MR DUMANY'S STORY.

VII.

THE DEAD MAN'S VOTE.


I do not think it necessary to particularly describe the borough for
which I was nominated as a candidate for Parliament. If you know one,
you know all. There were factions, of course, ranged into parties, one
of which drank deep, while the other drank deeper still. There are a
good many nationalities in this particular district, and they are
distinguished by the liquor they prefer. The Slavs drink whiskey; the
Suabians or Germans, beer; the Ugro-Fins or Hungarians, wine; and the
more intelligent and cultivated of all the races show their agreement in
matters of taste by drinking, alternately, wine, beer, or whiskey, with
equal relish. Jehovah's own chosen people, considering it much more
prudent and hospitable to serve the liquid to others than to drink it
themselves, furnish all parties with the wished-for fluid, according to
individual taste, and find the transaction even more satisfactory and
profitable than drinking in itself.

If Dante had visited Hungary, and had seen my particular borough in
election-time, he would not have omitted it in his description of hell.

Yet the highly respectable voters expect a substantial confirmation of