Old Enough To Vote

Washington Gardoer, Sec. of State, has just issued a census bulletin showing the nuniber of persons who voted in this state n 1894 as corapared with the number who voted in 1884, tile number of those who are nativo and who are foreign born: the proportion in cities and that in the country, and the number of voting asre who can neither road nor write. In 1884 there were in the etate 538,177 as compared with 651,920 in 1894, an increase of 113,743 in the ten years. This ís an increase of 21.13 per cent. The males of voting age constitute 29.08 per cent of the entire population. This Is a slight gain Óver the proportion of 1884. Of the whole number, 651,920 of voting age !s93,22-ï are native and 258,65 foreigrn born. Of the males of votinff age, the natives are approximately three-tifths and the foreign born two-fifths of the wholo. Jho distrlbution of the foreign born voters is shown as follows: fa the southern four tiers of counties the nativo males of voting age is 69.18 percent., and the foreign born 30.82 per eent of the total, showing that in this section of the state the proportion of f oroign born voters is much smaller proporiion,ately than in other parts cf the state. In the central counties the proportions aro 55.50 aud 44 50, and in the northern counties it is 51.56 and 48.44, while in the upper península the numbers are reversea, here being only 25.29 per cent of tliose of voting age who are nativo bom and "4.71 per cent, who are foreign born In the state as a whole, there are 32 oounties in which the foreign born vote out-number9 the native born. These ínclude all 1 he eounties in the upper península, J 1 in the northern part of the lower península, 4 in the central and two in the southern. These latter two are St. 'lair and Wayne. An Ínter esting item in th e report is the com" parison of voters w ho live in incorpo rated oities and those who do not. The mimber who live in such cities is 230,786, or 3.3.40 per -cent. of the total male population of voting age This shows Ibat almost two-thirds of the voters of Mich.) live either in the country or in the smaller villiages. There are, ia the incorporated cities, 230, 780 males of voting age. These are almost equally divided between the native and foreign bord, there being 117,451 nativo anti 113,336 foreign born, making a difference of only 4, IK!. Outside the I Lncorporated cities the proportion is 275, 774 native born to 145,3(50 foroign born males of voting age, There are, in the state 34,545 men of voting age who can neither read nor write. This makes 53 out of overy 1000 who are classed as illiterates. The percentage of the native born who can neither read nor write is much less than it is with the foroign born, the report showing that only 2.77 per cent of the native and 9.15 percent of the foreign born males of voting ago are unable to read write.