THE EXACT CENSUS-TAKER.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3013, 21 February 1881, Page 4

THE EXACT CENSUS-TAKER.

The mosb precise and thorough censuseninerator is just now passing through a mining camp in Southern Nevada, and ho is having a hard time of it, As an illustration, he called at an old prospector's cabin the other morning, and taking out his big blank took proceeded to put the miner through nn entire category of questions, about as follows : —" What street do you live on ?" " Don't live on no street; I live yer in the rocks." " What's the number of your house ? " asked the interrogator, still adhering to the text o£ his blank form. " The number of my cabin ? " quizzed the miner ; "it's No. 1, I reckon." "What's your name?" "Bill Lamar. " Are tou white, black, mulatto, Chinese, or Indian ? " " Wai neow, " said Bill, slightly ruffled and rising, " I don't know what yer driving at, stranger, but I want yer to understand that 'round this yer camp I bears the repertation of bein , white." "ire you a male or female?' solemnly inquired the questioner. "Me ? — me ? " shouted Bill taking a step nearer his ■visitor and starting to roll up his sleeves. "Me ?—l'm a man, every inch of me." Still pursuing his duty, the Government agent continued : —"Are you sick or temporarily disabled ?" " Sick ? disabled ?" roared Bill, dancing wildly before the young man with the big book, "you blank fool — no !" " Blind ?" " Not much !" hissed the miner, with eyes flashing. '• Idiotic?" Wild with rage and glaring like a madman at this question, Bill shook his fist under the agent's nose, just as the latter looked mildly up and followed up his queries with : — " Insane, crippled, bed-ridden ?" This was too much. Bill's fist came down on the census-taker's unfortunate head like a rockhammer, while at the same time his number fourteen brogans sought siich a leverage under the poor fellow's coat-tails as lifted him clear out of doors, book and all. The amazed enumerator gavo one glance back at the advancing form of the most dangerouslooking human being his eyes had ever rested on, and started for a gulch 100 yards away, where he rubbed down his bruises, and seating himself on a rock, opened his great book and after the name of " Bill Lamar " wrote the words, " Maimed, crippled, or otherwise disabled:" "No." "Insane;" "Yes."— American Paper.