The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1896-04-25

stood, that the House of Delegates would
not pass the bill unless it provided a new
registration in the State, and that the
Democratic Senate would not pass it if it
did contain this provision.
Now the bill in question, repeats all
Article thirty-three of the Code of Public
General Laws, relating to elections, and
also all amendments to the code, and
re-enacts the same with amendments.
Sections | Is and ZIG of Article thirty three
contain the so. called Eastern Shore law,
which provides that one L. S. Senator shall
be an inhabitant of the Eastern Shore, and
one of the Western Shore, while section 10
provides for the election of L. S. Senators
by the Legislature, upon joint ballot by
the two Houses, the new election bill as it
was finally agreed upon in the Senate, and
ordered engrossed for third reading, re-
pealing in the title and the enacting clause
all of Article thirty three of the code Tex
cept" sections lis and 116.
The subsequent history of the law, can
possibly be best told in the succinct lam
guage of the Baltimore Sun:
''While the bill was being engrossed in
the Senate, Mr.. Pennington introduced it
in the House in the form as was understood
that it came from the Senate committee
before the Democratic amendments were
adopted. 1t appears now, if the typewrit-
ten copies OF the law which have been made
are correct, the bill as introduced by Mr..
Pennington omitted the line in the title
and in the enacting clause which retained
sections rs and 116 of Article 80, on the
statute book, and apparently in the hurry
and confusion of the closing days of the
session this omission was not discovered by
the Senate.
The Senate all through the session had
cluMg tenaciously to the Eastern Shore law.
The Democrats were solidly for it and one
Republican Senator, who refused to vote
for Mr.. Wellington. did SO because, as he
explained, he felt himself in conscience
bound to obey the law. Before Mr..
Wellington had been elected resolu
ton was adopted by the Senate protesting
against the proposed violation of this time
honored statute, and subsequently the
Senate refused to pass, or at least did not
pass, the usual resolution asking the Gov
ernor to issue a commission to the Senator
who had been selected
Thus, whether desgnedly or BY mere
oversight, the Eastern Shore law has been
wiped from the statute books of the State
There will scarcely be any general public
lamentation over its repeal, yet nobody
seems able to know how it was done.
President Bruce of the Senate says 'the
Eastern Shore law has been repealed,
though am at loss to explain how it YVES
done"
Speaker Mudd of the House, also says he
was ignorant of the repeal
So whether, the result Of accident or
design the repeal of the ancient Eastern
Shore law will go down to succeeding
Maryland generations as one OF those Iegs-
lative conundrums of which the ancient
city on the Severn has been so prolific,
taking rank with the mysterious authorship
of the Junius letters, or puzzling the
curious with the oft repeated query-"who
killed cock robin"
And yet nobody seems especially miser-
able over this legislative puzzle, while the
favorite son of Allegheny, smilingly winks
his eye, since he knows that the last
shadow over the title to his Senatorial
seat has disappeared, with this ghost'y
relic of the past-the Eastern Shore Law.