New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1871-01-07
4 CONFESSION or GUILE


Thu Introduction by Mr. Dreamer in the State Senate,
and by Mr Fields in the Assembly, Of bill TO repeal the
NewYork City Registry Law foreshadows, no doubt, tho
removal OF that nvidious enactment from the statute
book We told that equal rights Is the poestar OF
Republican doctrine and surely those given over TO that
particular creed cannot blame On effort to put this City
on the same electoral footing that of every other
within the limits of the STATE NO CASTE you know no
distinction, nequality and In order that there
shall DO none, down with Your Registry Iawi
Comments by The Tribune.
If the present rulers of our State were to
conccct and urge the passage OF a bill making
it felony for any resident thereof to bolt his
front door OF deposit his valuables in safe
OF any kind Of lookup, no one could plausi-
bly, affect to doubt that they meant to favor
the thieves and burglars who contribute so
largely to swell the Democratic vote of this
City and its suburbs. Can there be any doubt
that the movement fathered by Mcssrs. Cream
er and Fields is intended, as well as calcu-
lated, to facilitate and increase Illegal Voting,
by rendering its detection and punishment so
rare as to encourage its practitioners with the
rational hope Of practical impunity
Suppose the Democratic party wero to abolish
altogether the Registration of Deeds, Mort
cages, Wills, &C., bidding every one look out
for himself against frauds affecting the con-
veyance or devise of property, should we not
knoo that they meant to facilitate such frauds,
by rendering their perpetratiOn more easy and
safe7
-"But why have Registry of Voters for
"the City 2" asks The World
Let those who confined it 20 the City, by the
legislation of last Winter, make their own
answer We speak for those who hold it the
first duty of free State to guard its ballot
boxes against invasion and pollution by votes
fraudulently cast.
We voted, for at least twenty years. at the
polls of this City-having voted in different
years at the polls of the list, Hid, WITH, With,
With, With, XIIth now XIXtiO, and
XVIITth Wards. OF those who voted where
we did, not one-twentieth were known to us
as legal voters or otherwise; and most others
seemed as ignorant on this point rs we were
Men came with ballots in their hands or pock-
cts. or procured ballots at one of the adjacent
booths, and handed them TO the Inspectors,
who dropped them into the bOxes-oftcn with
out inquiry or elaboration. There was moth
ing to hinder one who had just voted at one
poll proceeding directly to another, there re-
peating the operation, and so at third,
fourth, fifth, tenth, and twentieth poll. Tho
Democrats who should attempt this game
would not be deferred by the presence of &C.
uuaintances known to them to 10 Democrats,
since they would be sure these would not
"peachn or ego backn on them-and one of
them would rarely confront at any poll Wing
or Republican who knew him as not entitled
to vote there. III one ever did, he
had only to wait little till the undesirable
witness left, OF pass by that poll and resume
bis voting at the next A Democratic candi-
date for Congress while we had no Registry
once told us that he received votes at Harlem
from persons who simultaneously voted the
Democratic Charter ticket of the Ist Ward !;
and he had no doubt that they began voting
at the Battery and kept on voting at each poll
they passed till they reached the Harlem river.
In our deliberate judgment, there have been a
Quarter of Million Illegal votes polled in this
City since We first entered it in 1S31-at least
nineteen-twentieths Of them for what was
called the Democratic ticket And it is pre-
cisely because the thieves burglars, black
legs, brothel- keepers, and other enemies Of law
and Justice who crowd this City, are Demo-
Gratis by instinct, and glad to earn the
good will of our Democratic Mayors, Judges,
District-Attorneys, &c, by wholesale repeat
ing and balot-box-s tufing, that our Worlds
and Tom Fields hate and war upon Registry
Laws. Frail barriers as they are, and often
overleaped or broken down, they do render
Illegal Voting less common, more difficult,
more perilous, than it otherwise would be.
They compel every person who mediates fraud
to give q hEd of notice of his purpose.
Where an election district is known to include
but four or FIVE hundred legal voters, a regis
tration of nine or ten hundred names gives
warning that fraud is there TO DO attempted.
Break down tho Registry. and the difficulty