The Portland daily press., 1880-07-03
Tho Fairfield Casa

Tho editor of the Wing groans over the ac-
ton of the Governor and Council in the Fair
field case. He is evidently in great tribula-
ton at the discovery OF a mares nest; and pub
fishes letter addressed to the Secretary of
State, written by the Selectmen of Fairfield
explaining the amended report as they term it.
This letter, neither the Governor nor any
member of the Council ecer saao until it APP
peared in the Hale report, and the editor of
the Wing knew this to be the fact. 1t is un-
derstood to have been sent in the envelope
containing the votes for Governor, and this
the Governor and Council had nothing to do
with. But what does the letter prove? 1t
proves that the first return made up in open
town meeting was untrue. It proves also,
that the second or amended return contained
false Statement-the Selectmen atteSted to a
falsehood, when they signed this return. They
state it was made in s'open town melting
this was false Now all the Governor and
Council had to act upon was the two returns,
one contradicting the other-both false returns
and known to be so by the Selectmen. Hence
the Governor and Council had no alternative
but to reject them. So ends in smoke and gas
another false statement got up by the State
House thieves and their hired tools to cover up
their own rascality. We had not Eintsnded to
have taken any further notice of the lies and
misrepresentation growing out of the Hale
investigation, but this was SO glaringy false
we have thought it best to expose it.-BangOr
Commercial.
tally to the editor of the Bangor Wing de-
serves general attention as fine specimen
of the utter disregard of truth which
Fusion journal is capable of. 1t would be
impossible for any one not trained in tie school
of the Fusion reformers to cram into the same
space so much untruth as the above para
graph contains. Everybody who knows any
thing about the count knows that the rejec-
ton of the vote of Fairfield by the tabulators
was the most contemptibly mean of long list
of contemptibly mean performances. What
were the facts testified to before the Hale COM
mittee and published again and again and
never contradicted? Simply these In count
ing the vote of Fairfield the selectmen over
looked package of twenty ballots which had
been thrown for the Fusionists. Several days
after they had made their return it occurred
to them that they had overlooked these bal
lots The selectmen were Republicans and
the return as made up and sent was doubtless
agreeable to their political feelings. But they
were honest men and when they discovered
that they had made an error they promptly
took means to correct. They told Tabulator
Simon Brown of the mistake and he suggested
and the electmen made out new return CIV
ing the Fusionists the advantage of the twenty
votes which had been overlooked in making
up the first return To prevent mistake they
enclosed a letter TO the Council in the guber-
national return stating the circumstances and
in addition "a fact which the Commercial finds
it convenient to leave out) pasted on to each re-
turn slip on which was written "amended re-
turn" Thus the Council had three sources
OF information concerning these returns. One
of their own number knew the facts perfectly
well because they were told him by the Sc
lectmen; the letter contained all the facts, and
the amended slip told the same story. But
what did they do? They told Brown that they
had no right to pay attention to any statement
made by him, they neglected to read the let
ter or if they read it they paid no attention to
its contents, they tore off the slips (which had
been pasted on the returns. Then they winked
at one another and said with chuckle
"WeIl teach sthese Fairfield fellows that it
doesn't pay to be honest when dealing with us
reformers." And then they proceeded to
to throw out the vote on the pretence that they
could not tell which was the original return.