The Portland daily press., 1874-09-15
The City Election.

The election in this city yesterday passed of
| off with but little hustle, and the vote thrown
was light one. There seemed to be general
disposition to exercise the inalenable right Of
| the American freeman to edo as he damned
pleased" and the independent voter used his
| penknife to a fearful and wonderful extent
The number of split tickets in circulation was
unprecedentedly large, there being no less than
twenty-five distributed about the different
ward rooms. Every man could pepper and salt
| his ticket to please himself, and many unhes-
| itatingly availed themselves of the privilege.
The following were some of the tickets in
circulation: 1, straight Republican; 2, straight
| Democratic; 3, Republican with Bradbury in
place of Bsrleigh; 4, Republican with Has
| kell in place of Dow; 5, Democrat with Pen
| nell in place of SWEET; 6, Republican with
SWEET in place of Pennell; Z, Republican with
Bradbury in place of Burleigh and Thomas
Pencil in place of Parker; 8, Republican with
Haskell in place of Dow, Gould out. Cleaves
in place of Abbott and True in place of Hasel-
tine; 9, Republican with Bradbury in place of
Bureigh, Haskell in place of Dow, Thomas
Pencil in place of Parker, Cleaves in place of
OF Dow and Pingree in place of Bonney; II,
Republican with Haskell in place of Dow,
Cleaves in place of Abbott, True in place of
Haseltine; II, Republican with Haskell in
place of Dow, Harding in place of Parker,
SWEET in place of Pencil. Cleaves in place of
Bonney, True in place of Abbott, Davis in
place of Haseltine; 10, Republican with Hard
ing in place Of Parker; IA, Republican with
Thomas Pencil in place of Parker; Is Demo-
cratic with Dow in place of Haskell; 16, Re-
publican with Charles HI. Choate in place of
Dow. OF these tickets Nos 5 and Is appeared
to be the most "taking," several hundred peo-
pie seeing fit to carry them. No. Is was peddled
by Washington Hook and Ladder boy; No.
was engineeredi by deputy sheriff. No. 10,
appeared to have but.one supporter, but he
was enthusiastic enough for whole ward, and
carried ticket on which Mr.. Choate's name
was blazoned in all the glory of black type.
The reasons given for the wholesale slashing
of tickets are vehement and various, and there
seems to be much difference of opinion as to
where sthe responsibility rests. Evidently
many people stayed at home, though in the
course of the afternoon the Democrats ran
sacked graveyards pretty thoroughly, and
brought such an array of halt and blind to the
ward rooms that one would think they held
them to be veritable pools of Bethesda
No sooner had the polls closed than the
people began to gather in and about the news
paper offices, obstructng the sidewalks, forcibly
taking possession of all the unoccupied chairs
in the offices, sprawling over desks, and getting
in the way generally, anxious to know how
Dow and Parker and the city representative
ticket stood. When it was announced that the
Democrats had ielected three representatives,
and that w. W. Thomas, jr., Charles A. Wal
den, Nathan Cleaves, w. S. Davis and D. w
True were the winning men, there was some
surprise, some curses, and some laughter. AS
the county returns came in, the surprise in
Many volunteered conjectures as to
the "why," and one man sententiously re-
marked that "Rum did it"
Considering that three Democratic repre-
Democratic senator, and a Demo-
cratic treasurer had been elected, there was
very little drunkenness in the city. Indeed, the
Democrats were far, far from jubilant, and fell
to cursing themselves for missing what seemed
to their heated imaginations to be a golden
opportunity. They finally separated, keenly
feeling that the celebrated maxim of the late
lamented Fouche was not inapplicable to them.
On the whole, the honors of the day in this
city are about equally divided between general
apathy and general cussedness.