The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1866-11-30
SEATS CONTESTED.

We see in various papers and hear from diff
ferent sources that the defeated candidates for
Congress, in this State intend coutesting the
seats of their successful competitors. If it were
not for the serious manner in which these state
ments are made, we would be inclined to treat
the whole thing as joke. Really it does seem
to us that our Radical friends have too much
modesty to think of contesting an election
in which the odds are 80 evidently against
them. They cannot forget that the vote
polled in the State fell more than fifteen thous-
and short of the registered vote, nearly
the whole of which would have been against
them if it had been cast. But the funniest part
of the programme is the statement that Messrs.
Thomas and Stewart intend to make an effort to
unseat Messrs. Archer of the second, and Phelps
of the third Congressional districts. Mr.. Phelps
district is entirely within the limits of the city of
Baltimore, and the first seven wards of the
same city compose part of Mr.. Archer's dis
trict. The government of the city, from the
Mayor to the police-officers, judges of election,
and all other officers were all under the control
ofthe party to which Messrs. Thomas and Stewart
own friends with fraud and therefore we are
even now inclined to believe that the threat to
Gust these gentlemen, is like the speeches their
competitors delivered in this place short time
before the electon-mere jests. In the city of
Baltimore, there are, we believe eighty precincts
or voting places, and to make some show Of fair
ness, few "copperheads'' were allowed TO vote
at each of the eighty places of voting. The few
who voted at single precinct was regarded as of
but little consequence, but when the little squad
voting at one place came to be multiplied by
eighty, the result was far from satisfactory.
There is story told of a German magician,
who had the power to endow inanimate things
with life, by the use of certain words, and by
the use of other words to restore them to their
former state. His apprentice one day hearing him
order the broom to bring bucket of water,
wrote down the words of command, and in his
masters absence, ordered the broom to bring q
bucket of water, when the obedient broom
orthwith commenced, and brought bucket
full after bucket-full until the house was flood
ed-the apprentice all the while begging and
entreating the broom to cease, but it continued
to bring water. The boy, not knowing the
proper words to be used to put q stop 10 the
matter, at last becoming greatly irritated, be
seized hatcher and cut the broom in two pieces
thinking thereby to stop it, but to his utter con-
sternation each piece of the broom continued to
bring water, thereby flooding the house with
double the quantity, and destroying everything in
it. And because our Baltimore friends took on
the day OF election double as many votes as they
intended, they will not on this account, we feel
sure, contest the seats of the regular members of
Congress from the second and third districts
1t is all joke, they are no more serious when
they talk of BUSTING Phelps and Archer than
Forney was when he threatened to revolutonze
the city OF Baltimore with his grand army
from the North; OF Mr.. Stewart was during the
la;e canvass, when lie ridieuIeI HtycrGy 5Gbn
son 3 law; ofrban Mr.. Ihouas We: during the
sdue campaign, whtn he told as that he intend
ell 20 have place in The i0Yl.eth C,nggess..-
IhGfe is thing serious about these threats, it
affords the friends of the defeated gentlemen, a
little amusement and some little food for the i'm
agination and tends to ease down the defeat in
stead of receiving the whole shock at once.