The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-11-05
GATHERING THE RETURNS
HOW THE RESULTS IN GREATER
NEW YORK ARE AsCERTAINED.
BY n System of Police Messengers and
Telephone Connections the Work
Was Done in Four Hours.
New York Times.

The returns from the greatest, city cleo
ton ever held in the world were all re-
ceived and distributed last evening in a
room twenty-five feet long by eighteen
wide in the basement of police headquar-
tiers, at 300 Mulberry street
More than half a million votes, divided
among eight full tickets and more than
1900 nominees for state. city. county. dis
trict and borough offices. were cast in 1,522
voting precincts, distributed through a city
thirty-ive miles long and nearly twenty
eight miles wide.
This enormous work was begun and prac-
tically completed within four hours, be-
tween o'clock and o'clock. No such task
had ever been undertaken before; no such
task has ever before been done in all the
history of cities and elections. About 1000
men were employed in it through all the
vast area of the city's territory, some of
them hurrying along brilliantly lighted flag
pavements; others forcing their way
through crowded side streets; yet others
driving bicycles along dark and lonely roads
between hedges and the overhanging tall
trees of forests, with the mud scattering
over them from the swiftly revolving
wheels of their bicycles; yet others again
whirling along on trolley cars through un-
of men and wheels and wires prepared
and directed from police headquarters.
A corps of bicycle policemen was sent
over to the Borough of Queens, where in
some places the polls are four miles from
the nearest police stations. These men
went over early yesterday, and were
quired to travel along the road they would
have to travel on at night after time, so
that they would know every turn and rise
and fall in it, and there would be no possi-
biity of mischance. In one district in
Jamaica 1t was found that tOrn-up road
way made direct travel between voting
place and police station impossible, and
that ride of seven miles would be neces-
sary. Here a trolley car was secured and
side-tracked and neld ready to be rushed at
its utmost speed with the news as soon as
the election managers could give it,,
In the basement room at police head
quarters there were forty telephones, re-
ceivers and mouthpieces ranged side by
reaching from end to end. At each tele-
pho ne at o'clock yesterday afternoon an
operator sat with receiver strapped over
his head, and sixteen sets of printed blanks
in front of him.
THE MODUS OPERANDI
Each telephone was connected with po-
lice station, generally speaking. The cap
tain of each police precinct was charged
with the work of gathering and telephoning
to headquarters the vote of every election
district in his precinct The police pre-
cincts are mapped out without regard to
political divisions. One such precinct may
have in it election districts of five or six
assembly districts. The captain had moth
ing to do with that. His business was to
have at the polling place of each election
district an intelligent policeman who would
take the report of the board of managers
the instant it was completed and hurry
with it to his station house. When the po-
how lodi frraVf7 dc olA
ton district his duty was ended, whether he
Travelled afoot or on a bicycle or trolley
car. Then it became the duty OF the man
in charge at the station house to report the
figures received from the patrolman to
headquarters. There was no delay about
this. The man in the station house was in
direct and continuous communication with
the man at headquarters receiving from his
precinct. All the sender had to do was to
trict. Van Wyck. so many; Tracy, so many;
Low, so many and so on through the list.
The man at headquarters simply filled out
his blanks with figures. Assembly dis
trict,' rejection district" and the name of
each man under the office he was a cam
didate for were already printed.
Ten men moved continually along the long
receiving tables, gathering the forms as
they were filled, taking them to the west
end of the room, where table running
across was covered by row of open glass
boxes. Each box was labeled with the
name OF an office. In these boxes the filled
forms were dropped, the vote of each cleo
JlOn district LOT edcH Oilico III It's proper
box.
Swift-handed men stood behind the table
picking out of the boxes the filled blanks
and passing them through a side window
opening into hallway. line of policemen
extended from this window through the
basement hallway, up the flight of twenty
steps to the first floor, along the hallway
there and up another broad fight of steps
to the second floor. There was no confusion
or delay. The disciplined men passed the
papers quickly from hand 70 hand Inc
average time of transmission from the pase-
ment at headquarters to the second story
was one minute
HISTORY OF A RETURN.
The history of an election return is easily
traced. 1t was received at the polling place
by Policeman No. -. at a noted time. 1t
was delivered by Policeman No. at his
precinct station house at q noted time,
usually two minutes later, the time allowed
for going three blocks In a hurry. The
transmission by telephone cost ten seconds
of time. Sending up stairs. one minute.
Time from completion OF count TO delivery
in the room at headquarters and reading
out for the reporters. three minutes ter
seconds In the room where the siXty-odd
reporters sat were three telegraph !nstru-
ments, reaching everywhere. Time after