Mr. DAWES. The gentleman must not use up my time, as I need my whole hour; and I hope the House, if I do not abuse their patience, will give me more time if I need it. I do not intend to abuse their patience if I can help it, by allowing other speeches to be made in my time. If I recollect rightly, when interrupted by the Gentfrom Illinois, I was atherin together the facts touching this precinct, an giving the conclusions of the committee on those facts. I was stating the manner in which this registry was made up and the view the committee took of it. They had the opinion, Mr. Speaker, that this board was a judicial board because the law requires them to pass as judges upon the qualifications of the voter; and they were further of the opinion that it required at least 2 of this board to pass upon any judicial question referred to them. It is the opinion of many good lawyers that in the absence of any provision to the contrary there must be a concurrence of all in order to pass upon any judicial question submitted to them, though a majority of the court perhaps can give the judgment. I do not think it is necessary for us to decide the question whether it requires all 3 or a majority of this court, for at no time when it attempted to pass upon the qualifications of a voter in this precinct was there ever a majority of the court so constituted that it could pass upon the question of qualification except as to those names that were transcribed from the old registry in the 12th district. The whole affair, with the exception of that, was made up without the judicial sanction of even 2 of those men. This was the registry to guide the inspectors of election, containing a list of names having upon its face the sanction of this board. It contained the names of men without giving the name and number of the street, with nothing to show that they were voters qualified to cast their votes on that day. That list was handed over to the board of in spectors of election with directions to take it as evidence of who were legal voters in that district. More than half, nearly 3/4ths, of the names placed on the list were there in mockery of the provisions of the law of the State of NewYork, enacted for the purpose of securing to the honest voter, and to imalone, the exercise of this franchise. What, Mr. Speaker, would be the natural tendency and effect of this? Everybody can see that it afforded facility for fraudulent voting to any extent. There was no limit to fraud save the capacity and inclination of the keeperof this shop, who furnished all the names from his own account book, and of the self constituted clerk of election who testified that he inserted the names, and of those who came in the absence of all these parties and inserted their own names, as well as the names of such friends as they desired to register. Therefore it was the opinion of the committee that a regis try thus made up was no registry, in the 1st place, because the board of registry was an illegal board and here I propose to answer a question of my colleague on the committee, [Mr. Maasnsm] The law is express that the registers shall be residents of the district. That is not disputed. It is an essential provision of the law. No man can for a moment look at the machinery of the law and doubt the fact that to take men who are strangers in a district like this and require of them the discharge of this dut is the most idle mockery in the world and if any security can come from the employment of men who are residents and voters in the district it comes from the fact of their familiarit with the district and its voters, coupled with their own personal integrity. It may be said, and it is sometimes said, that a man may be an Officer defado, and that his acts may be lawful as to a 3rd person and the question is raised here by the minority of the committee that these were officers defacin Now, without undertaking to define the exact line between Officers de facto and officers (1 jure binding on 3rd persons, and without undertuking to define exactly that other question raised in this case by our friends on the minority, that these are also directory provisions of the statute and not mandatory, merely advisatory directions involving no illegality in their non-performance, I wish to state that the law, it seems to me, had an end in view which was defeated, as I have alread said, by a disregard of this provision. An thereforeI do not consider that it can be a directory provision as is termed by lawyers in that sense that it may be departe from without vitiating the proceeding. Officers de facto are those who act under color of an appointment, who are otherwise competent to act, but have some defect in their appointment., But a man who by statute is in cometent to act cannot be any more an officer.efacto than an officer de jurc. If a man fails, for instance, to take his oath, there is a defect in his appointment, but he may discharge his constitutional duties, and as to 3rd persons they may be valid notwithstanding this defect. There may be some other defect; but when the law declares that a man cannot be that officer, cannot perform those duties, then ifhc walks into the office, he is a usurper, and no form of appointment can make him any more an officer de facto than an officer de jurc. Now, sir, what was the effect of undertaking to open the poll at this election with this regis try as the guide? The natural tendency, as I have already stated, was to allow every man to vote whosename was on the poll list. The poll list at the close contained no presumption of its honesty arising from the fact that it corre sponded with the registry, because the registry of itself, as made up, was afraud upon the law. Therefore the poll taken as the product of the result of a restry made up in conflict with and fraud of the law can have no presumption that it is a legal oll. But, sir, not on the natural tendency of this thing is to afraudulent vote, but the evidence in the case must, it seems to me, demonstrate to every man that the result was to put into those ballot boxes a large preponderance of illegal votes from some quarter.