The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1890-06-27
A Witness Whom the Con-
spirators Vain1y Tried
to Muzz1e.
REPUBLICAN SCOUNDRELISM
Hundreds of Affidavits Certified in
Blank by Accommodating
NOtaries.

trial of the indicted election officers does
not seem to have attracted the attention
it should have attracted. While the Sen
ate Committee was sitting in this city
testimony was offered as to the mysteri-
Gus supply OF new lot of registry lists
at the polling places. Some mysterious
individual, who drove from one polling
place to another in buggy on the second
DAY of registry, had a bundle of registry
lists in his carriage, and left one with the
election officers at each voting booth.
No one knew who this man was; and
there was only sort of dreamy intima-
tion that they had been prepared and
sent around under the auspices of the
Democratic County Committee.
1t would have been vain to have stuffed
a lot of fictitious ballots into the boxes If
there were not names enough in the
registry lists even to cover them; and the
Senate Committee jumped to the very
excusabie conclusion that the lists thus
distributed had been cooked, 2 under the
auspices of the heads of the great con-
spiracy, to pave the way for the ballot
jugglery that was in contemplation; and
it viii be remembered that when the Sem
ate Committee subjected the lists to
examination hundreds and hundreds
of false names were found upon them.
So that the presumption that they had
been gotten up to pave the way for the
election day frauds seemed to be justified
by the facts.
A REVELATION.
Yesterday Edward Green, sort of q
janitor at the Democratic County Com
mittee rooms, admitted that he was the
mysterious unknown who had distrib-
uted the lists, and Michael j. O'Donnell,
the chairman of the Democratic County
Committee, explained how they had been
gotten up. The story was told in the
readers of THE JERSEY CITY NEWS yester-
day. Mr.. O'Donnel said that he had
casually met number Of well-knoWn
Democrats at Taylor's Hotel, and the
changes they recently made in the pre-
cinct lines, as proved by them, would re-
suit in a loss of votes TO the Democrats.
So it was decided to prepare complete
registry lists. 10 this end Mr.. O'Donnell
procured from City Clerk Scott the regis
try lists of the Presidential campaign of
1888, and sent them to the Democratic
committee rooms to have them copied for
use at the polls last fall.
The presidential registry lists were
chosen, Mr.. O'Donnell stated, because
there had been personal registration
tnen and the presumption was they were
all right.
When the lists had been thus prepared,
they were sent around to the various
polling places and used as the lists of
The first days registry. Comment on the
gross irregularity of this substitution of
manufactured lists for the real lists made
on the first day OF registry is needless.
STARCH BOX POLITICS.
AL who heard yesterdays testimony
must have been impressed with the part
the starch box plays in the accomplish
ment OF the frauds. It seems to have
been part of the machinery of fraud,
especially in the precinct in which the
particular election fraud now on trial
held sway. II is so much easier to stuff
starch or cigar box than it is to stuff
one Of the regular ballot boxesl And
then, besides, lis use affords a. ready ex-
cuse for the appearance among the votes
of ballots that do not bear the stamp, or
the milling, or the puncture OF the ortho-
dox boxi The starch box cannot. of
course. be employed if the other be in
order; but it is the easiest. thing in the
world for the regular box to be delivered
out of order, or to be got out of order
after delivery.
The testimony, showed yesterday that
y H~-> -
was afforded last fall by the disarrange-
Iaent Of the regular box In the First pre-
cinct OF the First district; and it was
while it was being used that the Joker
ball0Ns seem to have been dumped in.
Those who have followed the deyelop-
ments OF the mayoralty contest must
have had their attention fixed by the at
tempt Of the same Election Board to use
the starch or cigar box last spring again.
The Election Board pretended that the
regular box was out of order and wanted
to have the voting done in starch box.
Bnt the crowd was ION to them,'as the
boys say. They insisted that the regular
box could be used and should be used:
and it was used-This incident seems TO
show the tender feeling the election off,
GERS have for starch boxes. The readi-
ness-the anxiety-of the Election board
TO resort to them might be regarded as
indication that they knew the starch box
might serve purpose.
ToDAY's SESSION.
The crowd that gathered in the court
room to listen to the continuation of the
trial this morning was larger than usual
because of the fact that the election Off
GERS We're on the stand yesterday after
noon. Counsellor DAILY was not on hand
He probably had to spend the morning
IN hunting up his white necktie Cor
poratton Attorney Hudspeth, who could
That tired feeling now so often heard Of is
entirely overcome by Hoods Sarsnpariiia which