NORWALK
ESTABLISHED 1 800 An Enterprising Republican Journal, especially devoted to Local News and Interests.
, VOLUME LXXXIX.
Norwalk Gazelle.
TERMS OF SIIBSGIIIP‘I'IIIII.
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LOCALS in reading matter columns, per line. .20
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Advertising of Funeral Notices, - - 1.00
Liberal terms to yearly and half-yearly advertis-
ers, and ten per cent. discount on all advs. pre-
paid for three months or over.
THE GAZETTE Jon PRINTING DEPARTMENT is
equipped with the best facilities for turning out
First Class Work of every description. All orders
for Printing. Engraving and Book Binding, execu-
ted promptly. and will be as well and reasonably
done as anywhere.
LOCAL ITEMS.
Capt. Allen Hubbell was in town over
Sunday.
The Honnecker bakery has received a
new shingle roof.
The Y. M. C. A. visited their Bridgeport
brethren last evening.
Fred. Buckley and his bride are now
settled in their new home.
Dr. Walter Hitchcock is rusticating for
a couple of weeks in Maine.
Wm. J. Styles, of Bridgeport, is a new
eornet player in Glover‘s baud.
That superb actor, George Clark, is
again back to his Norwalk home.
Mr. Ramsden, of Raritan, N. J ., spent
Sunday With Mr. B. Taylor, of Winni-
pauk. ,
, The 250th anniversary of the settlement
of the town of Milford will be celebrated
to-day.
Ye who have tears to shed, prepare to
shed them now. The Bermuda onion crop
is a failure.
Miss Emily Brooks, of Carolina Mills,
R. I., is visiting at Mr: John Brays’ on
Main street. ~
William Church lost a valuable horse
last week, which died of green grass colic,
as is supposed.
“Fritz” Taylor is enjoying a furlough in
Colebrook, up in the healthy hills of
Litchfield county.
Mr. W. T. Bruorton, of Brooklyn, spent
Sunday with Mr. and Mrs. L. L. Sher-
wood on Isaacs street. ‘ ' ‘
Mrs. Henry Bailey, with her daughter,
Mrs. Brower, and children, are home
again from Knox, N. Y.
The hat finishers’ picnic on the fair
ground on Monday next (Labor day)
should be largely attended.
The trial of the six men indicted for the
murder of Dr. Patrick H. Cronin was be-
gun Monday at Chicago. '
Ex-Lieut. Governor Hyde was among
the distinguished visitors at the Hoyt
Nursery assemblage yesterday.
The Misses Sallie and Lottie Betts, ac-
companied by their brother, Geo. F.Betts,
have gone to Pigeon Cove, Mass.
A wheat warehouse, forty-two cars and
three ships were burned at Port Costa,
0211., Monday, causing a loss of $700,000.
Stephen H. Smith, wife and daughter,
have been at Seabright, N. J., for some
time past, and Mr. S. is quite under the
weather.
Charley Addison, Norwalk’s chief bank
guardian, received a new and interesting
little summer guest at his house Monday.
It is a girl.
Mr. J. Tufts returns this week to his
theatrical business in the city, but his
family will remain in town for some little
time longer.
Ex—Governor and Mrs. P. 0. Leona-
bury left Ridgefield for Camp Cacho,
Racket Lake, Adirondack Mountains
Wednesday.
Mrs. Wm. G. Thomas, who has been
visiting her daughter at Minneapolis for
some time past, is expected home the
present week.
Mr. Henry Thomas, of New York, spent
Sunday with his brother, Mr. Wm. G.
Thomas on East avenue. He left for
Boston Monday.
Mr. Eugene L. Fancher, formerly of
Norwalk, and now one of Bridgeport’s
large and enterprising shoe manufactures,
was in town Monday.
Thegscafoldiug at the Bank of Norwalk,
fell Monday and precipitated some of the
workmen to the ground, but fortunately
no one was seriously injured.
Mr. Charles L. Rockwell and bride are
expected home from Europe next week.
They are now doing the Paris exposition,
and have had a most enjoyable trip.
Mr. Arthur Earle leaves Colorado
Springs to-day for Texas, and will take
the steamer from Galveston to New York,
for the benefit of the Ocean voyage.
Cashier R. P. Holiday, of the Frst Nat-
ional Bank of Mt. Gilead. Ohio,’is short
$25,000 in his accounts and has skipped
to Canada. The bank has closed.
Conundrum. What man in Ridgefield
has two hearts P—Press.
The fellow who laid that basket of eggs
on your table. Correct?
There now remain only five territories
and if they have their own way, they will
come into the sisterhood of states before
the fifty-first congress shall have closed.
Mrs. M. I. Duffy of New York is visit-
ing Mrs. O. L. Bassett, and Mrs. J. L.
Bassett of Short Beach, Conn., is visiting
her son, Mr. O. L. Bassett, on Main
street.
Anotpr disgraceful fight and row is
reported as having taken place at the
upper end of Beldeu avenue late Saturday
night. Of course ruin was at the bottom
of it.
What sadder sight can human eyes he-
hold than to see a young man endowed
with high intellectual gifts, making a
vagabond of himself by indulgence ip
intoxicating drink.
Justice Field is a native of Connecticut,
having been born in Haddam in 1836. His
father, the Rev. David Dudley Field, was
the ,Congregational minister in that town.
The Justice was a ’49er.
Mrs. Lillie, wife of Alonzo Smith and
daughter of Mrs. Rose, widow of Rufus
E. Raymond, of East Norwalk, died very
suddenly at the home of her mother of
reputed typhoid fever.
CongresSman Owen, of Indiana, who
just had a conference with the president,
says the later will call an extra session of
congress on October 21, and Senator
Frye is of the same opinion.
There is lots of fun for the big and the
little boys on all our docks, and in boats,
catching the shiny little blue fish or snap-
ping mackerel, with which the waters of
our harbor are now filled.
A chemist has discovered that a cigar-
ette contains five deadly poisons—the oil
in the paper, the oil of nicotine, saltpetre
to preserve the tobacco, opium to make it
mild, and the oil in flavoring.
The New York 85 New England Rail-
road 00. has issued orders that no person
who is addicted to the use of intoxicating
drinks or who is habitually discourteous
or profane shall be employed on that road.
Why can’t the capitalists of N orwalk
and South Norwalk procure a suitable steam-
boat to run from the dock at South Norwalk
to New York to be under home manage-
ment and control? It could be made to pay.
Mr. Martin Kellogg has returned from
his two weeks’ vacation in Birmingham
and other places of interestin Connecticut.
Gould Hoyt and Charlie Williams, of the
horse car line, are taking their vacations
this week.
Mr. Wm. G. Thomas, Jr., was out in
his shell one day last week, when his car
accidently fouling, he was precipitated
into the dark and briny waters of the
harbor, taking a most unpleasent and
involuntary bath.
This week Saturday the Mcchanics’
Journal will come out enlarged and in
much better form than heretofore, an
evidence of deserved prosperity. Ellen-
dorf is a good fellow and deserves all the
good luck that falls to his lot.
Mrs. William Keyser who has so
long resided in Florida has returned to
“cloverly,” her East Norwalk house. She
is expecting her son William, and her
daughter Mrs. Atkins, to arrive here from
England by to-day’s steamer.
The town of Guilford is one of three
Connecticut towns that will this year cele-
brate their 250 anniversaries. The other
two towns are Stratford and Milford. The
celebration at Guilford is to occur on the
8th, 9th and 10th of September.
Kindly, old, saintly, colored-man Gibbs,
the longtime bank steward, is quite ill at
his room over the Fairfield County Bank.
His wife is at Hampton, Va., and poor
Gibbs is all alone in his sickness except
such ofiices as the humane may bestow.
Mrs. O. S. Ferry and daughter Mary,
are to leave Pigeon Cove, Sept. 4th, and
will go to Litchfield, where they will be
the guests of Mr.'Leroy Ferry, (brother of
the late Senator) who has » a summer
residence on Litchfield’s borean heights.
Miss Mary L. Cummings, of Canaan,
died on Monday of last week after a long
and painful illness, at the age of 28 years.
She was a sister of Sherwood 0. Cum-
mings of Norwalk, and was a frequent
visitor here. Her mother died in March.
An effort ought to be made by some of
our enterprising citizens for the , erec-
tion of a band stand on one of our parks.
It would not only be an ornament to the
park, but it would also be very convenient
for the musicians and they would be lo-
cated where their delightful evening con-
certs would be better appreciated—Recwd.
Our borough and town highways are in
a deplorable condition by reason of the,
heavy rains. It is useless to expect any
thorough repair of them this season, but
if the authorities would put-men to work
clearing them of the innumerable lose
stones, agreat and most acceptable im-
provement would be wrought.
Stiles Stevens and J. M. Ferris.
NORWALK, CONN., WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 28, 1889.
The seal of secrecy has been removed
from the papers in the disgraceful Sherifl
Flack divorce case, and the court records
have been made public, which show the
most atrocious conspiracy on the part of
the husband against an injured wife, ever
revealed in the annals of crime. .
The County Commissioners met again
Monday at the selectmens’ rooms to con-
sider an application to sell liquors at the
old Thomas Clune store at the head of
Belden avenue. It was denied on the
general ground that the rum-selling busi-
ness in that locality was already over-
done.
The gas company are using one of the
modern gas engines torun their electric
dynamoes. Chas. S. Trowbridge also
uses one in his paper-box works, and
Giles Haulenbeck at his cigar box factory
in South Norwalk. They are said to cost
less than water motors, where not much
horse power is required.
A great deal of interest centers in the
ball game to be played on Labor Day,
Sept. 2nd, on the Baxter grounds, between
the Danbury and Norwalk Y. M. C. A.
Mr. Alvin Smith, of Smith Bros, (Dan-
bury and Norwalk) has offered a bag of
base ball bats as a prize to the winning
team. Play ball, Norwalk.
Builder Chas. F. Reynolds has made a
complete transformation of P. M. Ran-
dlc’s pretty little cottage in Winnipauk.
He has converted the former flat roofs
into gables, and put on sundry Queen
Anne touches and effects. while Lock-
wood & Jones are covering it with a sub-
stantial and durable slate roof.
The friends of the venerable Francis E.
Spinner, ex-Treasurer of the United States,
will regret to leaan that. the cancerous af-
fection, from which he has been for some
time a sufferer, is likely to terminate fatally
within a. few weeks. He is at his summer
residence at San Pablo Beach, Fla. Mr.
Spinner is now in his eighty-eighth year.
Journalist Winfield S. Mandy spent last
week in the White Mountains, and swing-
ing around to Boston harbor Saturday and
spending Sunday at Nantasket Beach.
We shall now look for a six column epic
in the Evening Sun on the general subject
of the great sea serpent that yearly fie-r.
sports himself in those renowned waters.
Poor Jimmie Landrigan, who has the
suggestive failing of being “all right
when he is sober,” was gathered in by the
police again the other day, and Monday
morning he was forced to listen to a moral
disquiSition on the evils of drunkenness,
and asentence of sixty days and costs,
both pronounced by His Honor Judge
Selleck.
D. Lothrop &; Co.’s Boston publications
for the little folks— Wide Awake, The
Pansy, Little Men and Women, Ubatauqua
Young Folks Journal, etc.—-arc the best
publications of the kind issued in America.
The children are always delighted with
any one of these publications, and they
afford useful instruction as well as grati-
fication. __
The first week of decent weather for
nearly three months, was accorded the
soldiers at Niantic, and the Gentlemen’s
Driving association at the fair grounds.
Both were successes to a degree. There
was some of the finest trotting ever seen
here, and considering how inadequately
this first meeting was advertised, the suc-
cess was extraordinary.
Col. F. St. John Lockwood is again
showing his public spirit and enterprise in
reconstructing his recent purchase, the
beautiful Morgan Smith mansion at Winni-
pauk. A thorough overhauling of the
interior is being done and when the work
is completed this old time residence will
again be one of the most attractive of
Norwalk’s many surburban homes.
Fred Wood is at home for a short va-
cation. He is in the employ of the Penn-
sylvania Central raierad on the staff of
engineers and has been repairing the
washouts on the road and says that the
bridge at J ohnstown which stood the im-
mense pressure of the flood was so badly
damaged by the dynamite explosions that
the butt work will have to be rebuilt.
..____.—.
Monroe, was found Saturday afternoon in
the sound about six miles from Bridge-
port by Captain Clark of the Penfield reef
lighthouse. Mr. Beardsley was an uncle
of ex-mayor Morgan of Bridgeport. He
was seventy-nine years of age and when
he was last seen had a very large sum of
money in his possession. Mr. Beardsley
was not thought capable of caring for
himself.
The Gentlemen’s Driving association of
Norwalk, is apparently one of the most
successful organizations of the kind that
has ever been gotten up in Fairfield
county. There are said to be 300 names
on the list of membership, of which 41 are
Stamford men,. including the owners of
the fair grounds, Messrs. S. L. Knapp,
A nu-
merous representation of, ConnectiCut’s
fastest steeds took part in the first races
’of the circuit series on the Norwalk fair
_ grounds—Advocate. . .
S-fHenryBodey, 35, a fcremau employed
by Contractor Rogers of Portland, was
run over by a stone wagon Friday and his
head crushed. He was driving a load of
13 tons on to the ferry-boat to go to Mid-
dletown, and the horses became frightened
and pulled him off from the wagon. He
leaves a wife and two children.
Real estate agent, 0. E. Wilson and
Mrs. Wilson, have been enjoying the dc-
lightful excursion from New York to
Niagara Falls, thence down the St. Law-
rence river, through the Thousand Islands,
and the Grand Rapids to Montreal, thence
returning via Lake George, Saratoga, Al-
bany and the Hudson River, home again
to Norwalk. Friend Wilson has a level
head on everything except his politics.
—A. H. Hoyt &‘ Son, 37 Wall street,
sell calf boots, $1.48; child’s kid spring
heels, 50c. ; pebble spring heels and heels
with sole leather tip, all solid, at 84 cts;
misses’ spring heels and heels, very solid,
at 98 cts.; ladies’ kid common sense and
opera toes, at $1.50; calf tap sole boots,
31.95; calf tap sole boots, $2 50, a boot we
used to sell at $4.50; the Old Reliable
Boot; the O. K. boot, $2.50, a genuine all
kip boot, no better at same price; the
Record, a solid stoga boot, good length of
leg, at $2.00—this beats the record. A.
H. Hoyt & Son, 37 Wall street.
Norwalk correspondent Standard :—
“Sensational stories appeared in the Sun-
day papers about the condition of John
Brady, who is represented as insane and
in a critical condition at his uncle’s home
in town. While people were reading the
account youngBrady was attending church
in as sound a condition of health as the
average attendant, probably. The young
man came from Bridgeport about two
week since in an unnatural condition of
mind, due to close application to a mo-
notonous kind of work in one of the fac-
tories during the day, and took an absorb-
‘ing interest in the subject of mesmerism.
Rest and a change of surroundings have
already effected almost an entire cure.”
The work of rebuilding at Wilson Poin
is progressing very rapidly, Supt. Payne
; has a large force of men digging away the
bank on the newly acquired Burchard
property and filling in between the two
~. yards. This will all be used for tracks, and
will make one of the largest yards in the
; eastern states. Carpenters under the direc-
wreck of the old dock and rebuilding it on
an improved plan. The steamer “Cape
Charles ” has been taken off for the purpose
of fitting her up to carry cars direct to New
York. It is thought that the business,
which was temporarily taken to Bridgeport
on account of the fire, will be transacted
here again by the 15th of next month. At
all events everything that can be is being
done to rush the work to a speedy comple-
tion—Record. '
' The wire for the incandescent light is
nearly all strung, and the connections are
about'completed. By the beginning of
next week all will be in readiness for the
machinery, which is being made by the
Thomson-Houston company, and which is
expected to be finished and working
by the beginning of next month. In their
canvass the Electric Light company have
been very successful, having received
orders for nearly 800 lights. Of these
385 are to be put in in the borough, and
a slightly larger number in South Nor-
walk. Colonel Roberts is having every-
thing fixed for lighting his military insti-
tute by electricity, and has given an order
for 125 lights for that purpose.
The South Norwalk Republican has
suspended publication, Mr. Homer, the
new proprietor, finding the task of build-
ing it up to a paying basis a more diflicult
matter than he had figured on. Romer,
we understand, has taken a position on
Rowell’s “Printer’s lnk,” a trade publica-
tion in New York. “Fritz” Taylor, who
has been connected with the Republican
since its first number nine years ago, and
who has done most of the work, both in
its editorial and mechanical departments,
is thus made a gentleman of leisure, but
it is not likely that he will long be per-
mitted to enjoy the pleasure of freedom,
as his talents and ability as a paragrapher
and compositor are too well-known and
of too high an order to be allowed to rust
in innocuous desuetude.
There is a prospect of legal difficulties
in the settlement of the estate of Andrew
J. Peck, of Newton, who was murdered
a short time ago. The claims of the ad-
ministrators, Dr. E. J. Peck and H. P.
Morgan, having been disallowed, there
now remains but three heirs to the estate.
Mrs. Stuart, of New York, claims to be a
daughter of Andrew J. Peck by his first
wife. W. H. Trenchard, of New York,
who was a brother-in-law of the decedent,
and Asher Peck, of Iowa, deny that Mrs.
Stuartis a daughter, and will resist her
claim in the courts. The murderer of
Peck is now in theBridgeport jail await-
ment of the estate inasmuch that his
counsel claims that, Peck was murdered
. ' was to get his mdney- ,
tion of L. Beaumont are tearing away the-
ing trial, and is interested in the settle-l
by some p'ersoa unknown whose motive.~ ,
. _ Walter now. , . _ .
Charles S. Seymour, attorney for the
Knoxville, Cumberland Gap &. Louisville
Railroad, who was injured in an accident
on that road at Flat Creek, Tenn., last
Thursday, is a brother of Professor Sey-
mour of Yale and a nephew of the late
Chas. Seymour of Hartford.
Of course he didn’t know it was loaded,
and so'Ira Smith, aged twelve, of Canton,
Ohio, shot and killed Caroline Knop, a
fourteen-year-old girl. Charles Andrews of
Bay City, Mich., went to a dance, fired in
the air “for fun,” and killed Ernest Gage.
So the festival of the idiots goes merrily on.
The following compliment to Secretary
Windom from the Springfield Republican
is an oasis of praise amidst a Sahara of
faultfinding:—“No department of the
government has been managed under this
administration with greater regard for the
letter and spirit of the civil service law
than the treasury, and Secretary Windom
is not disposed to abandon the course he
has chosen. There are some forty offi-
cials regarded as ineflicient who will be
removed in time, but the bulk of the
force will remain as it is. The personel of
the department is now about equally
divided between the parties, and the or-
ganization is considered by the secretary
nearly perfect and never in better working
order.”
The plans for the new buildings at the
Soldiers’ Home at Noron have been com~
pleted, and the entire contract let to H. B.
Philbrick, of Hartford. The new hospital
will be of brick and brownstone, 117x104
feet. The administration departmant in
front will be of pallet brick laid in red
mortar, two stories high, and the two
28x85 wards in the rear will be one story
high, with slate roof. The first floor of
the administration department will contain
the operating room, surgeon’s room, lava-
tories, dispensary, etc., and the library,
nurses’ room, etc., will be on the second
floor. The interior will be finished in
natural Wood, and will be heated by steam
and ventilated after the latest approved
methods of hospital work. The wards,
operating rooms,etc., will have ashphalt
floors. The new room and chapel will be
a one story frame building, 30x50 feet.
A young saleswoman in New York was
very polite and attentive to an aged cus-
tomer, who has just died and left her
$6,500. It is about time that somebody
showed a little appreciation of politeness.
~Emehange.
A Norwalk lady was in search of some
fine colored tissue papers in New York
last week for a little child, and was re-
ferred to the Brumnel candy house in 14th
street. There a young lady clerk very
kindly offered to procure them and mail
them to the party inasmuch as they could
not be had at the store, and the lady had
not time to look farther, but such a prom-
ised courtesy from, a stranger, involving
so much trouble, was not veryconfidently
relied upon, but sure enough, at the end
of the week the desired papers were re-
ceived by mail from the unknown lady
just as promised, and, Monday morning,
Express Messenger Lockwood took her to
New York from the child’s mother, a box
of exquisite flowers about as large as be
well could carry. It is indeed well to
show appreciation of politeness.
Our old friend, Walter Fitch, has had
for the best part of the summer, to make
it pleasant for him, a three-year-old New
York kid by the name of Colyer. The
little fellow has furnished no end of com-
pany and amusement for Walter, but the
thing is beginning to wear on his enfeebled
constitution. Nothing about the farm has
so excited the youth as the family cow.
How the milk gets into and out of it is to
the child a never ceasing marvel. One
evening last week as a reward for unusu-
ally good behavior Walter fixed a stool for
the lad on the near side of the cow, while
he poured the rich and unctious fluid into
the milk pail seated on the off side. This
worked like a charm. The child bent
forward with awe andlwonder eyeing ev-
ery part of the bovine. The first interrup-
tion was this connumdrum: “I say. Mr.
Fitch, where does your old cow buy her
chewing gum ?” Walter smiled one of his
sardonic smiles and then tried to illumine
the city child’s innocent wonder by telling
him that it was her “end” the cow was
chewing, though he has to this time no
more idea what “cud” means than he
would have had had Walter called it a
“guyascutus.” The next query, seeing
the milk pour into the pail, was: “Say,
Uncle Walter, does her let ’er go Gallag-
her, when you pulls those long things?”
Walter again [patiently tried to explain
that it required a hard squeeze, a pull and
an open and shut grip at the dugs to get
the steady stream of milk he saw going
into the pail. This last explanation was
the rock on which Walter split. He was
at the moment stripping his last “strip”
preparatory to rising and taking his big.
pail of milk to the house, when the urchin
made a lunge with both hands at the two
teats on the other side and his needle-like
nails piercing the poor cow’s tender flesh,
she gave a kick and a plunge and over went
Walter and stool and milkand boy sprawl-
ing in the dirt, and the old cow wild with
afright went tearing across the barn-yard.
That boy doesn’t go‘ out to milk with
Two DOLLARS A YEAR
NUMBER 35.
The New York Times of Sunday, says,
anent the Guilford anniwriary: Miss
Kate Foote, the sister of General Joseph
R. Hawley’s first wife and the niece of
Harriet Beecher Stowe, will read an
original paper concerning Guilford and
Madison in the war of the rebellion.
One of the most heroic things in the
career of Mrs. Hawlcy was her attempt to
save some of the Guilford men as they
made their way more dead than alive in
to the Union lines at Wilmington, N. C.,
from rebel prisons, in the spring :of 18655
The childhood of Dr. Lyman Beecher,
the father of Henry Ward Beecher, Mrs.
Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Mrs. Isabella
Beecher Hooker of this city, was spent in
Guilford. It is also dallack’s birthplace,
and the poet’s remains are buried there.
That erratic but brilliant preacher, writer,
and man of the world, W. H. 11. Murray,
was born in Guilford, and the brightest
politician which Connecticut has to-day,
Hon. Lynde Harrison of New Haven, was
born within the town's atmosphere. Ex-
Mayor Robert De For est of Bridgeport. is
a native of the town.
Editor John Wade took a run up the
Housatcnic road on Wednesday to Gt.
Barrington and Canaan where, last sum-
mer, he distinguished himself by spending
half a day in the woods stripping the hide,
an inch thick, from the entire trunk of a
big chestnut tree, from which he expected
his wife to make souvenir birch bark auto-
graph albums. This time he “put his foot
in it” again on being conducted through
a well cultivated farm. The sight of a
rye field caused him to cxclaim : “Oh,
look at the straw growing over there I”
On spying a prolific cucumber bed he
remarked that he “didn’t suppose pickles
grew that way; he always supposed that
they were dug up out of the gfound the
same as oysters and bannanas.” At the
depot a number of calves, which were
being shipped_on {the cars, attracted his
attention and excited his curiosity. He
inspected the calves intently for some
time and finally asked a bystander “what
kind of game they were.” The man eyed
him at first with suspicion, but on satisfy-
ing himself that the question was asked in
good faith, replied with a tinge of pity in
his voice that they were calves, whereupon
Wade ejaculated : “Great Caesar! is that
so? I had no idea you could catch them
so far from the Adirondacks—were they
lassoed or caught in traps?” And this is
the scribe who writes up the reports of \
agricultural fairs for publication, and who
has the assurance to intimate that he
would dare get onto a horse‘s back.
NEW CANAAN, CONN, Aug. 27, 1889.
The GAZETTE proposes to have the anni-
versary of the chicken law set apart as a
holiday. Why not include the secret
ballot and have two of them, as it is one
of the most outrageous laws that was ever
enacted in this state, as it virtually dis-
franchises thousands of voters. There is
not one redeeming feature about it. There
is not a democrat or republican I have
conversed with who is in favor of it; if it
was left for the people to decide by their
votes there would be a corporal’s guard
that would be in favor of it. It was not a
party measure, as I was informed by Sen-
ator Mead, who informs me that Senator
Cleveland of Hartford, was one of its
strongest advocates, if not the father of it.
When you try to abridge the rights of
suffrage you are treading on dangerous
grounds. It is a direct stab to every
mother’s son in Connectict, but more di-
rect to the blind, the infirm and the illiter-
ate. We have those who became blind
since they were made voters, who are led
up to the polls, and their vote is virtually
cast by their escort, and no one thinks of
raising any objection. Then there are the
old and infirm who often takes two or
three to steady them up to the polls and
this law disfranchises them. Then the
illiterate. of course, it disfranchises. I do
not believe there ever was a legislature
convened in this state before this that
would dare to enact the law. There are
more or less voters in every town that
take no interest in politics, but still keep
well posted, will not attend the polls
except under extraordinary circumstances
such as electing a President or
Senator, and then withrcluctance. Here-
after they will absent themselves from the
polls entirely, as I have heard a number
of them say that they would not run the
gauntlet and work the complicated ma-
chinery before they cast their ballot.
When I was made an elector you had to
do military duty or pay a tax the preced-
ing year, or be the owner of unincumber-
ed real estate, but finally they passed a
law giving universal suffrage to all white
male citizens at the age ‘of 21. Then they
passed a register law to prevent illegal
voting which is enforced to-day. Gover-
nor Bulkeley did one noble act when he
vetoed the first bill, and made a mistake
when be sanctioned the last. But if he
wants to immortalize himself, let him call
an extra session of the legislature before
our annual town elections come off and
recommend its immediate repeal. We
have had a model election law for nearly
'a third of a century which was easily‘ ex-
' ecuted without expense. Tnownaroen.
Norwalk Chronicler