ing the facts in detail.-A. The first of the applications that were received was filed with the court on the 14th of September, 1878, and was from ten residents of ward 24, precinct 1. It asked for the scrutinizing of the registry of voters of that precinct. That was in what was then

Mr. Dean's district.

Q. Had you any conversation with Mr. Dean in regard to it?-A. I had, but not until some time afterwards.

Q. Proceed in your own way.-A. From September 14th up to September 26th or 27th, forty-five applications from forty-five different precincts in the Congressional district which was represented by Mr. Dean were filed in the circuit court, each application, as required by law, hav ing ten names attached to it. As rapidly as those applications came in they were referred to me, and before they had all been filed I had a conversation with Mr. Dean, Mr. Abbott, and some others of the Democratic party who came up to see me in relation to the mode of proceeding. As the registration had never before been scrutinized in that district as was then proposed, they desired to know what course I should pursue.

Q. Were the applications, thus far, made in the interest of the Democratic party, of Mr. Dean and his friends?-A. I presume that they came from the Democratic side; I so understood it.

Q. The first movement to set in operation this election machinery last autumn came from the Democratic rather than from the Republican party?-A. So I understood.

Q. Proceed with your statement of the interview.-A. The interview was a brief one. I stated to Mr. Dean my idea of the law, and he said that the chairman or some one would see me further relative to the matter. Not hearing from the chairman or any one else, I subsequently went around myself to Mr. Dean's office to hurry matters up, as I wanted to make up a list of the supervisors. I do not think I saw Mr. Dean, but I saw some of his friends, and requested them to send in the names of some of the parties whom they desired to have appointed. My familiarity with the citizens of Boston not being such as to enable me to make appointments without assistance, it was necessary for me to have the names so that I might have something to act upon. Some time early in October, Parker W. Chandler, who holds an official position in the Republican party, I think, came to me in relation to certain localities in the district known as Mr. Morse's district (though some one else possibly may have then represented it) and wanted to apply for supervision in those localities. After some conference, it was thought better that application be made for the whole city instead of for a portion of it; consequently Mr. Chandler and Mr. Kimball, two Republicans, made application for the su pervision of registration and voting for the whole city of Boston. That superseded the forty-five applications for supervision of voting made by Mr. Dean, and covered both the supervision of voting and that of regis tration. I then proceeded, as I have stated, to get my lists of supervisors from both parties and to give instructions to the appointees.

Q. Substantially, the appointment of supervisors was endorsed by both political parties?-A. Every Republican supervisor was endorsed by a representative of the Democratic party, and every Democratic supervisor was endorsed by a representative of the Republican party.

Q. And all of these names came originally from the political parties to which the supervisors respectively belonged?-A. Yes, sir.

Q. None of them were selected by you in the first instance?-A. Not

one.

Q. What class of men as a whole were appointed?-A. A very excellent class of men, one much better than one would have expected.

Q. Was this body of men more or less efficient as compared with officers of the State having similar duties to perform?-A. I heard that they were very much more efficient than those selected by the city. That I only know by hearsay, of course. One of the city officials complained to me that all their best men were trying to get appointed United States supervisors instead of city supervisors. What prompted the preference I do not know.

Q. You have spoken of your action in connection with the marshals. You had nothing to do with respect to the appointment of the marshals, of course?—A. Nothing at all.

Q. Have you in your office any records relating to the performance of their duties by the marshals?-A. No, sir; I have their oaths of office, which I am required to keep. When parties were brought before me by the United States marshal to be sworn in as marshals they were asked by me to state their names, ages, residences, places of nativity, places of business, whether they were qualified to vote, whether married or single, their political beliefs, and for what places they were appointed. They then took and subscribed to the iron-clad oath before me. The book which I have now before me contains the record of their official oaths.

Q. Can you state, by reference to the book, what was the relative standing of the marshals so appointed with reference to their political sentiments-A. I could not state that from the book, and my only information in regard to it is that which I received from Mr. Usher, the United States marshal. Their political sentiments as recorded in the book are of all shades, Democratic, Republican, Greenback, Independ ent, and so forth.

Q. Is it your belief that they were appointed with a view to giving any one party a larger proportion numerically than properly belonged to it, or that the appointments were made impartially from among the several parties of the city?-A. So far as I know, Colonel Usher appointed such men as were recommended to him as proper men to be appointed. He required, as I did in the case of the supervisors, a writ ten application, sigued and indorsed by some responsible party, before making an appointment. I know it was his intention, for he so stated it to me, to appoint from all sections. To what extent he did that, I do not know.

Q. Will you have some one make a list of the various marshals as indicated in the book here produced by you and furnish the same to the committee?-A. I will.

Q. In discharging this duty of correcting the lists, you came personally in contact with a very large proportion of the marshals, did you not?-A. No, sir; I had the marshal detail some fifteen or twenty marshals, and those I employed. As to a majority of the marshals, I only saw them to administer the oath to them. Perhaps as to seven-eighths of them all that I can say is that they came on the day before the election, were sworn in, and served on the day of the election.

Q. About how many, did you say, were under your personal supervision for the purpose of examining the lists?-A. Fifteen or twenty, I should say.

Q. For what length of time were they under your direction?—A. Four or five or ten days, and as the business increased the number of marshals increased.

Q. What would you say as to their personal character and their effi

ciency in the discharge of the duties that devolved upon them as marshals?-A. I was thoroughly satisfied so far as concerned the detail for my service. I know of no complaint having been made against any marshal or any supervisor for misconduct on the day of election, therefore I judge that their conduct must have been commendable.

Q. You know of no oppressive conduct being exercised by the marshals or supervisors toward the voters in any instance?-A. No misconduct was reported to me.

Q. I understand you to say that you found this city registry to be quite defective; and you have given some of the reasons why it may have been so, such as the method in which it was made, in being copied from the assessors' lists and so on. You may now go on and state as specficially as you can what errors and opportunities for error you have found in that list and whether you think it is now, after this correction which you made, an accurate list of the voters of this city.-A. I have made no correction of the list. The list remains the same. The list is made under the supervision of the State authorities and the supervisor has no control over it nor authority in any way to strike off names or change the list.

Q. Have not names been stricken off in accordance with your recommendations, in any instance?—A. I do not know of any.

Q. You do not know whether the State or city authorities have conformed to your report in any case?—A. I furnished Mr. Chandler with evidence in regard to a large number of people whose names, on the voting list, I thought ought not to be there. I understood that he went before the city registrars and that a large number of names, whether 100 or 300 I do not know, were stricken off. This is only hearsay. I have no knowledge as to the fact.

Q. You have no personal knowledge with regard to the list itself whatever?—A. No, sir; I had nothing to do with it and thought it was not proper for me to intervene. I was ready to furnish all the information and material in my possession which any one might desire.

Q. Can you indicate any way in which errors might creep into the registration, other than that of simply copying from the assessor's book into the lists?-A. As I stated, the names of men who are not naturalized and of others who cannot read or write are copied from the assessor's list on the registration list. Men who can neither read nor write get others to read or write for them, their names get on, and they go up and vote.

Q. Have you known of any instances of that description?—A. Several of the parties who were brought up for refusal to answer admitted, when I asked them, that they had not been naturalized. One man, when questioned, very quaintly replied, "And why shouldn't I vote; ain't my name on the voting list.

Q. Did he explain how his name came to get upon the voting list ?— A. I asked him how his name came to get upon the voting list, and he did not know.

Q. Had you any information in regard to that, or did your investiga tions cover that case?-A. It would have been impossible for me to ascertain as to that. The man himself may have known why it was and he would not tell, of course.

Q. Have you reason to believe, from your knowledge of the subjectmatter, that there are still upon the voting list many names that ought not to be there?-A. I have no question that there are upon the list from 3,500 to 5,000 names which ought not to be there. That is the judgment which I have formed.

Q. Do these names, under the operation of the State laws with reference to that matter, continue on the list ?-A. Yes, sir.

Q. From your knowledge of the whole matter, and the fact that the State does not make like provision, do you think there is occasion for the existence of the United States election laws or not?-A. I think that where a State does not provide such laws the United States should provide them, but I also think that the Federal law should be made more efficient in its details.

Q. What modifications or improvements in the law would you sug gest?-A. Such a change in the mode of appointment of the deputy marshals as would require them to be appointed by the circuit court on motion of the chief supervisor, the same as the supervisors are appointed, and would place the deputy marshals under the control of the chief supervisors.

Q. As the law now stands, is not the whole force of Federal election officers practically under the control or direction of the chief supervisor?-A. I do not so understand it.

Q. Practically, you found no difficulty in securing from the marshal's department all the aid that you wanted?-A. No, sir; but a difference of opinion arose between the marshal and myself relative to the duties of the deputy marshals. He acquiesced in my construction of the law, but if he had not, I had no power to do anything in the matter. The marshal furnishes to the deputies the instructions which they receive.

Q. You think that the statute ought to be made more definite in regard to that matter, so that the arm of the supervisor, in the enforcement of the law, may be felt without the intervention of the judgment of any other person?-A. I think there should be a responsible man at the head of the whole machinery.

Q. Have you any other modification to suggest with a view to making the law more efficient in that regard? Should provision be made with reference to the further investigation and prosecution of cases in which proof of fraud has been developed before the election?-A. The absence of any such provision is, I think, a great defect in the law. Under the interpretation which has been given to the law, the official tenure of the deputy supervisor has terminated with the close of the polls on the election day; consequently, the chief supervisor, having then no one to assist him in enforcing his requisitions or in carrying on any of the inves. tigations which he may then wish to make upon the proofs furnished by his deputies, is unable to proceed further in the premises. The commissions of the deputy marshals expire, I think, on the day of the election, though the clerk of the court could state more definitely as to that than I can; my belief is that they are appointed up to and including the election day; therefore, so far as the deputy marshals are concerned, any frauds that are perpetrated on that day are allowed to remain without investigation, because there are no funds left to pay anybody for the service which such investigations would render necessary.

Q. Has any provision been made for turning over to the district at torney the mass of proof which may have been collected, so that the ordinary methods of prosecution may be resorted to ?-A. The district attorney can of course have all the reports made to him, but he has nobody to investigate or follow them up and determine whether they are true or false. I think that the chief supervisor ought to have a corps of assistants for four or five days after the voting. I do not think it is necessary to continue their existence for any great length of time. In four or five days all the work that ought to be done could be done.

Q. What security do the laws of the State provide for a correct regis

tration, for the depositing of the vote on election day, and for the protection of the suffrage against fraud ?—A. I have not looked into that subject sufficiently to enable me to answer the question.

Q. You found plenty to do with the machinery under your control ?— A. I found a great deal to do, and, as I have stated, I do not think I more than half did the work. I do not by any means regard the twelve or thirteen hundred names as representing all of the names on the voting list in regard to which investigations should have been made.

Q. You speak of having marked some of the names on the list, after reports had been made to you, with the letter "C" and a blue line.-A. The meaning of that was that the parties were to be challenged at the polls.

Q. What is the result of the challenge?—A. The form of challenge is described by State statute, and, among other formal ties, it requires that the voter shall write his name upon the back of his ballot; the purpose being, by means of the marks upon the ballot, to identify the person who deposits it in such a way that he can be detected and punished if, upon subsequent investigation, it is found that he was not entitled to

vote.

Q. The purpose of the challenge then is to facilitate identification?— A. Yes, sir.

Q. But it does not prevent the casting of the ballot?-A. No, sir. Special orders were given to the supervisors and the deputy marshals (I can speak as to the deputy marshals, for I heard the instructions given to them) to allow every one to vote who wished to vote. I stated to the supervisors orally that by the law every man whose name was on the list had the right to vote and the law had the right to punish him if he voted illegally.

Q. Repeat your statement, for I did not quite understand it, as to the character of cases in which you informed the men who were brought before you that they would be arrested if they voted at the polls?—A. They were all cases of non-naturalization or inability to read and write. Q. You investigated sufficiently to assure yourself of the existence of either of those two causes of disqualification, and then, upon the parties appearing before you, warned them that they would be arrested if they voted?-A. Yes, sir.

Q. You did that in no case in which you were not thoroughly satisfied that the party was disqualified ?—A. I did that in no case in which the parties did not admit that they were disqualified.

Q. You did it upon their own admission of disqualification?-A. Upon their own admission.

Q. Repeat the reasons you gave for keeping secret from these parties the existence of the warrants of arrest which were to be executed upon them in the event of their voting.-A. I thought that by so doing my work would be more searching; that if I did not give out the names, those whom I had detected as having been improperly registered would be frightened and deterred from voting, while those who were entitled to vote would come forward. I knew that no honest voters would be deterred and believed that dishonest voters would be deterred. Another consideration was that I did not feel like making the arrests for false registration until I had satisfied myself that the false registration had been perpetrated by the accused themselves and was not due to the negligence of others, the evidence of which would be found in the actual casting of ballots by such persons. Those warrants were not served, and I am now of course very glad that I did not serve them, because,