New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1869-02-22

yotes-certainly not m0re-leavlDg tho so'iu
Republican strength in our City, $4,000. lEVeh
Horace Greeley, running pro lorna lor
Peoister without hope Of election, an eIorN
q bandbill. q placard, or paragraph III any
journal urging his support received 4o'ooo
yotes,1 And no part of this was made up ny
illegal ballots or false counting. Not one less
| than $4,000 legal votes were cast here last al
Inv Republicans, while the legal Democratic vote
was not one over $4,000. The frauds on that
side were ggantic-mountainous There
ore not 1000 legal voters in all living
in the Ist Ward; yet it gave hon-
man 1858 majority: there are not nioao
than 5000 in the IVth Ward yet it gave Hoir-
man $3.50 majority: nor more than 5000 III the
With Ward, yet it gave Hoffman 4,663 majority )
and the frauds in the With, With, Ath'
XIIItb. XIVth, and most of the uptown
Wards, were equally impudent. No toleraDly
informed New-Y Yorker imagines that the vote
returned for the Democratic candidates was
more than twO-thirds honest. We insist, there
fore, that The SUMS dismal view of the kepuDll-
can strength and prospect in our City Is not III
accordance with facts.
Hostility to the Excise Law is manly 10
mented and rendered effective by the lquor-seh-
ers. Their sales and profits are curtalled by IL a.;
they are q numerous and influential body ana
they do rs did the silversmiths OF Ephesus
under like circumstances. We presume tha'
their organization and efforts add several thou
sands annually to the Democratic majority ID
this City.
But it were great mistake to presume that
they were made advcrsaries to the Republican
cause by the Excise Law. The great mass OF
them are so on instinct-were so before the
Excise Law was ever heard of. 1t were need
less here to inquire why, since we never yet
found majority of the schoolmasters ana q
majority of the rumsellcrs voting the same
ticket. They have pretty free rumselling III
New-Jersey; yet Report, closely balanced
in politics, has twenty-0ne rumselleis. all en-
FILTERED, efficient Copperheads; and 1t Is nearly
the same throughout "Instinct is great
matter" truly observed Falstaif; and you can
not well overcome or circumvent it.
The Sun processes to approve the rlgiu en-
forcement of our Excise Laws; yet that Is the
whole matter in controversy. 1t was never
lawful in our State to keep open tipping
houses and sell liquor thence on Sunday; nearly
all that our present act does is to enforce what
was always the law The rumsellers care little
as to legal inhibition, provided it is not enforced
they object to our present law. not so much
that it is more stringent than the corresponding
provisions of tho Revised Statutes, as that 1t
provides for its own enforcement. Hence they
are specially hostile to the provision which
directs policeman TO arrest any one who IS
found violating the law and take him at once to
the station house; repeal that, and require pre-
liminary complaint to and warrant from one of
our Police Justices, and they will snap their
fingers at all that is left of the law
We should be perfectly willing to go back TO
the original provisions Of the Revised Statutes
respecting Sunday liquorselling, if our puta-
tive Governor, Mayor Police Justices, and their
confederates, would pledge their best efforts to
enforce those provisions and bring all williul
violators promptly to justice. But they would
do no such thing and the only practical effect
of repeal of the clauses objected TO by Tho
Sun would be the transformation OF our quiet,
sober Sunday into a day of bacchanal riot and
tipsy jolity, such as any one who likes can
now enjoy by crossing over 10 Jersey City or
running up TO Morrisania. That change would
add thousands TO our paupers and beggars, our
outcast and vagrant children. reduce the de-
| posts in our savings banks, and do good TO no
person whatever. We hOpo it may not be
made