The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-11-07

DECIDE against Hoffman. The actual holding
back OF the returns ou eleotion night sho vs. TO
moral certainty that tbs plot was carried
out. But the absolute demonstration in figures
might have been impossible, bat for the stu
pidity either of Tsmmauy in dem anding or of
its tools atthe ballot boxes in attemp ling, more
than was needed. ...
The oonspirators had provided "ample
room and verge enough" for their frauds by
registering forty thousand more names than
there are legal voters in the city. OF this
excess, some thirty thousand, at least were
in districts which they controlled without
check. They had but to keep a careful ac-
count of the number of false names registered
in each voting district and the conspirators at
Tsmmany might send to each district direo-
tioDs how many of the false votes should be
credited to Hoffman. The only precauton
required was that no district should report q
total vote in excess of its registry.
In the haste and confusion OF the couspirs-
tors on Tuesday, this precaution was ne
elected. Their tools have, in many instances,
either been carelessly instructed, or have
exceeded their instructions. For exam ple,
we fud in the WorLd which attempts to turn
the whole subject of fraudulent voting into
joke that the Twenty first district of thu
Eighteenth ward returns a majority of 440
for Hoffman, in vote OF 500, the total regis
try of the district being 322; aud that the
Twentieth district of the Nineteenth ward,
out of & registry of 800, returns 435 votes for
Hoffman and 1873 for Griswoli.
The Sun has taken the trouble to make a
table of the districts in which the TAmmauy
conspirators have thus blundered, and fuis no
less than twenty-five of them, returning an
aggregate majority of 1885 for Hoffman aud of
3765 Tor Seymour; probably much more than
half the total majority to be returned for the
latter in the State.
These twenty-five districts, being fraudulent
M ri nf ba tnr
accepted by the State canvassers. They must
be thrown out first of all. But they suggest
another inquiry.
If the conspirators have blundered in %
out OF 32S districts, so as to expose them.
selves upon the face of the returns, in how
many others have they succeeded in keeping
within the limits of fraud they had previously
prepared? They are not men of less than
common shrewdness; but it is assuming them
to be rather unusually foolish in their choice
of tools to suppose that they have blundered
as badly as this in one case ont of five.
If they have been shrewd enough to get the
| plot carried out according to its in four
ffths ofthe districts, then the whole number of
districts instructed to stuff the ballot-boxes on
| Tuesday night must have been one hundred
aud ten. At the reasonable average of two
hundred, which is much less than the actual
average of Hofman's reported aiority in the
districts the First, Fourth, Sixth, Seventh
| $4,000 to be made from his pretended majority
in this city, on the single ground of fraudulent
counting, or "ballot- box stutfng" alone, apart
from the fraudulent votes actually cast during
the dav.
On the whole, Mr.. Hoffman's case looks very
| badly. He appears to have very much the
same right to be- Governor that the receiver of
stolen goods, knowing thea to be stolen, has to
| the property for which he pays one fourth ofits
value in money and the balance in reputation.
The Presidential Election and the Party
Press.
From The ". r Herald.
There is grand exhibition of human nature
in the several organs that rejoice over the
Republican victory or try to put good face on
the Democratic defeat. 1t is astonishing to see
| how the heavy radical organ glorfs5 and
struts in the triumph of Grant-that same
Grant whom it so bitterly opposed 30 long as
it gave utterance to its own opinion, and whose
nomination to the Presidency it secuted from
the commencement as the last of all possible
party crimes. Fancy such an organ plumiug
itself on the triumph OF such a candidate. An
other ra6ic al organ draws the abstract teach
ing that Gin American politics it is radicalism
that always triumphs," as if it fancisd that
Grant might be a radical; and the least posi-
tive of all our Republican sheets looks to the
fact that now 'the reconstruction measures
will have fair trial." as if there was nothing
in Grants success but the possible salvation
of those bad laws. These organs are still in
the dust of the struggle, have received no
party cue for the future, and thus are without
ideas.
The Copperhead sheet comforts Seymour
with the suggestion that he will be spared all
the bother OF Office, aud expresses a definite
opinion that he did right in accepting the
nomination when he did, but that his real
mistake was in declining it so repeatedly
before. How ingeniously this disagrees with
the conviction of the people of twenty six
States, who have decided that it was just the
other way-that he was right in declining
from the first, and wrong in accepting when
he did This organ has decided that the
Chase idea was a great harm to the party.
There is no doubt of that. The mention of
Chases name as the Democratic candidate
raised popular hope that the Democracy in
tended to do great act. Expectation was at
a generous height, and this was thrown down
terribly when the name of Seymour was
posted on the walls OF that grand policy shop
in Fourteenth street. No question but that
disappointment was q severe thing for Sey-
mour with the people, The organ OF the red
hot Democracy studies New York as base of
operations for the Democratic future and
gives the alternative of reduced taxation or
repudiatiop," advising Congress to "tax the
bonds this winter or call out troops to defend
the revenue collectors next winter" This,
considering the provocatiOn, is rather tame,
and we must assume that defeat has a cool
ing and depressing effect upon even Brick
himself.
There is one hint Of repentance for misbe-
havior. The Copperhead organ regrets that
Seymour, who was disposed to "pitch the can
vass in moderate key, was not more success.
full in giving the tone to discus ssiOn. Perhaps,