Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1892-04-25
A LETTER FROM NEW YORK CITY.
April IS. 1892.

IS lifting that L should take my pen
and write you few lines on the day
t following Easter. Yesterday, Fifth
Avenue saw the ushering in of Spring,
heralded by new bonnets, and the
bright costumes of both sexes. Spring
is here although we are having frosty
nights and cool days to make up for
the very warm weather we had in the
first week in April. And just now
when we are turning our thoughts to-
ward the ''White House, at Washing
ton and wondering who our next
president will be I will tell you some
of the signs OF the times as [ read
them around New York. Good re-
publicans had hardly awoke to the
fact that Rhode Islsnd had gone solid
ly republican when our eyes were
turned to New Jersey and particularly
Jersey City. The solid democratic
legislature has, among other things
this winter, passed7a law making the
tenure of office for Mayor for Jersey
City five years. The Jersey City cleo
ton of city officials was to come off
the 18th of April and McDermott,t he
democratic nominee, expected to have
a clean sweep and at the end of five
years step into the governors chair.
Tammany Hall politicians have earn
ed the reputation, honestly enough,
of the worst kind of misrule by a ring
of clever scoundrels represented by
Tweed in the past and Croker and
Grant in the present. Their methods
are clean and not to be compared with
the bold faced robbery with which
Jersey City has been fieeced, heavily
taxed and yet mired in debt of near
ly $50, ,O0O, 900. The ballot box suffers
of the last election are fair repre-
sentative of what the city officials
were equal to. Dirty streets, vice,
crime, extortionate taxation and a
rapidly increasing Indebtedness
brought the people to their senses.
Rewards of $1,000 were offered for
the arrest and conviction of any one
attempting to vote illegally. Repub-
licans were undemonstrative, but
votes were countad on Tuesday even
ing Col. Wanser, the republican NOM
inee, had 2S7S majority. In other
words, several thousand voters who
usually voted with the democrats,
showed their determination to put
down misrule. This in the face of the
fact that the democrats had made the
total registry 43,038 while the total
vote cast last fall at the state cleo
tions was only 22,O28. If this cannot
be called republican victory because
the democrats united with the repub
icans in trying to secure good gov
ernment, it has a moral. When taken
with the decided republican victories.
in Patterson, Passaic and several
smaller cities in New Jersey, it GER
tainly places New Jersey on the list
of doubtful states.
The republican victory at the re-
cent town election atLockport, n. Y,
may mean little in the coming presi-
Dental election, but it gave a fair test
Nl
actual election. Four hundred and
forty two votes were cast without a
hitch. This is the way it was des-
cribed to me by an eye witness, who
had stopped off on his way to Buffalo
on purpose to see it: the voter is
given colored tickets, each party hav-
ing different colors with their nomi
nations printed upon them. He steps |
into a small booth and closes the door
behind him. In front of him are
number of electric buttons in vertical
rows and as many rows as there Off
ces to be filed. Each row has as
many buttons as there are candidates
for the office, and under each button |
the candidates name printed upon
colored card the same color as the
ticket he desires to vote, press the
button and his vote is cast for the de-
sired candidate. The buttons are so
arranged that when one is pressed it
stays down and the others in the |
same row cannot be moved making
impossible. The buttons
are only released when the voter |
opens Un0 OOOr anu SUopS OuO Ol Uu0
booth. These keys register the vote |
for each candidate on strips Of paper |
with numbers on it which are punched |
out The vote cannot be seen until
the balloting is over when a dial at I
the side of the booth is unsealed and /
the vote is shown recorded. 1t is said |
that in this instance the count occu-
pied ten minutes. Whether this will
be the future balloting machine or
not, we are not prepared to say, but
we are confident that it would not
serve the purpose of Tammany Hall
or scheming and dishonest politicians
of either party.
If you expect to hear anything
about the nrasidential boom Won /