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1330 JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS [Mar. 29,
19th, and complied with according to appointment on Janu-
ary 26th, and that in the oral argument made on the same
occasion, the contestants plainly and emphatically claimed
that an examination of the regij-tration and election records
would show so many fictitious and fraudulent names entered
upon the lists of qualified voters and actually voted on, that
an inspection of the poll books would develope so many muti-
lated, incomplete, and forged election returns; as to demon-
strate with mathematical certainty the utterly fraudulent
character of the election. It also appears from the record
that the respondents after asking for and obtaining a delay
often (10) days to prepare arguments in reply could only
urge, that as the House on the 18th of 'January had refused
to direct the committee, without its request, to examine these
registration and election records, therefore, the House had
decided adversely to the contestants, and the Committee were
bound accordingly to refuse their request for such examina-
tion. This view of respondents was, however, sustained by
the committee, which is thereby put in the extraordinary and
anomalous position of having required t^p successive argu-
ments, one from the contestants on January 26th, and the
other from respondents, February 9th, on a question which
in their view hud been decided on the day before their desire
to hear argument was made known to the contestants.
The Chairman of the Committee in deciding the point said
that time and money would be saved and the ends of Justice
and the best interest of the State would be advanced by ad-
hering strictly to the mode of procedure laid down in Article
35, of the Code of Public General Laws.
Now, when we consider on the one hand, that this mode of
procedure as appears from the record, consumed of time, some
three (3) months, and of money, many thousands of dollars,
and resulted in the production of some four thousand (4,000)
pages of manuscript, a mass of evidence so unwieldy as to
offer in itself a serious obstacle to a full and careful consid-
eration of the merits of this contest; and on the other
hand that the examination of the registration and election
records in the city of Baltimore, if their condition was
correctly stated by the contestants, must have decided
at once and conclusively the matter at issue, and that such
examination could not have required more than a few
days at the outside, and comparatively a sn:all expendi-
ture of money, we may well doubt both the wisdom of the
action taken by the Committee and the soundness of the rea-
sons assigned therefor.
Suppose, for instance, that it appears from a comparison of
the registration books of Baltimore and the lists of qualified
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