Mr. DAWES. Mr. Speaker, so much ground has been gone over in the discussion of this case, and so much, as matter of testimony and of law, is involved in it, that it. will be utterly impossible for me, in the brief hour allotted me under the rule, to make anything like an argument satisfactory to myself and worthy of the subject. Ican only promise, Mr. Speaker, and that is all I haVe ever promised in any of these undertakings, to be faithful to the charge committed to me, and with whatever ability I maybe able to command, with all candor and with a conviction that I have no right to be otherwise than, so far as in me lies, entirely impartial, endeavor to submit in summing up what is, in the opinion of the committee, the conclusion of this whole case. Mr. Speaker, the closing remarks of the sit ting member were of so peculiar a character so unusual in a discussion of this kind, that I may per ha be expected to make some reply to them. lIsthink that the House will bear the committee out when I say, as their representative, that from the time when this evidence was submitted to them to he examined and weighed until the present moment not a word of a personal character toward either the contestant or the sitting member or anyiudividual member of the House differing with them in their conclusions has fallen from the lips of anyone of them. I think further, Mr. Speaker, that, so far as my memory serves me, nothing that can be regarded as of apartisau character has fallen from any member of the committee; and I hope that I maybe able to say of myself. whatI feel I can say of every other member of the committee, on the one side and on the other, that they have striven to forget party on this occasion, and to rerd this only as a contest between A B and D as to which has been rightfully elected as a Representative from the 8th congressional district of NewYork. But, sir, it has been the fortune of the committee from the beginnin of the hearing till the last dying notes of tesitting member, still echoing within these walls, to hear one continued strain and refrain of charges of the grossest corruption and bribery on the part of the contestant, and that, sir, without one se in tilla of evidence to sustain such charges. The committee in their report i ored the whole thing, for the reason that e most diligent search of 900 pages of printed matter failed to reveal a single particle of testimony that any money whatever had been used by any person for an corrupt or unlawful purpose. But, sir, it as seemed fitting to the sitting member never to forget this strain; and while some word in defense of this contestant might properly have come from the cit of NewYork, where he is best known an where he has earned a reputation that will outlive any attacks that have been made upon it, still as the contestant himself has not, and I think wisely, deemed it proper to notice these attacks, it becomes me, think, to saya word or 2 in reference to them and the source from which they come. Sir, it cannot but be true that a politician of many years standing, who has afiiliated with every political party that has lived and died during a long period of time, and has repudiated in succession the irinciples which they have avowed and which he has advocated; who has himself declared, from his own expe rience in mingling with parties, that he could buy a nomination for Congress at the hands of Mozart and Tamman Halls and the Republican party, each and all of them at the same time, and then go into the canvass, and if he had money enough, buy up votes at 5 dollars a head to elect him I say, sir, it cannot but be true that such a man, whatever his ability and skill, will fail in attempting to transfer the character thus earned in a generation of such service, from himself to one who has never had the fortune to mingle in polities at all, who has earned among the mercantile community a reputation as spotless as the sun, a reputation as dear to him as the apple of his eye, and which up to this hour the breath of slander has never tarnished. Sir, the instincts of some politicians are as certain and unerring as the instincts of some animals, which can succeed in making the clearest water foul and mudd, and which he who is wise gives a wide berth, since he cannot come near them without being bespattered. Sir, the sitting member has seen fit not only to attack the contestant with the charge of corruption, without a particle of testimony that one dollar was ever used for any purpose improperunder the law of NewYork or elsewhere, but in attempting to sustain that charge, he has made out a table which he has caused to be printed and spread upon our records, and which the minority of the committee have unwittingly incorporated bodily in their report a table which is as false on its face as it is in fact. The table sums up an expenditure of $15, 508, and it does it in this way: one item of $2, 900 is inserted twice; another item of $2,000 is inserted twice; another item of $2, 200 is inserted twice; another item of $500 is inserted twice.