Year: 1870




Political managers have always understood
that tolerably accurate census must furnish
conclusive proof of the enormous frauds which
are annually committed in this city in making
up the returns Of elections, and must show in
exactly which wards end districts those frauds
were perpetrated 1t was for this reason that,
when the business Of repeating had acquired
formidable dimensions, Marshal Rynders was
charged by the Democratic managers with the
preparation of the celebrated census of 1860,
in which, by grossly exaggerating the popula-
ton, palliation was sought for the grossly
exaggerated vote; and for the same reason the
Democracy have vigorously attacked the CEN
sus of the present year, which, being honestly
and upon the whole efficiently taken, must ex-
pose the deceits practiced in recent cleo
tiOns, and embarrass the operations by
which Tammany hopes to count John Il. Hoff-
man into Office next month. The bOldness of
Marshal Rynders's falsifcations is apparent
from a comparison of figures. The ratio of in
crease from 1850 to 1866 had been 20 per cent.
From 1855 to 1860 Marshal Rynders made it as
high as % per cent, and during the next five
years the tables show an actual decrease of II
per cent, in which of course nobody believes.
The explanation is that the population of 1850
was enormously overstated. Between 1855 and
1860 there had been great development of
suburban towns, and the increase in the num-
Der of inhabitants of the city proper had not
been as rapid as during some former periods.
ratio of 20 per cent was far too high.
During the next five years a great many were
drawn off by the war, but these were counter
balanced by an influx of people from
the rural districts who suddenly became
rich during that period of imitation and
fictitious activity. The scarcity of dwell
ing houses at that time is proof enough.
if proof were needed, that the population in
stead of falling off considerably increased. The
case seems still palmer if we take the ratios
for ten years instead of five. Between 1850
and 1860 the increase is set down at the enor-
nous figure of nearly SO per cent, and between
1860 and 1870 only IA per cent, which of course
is incredible. The increase between 1865 and
1870 is shown by Marshal Sharpe to have been
% per cent which we believe to be pretty
near the truth, and certainly quite high enough.
But that the enumeration has been as close
as it is morally possible to make it, we
hold to be virtually admitted by the refusal of
the Democratic managers to accept Marshal
piopoSdi VI putlihB ~ w "a lcoV'


We pointed out on Saturday, in some detail
the developments of this census with respect
to the last election. Our readers saw from our
article that in every Democratic stronghold
the vote was largely in excess of the total
voting population, and in some districts there
must have been an average poll (or at least
an average count of five or six votes to every
| legal voter. II is generally estimated that in
elections of importance the vote, taking the
country through, ought to be about one-sev-
enth of the entire population. In a city like
NewYork it ought to be much less, on ac-
count of our enormous alien population. We
find that the average for the whole city was,
in 1870, one vote for every 80i inhabitants.
In the XVIIlth Ward where large proper
tion of the residents are people of means and
culture, and also qualified voters, the ratio of
votes to inhabitants was only to 10. In the
| lid Ward, inhabited to a large extent by un-
naturalned foreigners, the proportion reached
the extraordinary figure of to . IA. in some
J Districts " Wards tkg prqpoy,log e ....,.A-