The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1859-10-29

The hour is fast approaching when the people
are to determine, unless fraud and violence shall
override them, TO whose hands they will commit
the further direction of our judicial and legislative
affairs. As they are engaged in no ordinary DO.
litical struggle it becomes them to rise above the
preudices and passions of party and give to the is
sues before them their calmest and most impartial
consideration fany one believes as we sincere.
y do that the destinies of this city for good or i'll
will, in great measure, be decided by the election
of Wednesday next and that upon its result in
terests which touch nearly the life, liberty and hap
piness of the citizens are dependent, he cannot
permit any indifference on his part to imperl the
pubic welfare. The lamentable condition of af-
fairs here has been in nowise exaggerated and the
questions now to be resolved are very simple Are
we willing that, for the future the laws shall be
executed and justice administered as heretofore or
are we justified in regarding the existing system of
government as one of intolerable and unmitigated
evil? Ifany still doubts the truth of the lat
ter proposition let him recall the history of the past
twelve months, which opens with the record of the
most stupendous fraud that has ever disgraced us,
and whose latest pages recount the outrges of the
last election. During that time the mpersonation of
debauchery and obscenity has sat with shameless
effrontery in the Criminal Court, where
the depravity of the city has gathered day
by day to laugh at and mock it, while
those who had the power to remove it have looked
on in silence and profered the paltrest excuses for
their inaction. The STATES ATTORNEY, ever
ready with an opinion when the authorities desire
TO undo h.
wllinliy passed over Indictment after indictment.
which it was his sworn duty TO have tried. and
when he knew that certain conviction would have
followed trial. The magistrates have taken seem
rity for the appearance of offenders as matter of
form, rather than for any substantial nurnosa -
The MAYOR has uniformly refused to make anv
really effective effort to protect the privileges and
persons of the people who oppose his party. and
has as steadily denied the validity of all complaints
and apologized for the most papable iniouities -
With such laxity has the right been vindicated bv
those in power, and SO much liberation and direct
encouragement have they accorded to lawlessness
and its perpetrators, that decency and worth arc
at a heavy discount in This community. The h,
siness of many man has been interfered with.
and he has feared to make complaint; black mail
has been levied by ruffians, whom it was danger
to refuse the elective franchise has been made
almost valueless to thousands of citizens who were
born upon the ground where they now submit to
blows; and murders have been wantonly committed
BY well known gangs which would never have
existed but for the support and countenance which
they derived from men claiming to be respectable,
and who when called upon to account for some afro
:ous deed have hestated not to attempt to rescue an
associate from the hands of the SHERIFF himself or