Birmingham age-herald., 1895-02-26
HERE AND IN BESSEMER
Ardent Supporters of the Con- teStant Fail to Produce Sem
 sations as Expected.

| erIy, the former as the representative or
 Mr. T. H. Aldreh, the contestant, and
 the latter for MT. o. W. Underwood, the contestee, began an investigation yester- day morning. They used the office of Mir.
 Graves Embry ,on Twenty y-frst street, near. | Third avenue.
 The greater portion of the day was taken
 up in investigating the matter of the regis-
 tration in beats 21 and S7 Birmingham,
 but in the afternoon Mir. fHarry Jones, an | inspector at the Southsitle box, beat 37, | testified. Ai.
 George l.. Thomas, Jr. was examined and said he was registrar Tor beat 21. He | did not remember the exact number of l voters he registered, out could tell by re-
 ferring to the books. He said he signed l blank certificates and issued no duplicates.
 He resigned before registration closed and | John 8. Steele succeeded him.
 | w. D. Martin, registrar for beat 37 testi- | fled. He said he issued a duplicate in the | November election 10 David J. Fox, who | was then mayor of Birmingham. Before | issuing it he satisfied himself that Mir. Fox | had lost his original certificate. He said that some one came to him on | the day of the November election and said | a number of men, who had just become of | age, would be there in a short time to reg | ister. To avoid delaying them Mir. Martin said he signed number of blank certif- | cates so that he would be ready when they
 
 called and went some or 10 feet from the table on which the certificates lay. When he returned they were gone. He did not see any one about the table, and did not know the man who told him some boys were coming to register. He made some inquiry about the certificates, but no one could tell him anything about them. When the registration, closed about the 1st of June, he had a few blank certifi- | cates signed. Theso he placed in a drawer l of his desk in his office. They were ex-
 tracted from his desk, but by whom he could not say.
 Mir. Martin's name appeared on the poll | list twice as No. 29 and No. 255. He said | he voted but once. He could not remem- Der whether he registered General Shelley | or not.
 Ed Tibbs, a painter, who for several years worked for the Ala bama Great South | ern Railroad company, was on the stand during the day. He said he worked almost | a month for the democratic campaign com. mittee and that he voted for MT. Under wood. He had voted for Captain Rolb in the August election. He met Len Button, | an Underwood supporter, and on learning | that Button had lost his registration cer- | tificate he went with him to democratic headquarters. They left there and went to a room in the Lanes& Terry building, op- l posite the court house, and there met MT. l Carmichael, a lawyer, and two other gen. temen. When they left there, Tibbs tes- | tifies, Button had a registration certificate. I men where they could get certificates. MT. Harry Jones, manager at the l Southside box beat 37, was examined at len gth respecting the manner of conduct- | ing the election at that place. He said l.. L. Schwarz, the republican manager, was l given choice of duties when the polling 1 place was opened. He selected to receive and deposit the. ballots, and did so all through the day He also took the ballots l Aldrich and Underwood. There was no | complaint made for any cause that he
 knew of throughout the day. One deputy | sheriff remained there all day and two CT l three others were there at intervals. | COMMISSIONER THOMPSON. | Four negroes testified respecting the
 election before Special Commissioner R. | D. Thompson. They were all of about the
 same tenor, except that of T. s. Sampson,
 barber, who made himself very active
 in the campaign. He said he was 39 years
 old, and voted for Aldrich in beat 21. He
 said after voting he went out In the street l and was showing some other men how to
 vote for Aldrich, using what he called a
 blank ballot; that is a ballot made in imi-
 tatiou of the official ballot for instruoting
 the voter. While in the aot of explaining l how to mark the ticket Sampson says he
 was arrested and taken to Sheriff Morrow's
 office and requested to give bond. He said | Deputy Sheriff Thompson turned him
 loose, saying he could be found when | wanted. He said he saw one other negro | arrested while in booth.
 Sheriff Morrow and Deputy Sheriff Thompson, the witness stated, told 8
 crowd of seventy five or 100 people that all
 who had blanks, that is the instruction
 tickets, would be arrested, as it was vio-
 lation of the Sayre law. The witness | thought 100, seventy-five at least, were
 kept from voting on this account. These,
 he said, were republicans and would have
 voted for Aldrich.
 On cross examination Sampson was not Il so sure that all of these seventy-ive or 100 people were republicans, and he could not
 admitted he only knew most of them by
 sight, and whom requested to name some | of them could recall but two names, and
 one of those had voted before he did. Mat Tibbs testified that he was 50 years
 old and voted in boat 2l for Aldrioh. He
 said he first got man named McCary to
 fix 1t for him, and seeing Mir. Underwood's | name crossed he got another ticket and had
 Caperton,a a negro, to fix 1t for him. B.
 M. Allen, who was issuing tickets, took
 amination the witness said he could read
 and write little, but admitted that he, | made an affidavit on the day of the election
 that he could not.
 Nathan Clay, oolorsd, aged ee, says hel
 said he went in the booth to fix his ballot, and after being in there three or four min
 utes he was told he had been there long
 enough.
 On cross- examination he said he could l not say exactly how long he had been in
 the booth, but it was three minutes or
 longer.
 Sam Bradford, colored, voted for Aldrich
 at Elyton, He said he was at the polls
 four or five times before he voted. Some
 one told him his certificate was wrong and