Litchfield enquirer., 1876-12-07
How tt Looks!

On Wednesday of this week the cleo toral vote was cast in the several states for President and vice. President. At the time of our writing the result is not an- nounced, either in Florida or Louisiana, but it is generally supposed that the Hayes electors will be declared elected in both states. Can this be done honest ly?
 On our outside we have reprinted let ters from various sources regarding the Louisiana count. Messrs Sumner and Matthews, of the ''visiting statesmen" express diametrically opposite opinions in very strong terms. MT. Redfeld, gives the view of conservative Republican, and MT. White. Q staff correspondent of the Tribune, offers more independent opinion still. The Democratic ''visiting statesmen" are out with strong claim
 for Tilden and the Republican visitors
 are believed to hold an exactly opposite
 opinion. .
 The Returning Board have power un- der the Louisiana law to throw out
 the Tilden majority of 5000 actually cast in the State. Will it exercise that power justly? Candid Republicans fear that it will not. Its conduct has certain ly been in many instances grossly unfair. It has refused to fill the vacancy in it's number with 8 Democrat; it has allowed sealed election returns to be tempered
 with by the insertion of papers received after those returns had come into it's pos- session; it first refused to admit ex-parte afidavits, and then changed this rule so as to admit Republican testimony which the Democratic managers had no time to meet with counter-affidavits; it would as- sign certain parish returns for trial on certain day, and then, on the day assign ed, refuse to proceed in those cases and take up others the Democratic contest snts were not then prepared to try; it even went so far as to reject Democratic maior1ties which Republican election of- fcers had neglected to return, though the boxes containing the votes cast were forwarded to them. This decision they retracted at a subsequent meeting; fair minded men could hardly have hesitated about so plain a matter. The specimen case of "bull-dozing," announced with an immense blaze of indignation from the reporters of partisan papers, failed of sat isfactory proof, though the Democrats were only allowed to produce two witness es in rebuttal.
 In Florida, the trial before the Canvass ing Board seems to have been fairly con- ducted, and the published evidence de- cidedly favors the Democratic claims The Tilden electors have the election on the vote actually cast by majority of less than two hundred in a total vote of near ly 5000. The first announcement of the election of Hayes on the vote cast was trick. By secret return, throwing out one or tWo precincts, Baker county, always Democratic hitherto, was made 70 give small Republican majority. Receipt of another return was afterwards acknowl- edged, giving the full vote and Demo cratic majority. In the contest about the Archer Precinct in Alachua county, the Democrats had decided advantage. Two out of the three Republican Inspectors admmitted Republican fraud adding over two hundred votes to their true count and the fact was proved by evidence independent of their confessions. A cloud of negro affidavits signed with marks and many duplicate names is explained by Justice Belton's practice of afixing his jurat to such papers before they were signed ''to save trouble" The champion Florida 'bull dozing" story is that eight negroes were taken into a swamp. ropes put about their neeks. and promises to vote the Democratic ticket, ,sxtorted. This is met by afidavits of five of the eight ne- groes denying the story in toto. Afida- wits are produced to prove that the Dem- ocrats voted number of railroad hands and that the Republicans voted twenty-two penitentiary convicts. The Democrats claim fraudulent registration and vote in one Republican county, of nearly five hundred. and the Republicans produce shoals of coercion afidavits.
 Congress met Monday, and if the cleo toral vote gives Hayes the expected ma jority of one, bitter contest is looked for over the count in February.