratus close to the president and his sec-
retaries. Every time the electric current
acts thus it opens the door to a ball, and
the ball falls through a tube into the ballot
box. The balls are made of glass or ivory,
and are strictly identical in weight. The
two ballot boxes are then weighed, and the
number of balls indicated by the weight.
Finally, by turnnig a handle, all the balls
which have not been used are let out, and
they give the number of members who
have sustained or were absent when the
vote was taken. Nothing can be more
simple. The inventor has offered to set
up his aparatus in the Versailles assembly
for the sum of $12,000."
Mr. Thomas Hall, of Boston, Mass, calls
attention to the patent granted in this
country, in 1850, to Albert N. Hender-
son, of Buffalo, N. Y., for an electrical vote
recorder. Henderson's plan was to have a
couple of keys on each member's desk, by
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