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Show S rHE TILDENHAYES CONTEST. In the current Century Magazine, Col. Henry Watteraon tells the story of the Tilden-Hayes E :ontest. Aa is well known, Colonel Watterson was first lieutenant to Mr. Tilden in that campaign. His "S article is written in a temperate mood. He firmly firm-ly believes that Mr. Tilden was honestly elected and that the world will acknowledge it after awhile. He speaks of the old man as a most sociable, genial old gentleman, who, while not 9 much of a wine bibber, took his wine at meals ; S who was a great favorite with all the girls and S young ladies in the neighborhood; that he loved 1 1 his horse and went horseback riding. And evidently evi-dently Colonel Watterson holds him aa a man whose integrity waa above all reproach and whose ability was not equaled by any man in the nation when in his vigor. Ho tells of his campaign for governor of New York, and on the night of election he asked a friend how big the majority would be, and finally said it would be a little over 50,000. It was, in fact, 61,000 and some odd hundred votes. He had made a complete canvass of the state by school districts. He knew by a table which he had exactly how many men in each town would ; vote for him and for hii opponent; and estimated I shrewdly the number that would remain away from the polls; and so almost called the ma-5 ma-5 jority that he would receive. He says the returning board of Louisiana was composed of two white men and two negroes . and that the vote was for sale for several days after the committee got to New Orleans, and intimates a belief that the Republicans finally ? bought It He says Mr. Tilden had nothing to : do with any cipher dispatches in South Carolina, that what there was in that was from Mr. Pel-2 Pel-2 ton, his nephew, whose mind was not level; tells T how Mr. Tilden proposed after the election to settle the controversy; and when they told him ; how it had been arranged to be settled, he quietly " m said they would be beaten; that no one could notice either by his bearing or his words any dis-Z dis-Z appointment when the decree waa finally against him. There ia no doubt but what Mr. Tilden was 5 a very great lawyer and very much of a man ; but Mr. Tilden waa at the head of Tammany when Mr. Greeley wrote him that in a certain ward there were more Democratic votes cast than there were men, women, children, bones and mules in the ward, and reminded him that the receiver was equally guilty with the thief. And when so long at the head of Tammany, and knowing Mr. Tweed as he did, the fact that after he waa exposed by the New York Times Mr. Tilden took up the prosecution of him, was always looked upon by very many people as being a little late, because the trial brought out nothing noth-ing that Mr. Tilden had not known in regard to Tweed for years. .Again, under ' Mr. Tilden 's management a railroad waa wrecked and sold, something that never happened before in the United States ; and, of course, aD the original subscribers to the stock tost all they put in. He gives Mr. Hayes credit for being an honest hon-est man, and so most of those that rallied around him and won the election for him as honest men in their individual capacity, and marvels how men in a company would do things that they never would think of doing individually. The article does not read as it would had Mr. Watterson written it just after the decision in the case, which shows how blessed is sometimes the mellowing effect of time on the red hot passion of pasasionate men. |