The Wilmington daily Republican. (Wilmington, Del.) 1890-1902, 1897-01-18
THE DICKEY
CONTEST
Cheairs' Claims SO far Clearly
Substantiated.
? N1ss STEALS A TALLY sSEET
And Disappears With it in the
Darkness Across Dovei
Green-Llvely Times Ex
pected at the Capitol /
! H1ss STEALS A TALLY sSIEg

DOVER, Jan. 17-Never before In Della
wares history have such attempts been
made to defeat the will Of the people as the
present time when the second act to the
attempted steal ut the Wilmington Court
House is being played. Willard Sauls-
bury is in n terrible fix because his chief
engineer, John 4. Dckey is likely to be
uustcd from his seat by w. w. Cheairs in
the present contest.
Now James w. Ponder, the counsel for
Dickey and clerk Frift have tried to .in-
crease the muddle by getting away with
one Of the tally sheets. The Dickey men
state chat the motion passed by the house
was as follows:
Resolved, That the Committee on cleo
tons be and they are hereby directed to
open each ballot box ana count every bal.
lot in every election iii triCt in New Cas-
tie County and report To the House he OK
act number of votes cas5 for each candi-
date for the Legislature in said county be-
fore mourning any expense in eummOning
Of witnesses in the cast whatever.
The committee ignored the resolution IN
part by counting only the Democratic vote
us the contest was between the Democrats
only.
When the Tenth ward of the city Of Will
mington was reached, and before the
count bad proceeded very far, it was said
that Dickcy had largo majority enough
to overcome the gains claimed for Cheairs
in the other wards already passed. 1t was
then decided by Messrs. Hazel, johnson
and Smith, the three members present, to
change the method previously used, sepa-
rate The straight tickets and count thOm
IN bulk. Many tepuhiclns voted for NJ.
Dlckey i'll the Eleventh ward, and this
new move was regarded by his counsel as
trick to prevent the correct tabulation.
nj fnu
)ickey, objected to this on the ground
that Il resolution pas 5od by the HOu sc r.
quIrcd the cours 10 be made in another
way. Chairman HAZEL retu' ed to change
the method Of counting back to the old
plan, and Ponder told Herman +. First,
who was one Of the tally clerks, and who
was put IN there ny DlCkcy, TO stop tally
ing the vote. First did SO. Chairman
Hazel demanded that he go ON and First
asked Ponder what he should do. Ponder
told him hat they would leave and order
ed him to take the sheet. First then
crumpled the sheet i'll his hand and started
for the door. HAZEL grabbed First n
round the waist and First seeing that he
could not get loose threw the sheet to
Ponder, VINO took it, and running down
stairs, disappeared in the darkness on
Dover green.
The committee then proceeded with the
count. +. b. Il. Springer and John Hon
kins acted us clerks. Altogether it was
claimed that the vote of Dickey had been
increased by %? in the city, while Chrairs
had been robbed Of 1872 votes. 1t was also
claimed that l2G had been taken from
Taylor, another Democrat, and 81 from
Mccoy. Dempsy had been given ITO and
Donaldson 60 This gave Cbeairs m
actual majority over DicSoy of - in the
city.
II &c al btt IyN fr;n
that d. Tunnner in which the cnmmittoe
was making its count was unfair to their
man, because the difference in the vote ia
So small that the slightest mistake nigbt
change the total The Cheuirs men onlv
claim majority of sixty in total vote Of
over 10, 900 for the two MEN combined II
is also claimed that the COMMITTEES Ind no
right to exercise its discretion in the mai.
ter Of counting sciled ballots after the bal