Mr. SPALDING. Mr. Speaker, I think I have done no injustice to in colleague. I stated substantially his reply: that the adjournment from the polls to the liquor shop was not under any law. The entle man now admits it. Sir, I ask what itierence did it make whether the adjournment was according to law or against the law? Could not the same frauds have been perpetrated in the one case as in the other? The gentleman says that the votes had been counted. Sir, I learn from the report of the minority that the votes had simply been orted in bunches of tens; they had not been counted to ascertain how man votes there were for one candidate or the other. They were simply set apartin tens upon the table, and they could be interfered with as readily as if they had not been sorted at all. The gentleman, I admit, said that this objection would be answered more fully by the chair man of the committee in the closing argument. That undoubtedly will be so; and perhaps the argument of the chairman will satisfy my mind in reference to this point. But I must be permitted to say that I find some presumptive evidence in support of the position that frauds may have intervened while those gentlemen went out to the liquor shop. While the vote of the sitting member falls very considerably below the vote given for McClellan, for President, the vote of the contestant surpasses by a considerable number the vote given for Abra ham Lincoln in the same precinct. McClellan received 185 votes, Brooks 134; Lincoln 376, Dodge 394. Now, sir, if we are to draw inferences from such facts as these, there may arise an inference of fraud in this respect, in consequence of the opportunity given for fraud by the retiring of the canvassers on the occasion referred to. But, Mr. Speaker, the weighty consideration with me in this case is that we are sitting here, not so much in the character of judges between the sitting member and the contestant, as to protect the rights of the pro10 of the city of TewYork, who are constitutionally entitled to representation here and I say that we have no right to reject the sitting member in consequence of the irregularity of the returns made in 2 precincts where the votes were returned greatly in his favor while we acceptthe returns of precincts which gave his opponent a majority, and in regard to which the objection to the validity of the return is equally strong, thus unseating one gentleman and seating another irrespective of the wishes of the people of the district. Why, sir, if the maiiiar ument of my colleague [Mr. SHELLABARGBR] be sound, we may go on through the agency of a committee am reject the retprns of one district after another on the ground of some irregularities, until finally we reduce the number of votes to 100 from a district casting 20,000, and then we may declare that those 100 votes should entitle a man to a seat on the floor of Congress. Sir, it will never do to adopt such a rule as that. Never; never. It will not answer for the Gentlemen to say they can break down the popular will by casting out the returns of 2 or 3 or 4 districts, and then requiring of some sitting member, or of some contestant, to show by affirmative roof how each individual votes. It strikes me that is requiring an impossibility at the hands of either the sitting member or the contestant, to, go into the wards of the city of NewYork, where the poulation is transient, changing every 21 hours; where it is difficult at any time to trace them, and require 3 or 4 months afterward proof as to each individual voter, and as to how each individual voter voted. 1 have brought my mind to the conclusion, Mr. Speaker, that we can do justice only in one ; wa here, and that is. where the returns are so do cctive as these were, to send the matter back to the people of the district and let them elect a member of Congress agreeably to the laws of the State of NewYork. With that disposition of the question the people of NewYork will have no reason to complain, and the people ofother States will have no reason to complain. We shall satisfy justice and satisfy the dictates of our own conse iences, which is much better.