Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 November 1888 — TURBULENT WEST VIRGINIA. [ARTICLE]

TURBULENT WEST VIRGINIA.

Great Excitement Over the Recent Election—Both Parties Crying Fraud. [Wheeling dispatch.l There is much excitement in West Virginia caused by the closeness ’of the election. Both Democratic and ♦’Republican papers cry fraud. Tlio Intelligencer, the Republican organ of the State, of aims that most outrageous frauds were committed in the recount of the First Congressional Disgressiongl District, where Atkinson’s (Rep.) apparent majority of nearly 100 has been cut down to 9. The Register (Don.) defends the commissioners in their actions and charges the most barefaced frauds in the back counties. All sides acknowledge that Goff (Rep.) is elected Governor on the face of the returns, but the Democrats insist that they will contest every inch of the ground and will investigate the charges made against the Republicans in the baek counties. . * One thing is sure. The vote in the State from one end to the other has increased in the past year much more rapidly than the population. In Wheeling there was an increase in the vote of over 1,000, while the school census taken a few months since shows a very small increase in population. In 1884 the Republican vote in McDowell County was 193 and this fall it is returned at 522. In Mercer County the face of the returns shows an increase of over 900 since 1884. Very few people believe this increase legitimate. It is claimed that the Democratic managers in that part of the State have the names of seventy-six negroes who are registered voters at Pocahontas. Va., who voted at Elkliorn, in McDowell County, and subsequently atrßramwell. in Mercer County. It is also claimed that hundreds of negroes who were brought into the State from Old Virginia within the last four months to work on the Norfolk and Western Railroad were taken to the polls and voted. The campaign excitement has not died out here in the slightest degree, and people hurrah for their favorites day and night. On the street ears, the ferryboats, and at the theaters the chief subject of conversation is the state of affairs in West Virginia.