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1876.] OF THE HOUSE OF DELEGATES. 1341
very clearly that Police Commissioner Gilmor's intentions
expressed to the witness Pearce, and admitted by himself in
his testimony before the Committee in the Police Commis-
sioners investigation, to "prevent the Radicals and negroes
from carrying the election," was no idle boast, whether
spoken excathedra or in private capacity. It is plain, there-
fore, that there must have been a much smaller legal vote
cast at the State than at the Municipal election. Yet the re-
turned vote of the State eltectien exceeds that of the Municipal
by 5,314.
The explanation is found in the fact, as shown by the evi-
dence, not only that there were over 5,000 fraudulent bal-
lots (sell-convicted as such,) counted in the official returns
for these respondents, but also that there was gross and
generally prevailing fraud, so marked, indeed in some locali-
ties, viz: the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 8th and 9th wards, that the vote
returned was absurdly disproportioned to the population,
and glaringly in excess of the registered vote.
Again, there is a striking discrepancy between the propor-
tion borne by the total vote returned at the two-elections to
the respective Democratic majorities claimed. Thus we find
the Democratic candidate for Mayor claiming only a majority
of 2,665, out of a total vote of 53,607; while the Democratic
candidate for Governor rolls up the enormous majority of
14,495, out of a total vote of 58,921.
Remembering always that this magical change of votes was
accomplished in the interval of five (5) days between the two
elections, with the issues and parties the same, and the can-
vass practically closed on the eve of the first election, and the
personal popularity and standing of the Democratic candidate
for Mayor equal, it not superior to that of any Democratic
candidate at the State election; and especially that the change
in many precincts is slight, and in those immediately adjoin-
ing enormous, and that the latter precincts are invariably
those in which the evidence establishes the prevalence of fraud
or violence, and very frequently, also, changes in judges and
clerks between the two elections, and that in those precincts
where only slight changes occur, the reformers as a rule have
a majority at both elections, while in those where great
changes occur the Democrats made large gains, that in every
precinct where there are votes without names to account for
them, the poll-books of the Democratic and Reform clerks not
only agree as to the number of voters with each other but
very nearly with the official return of the municipal election,
and finally, that in every precinct of which no complaint if
made, and particularly wherein the election is pointedly shown
to have been fair, the majority almost invariably ia for the re-
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