"The witness: 'Those are my own. I learned to write shorthand many years ago.' "It is perfectly clear from this (Chandler's own testimony) that these messages were dictated to Chandler by another person. They were so dictated exactly as described in the foregoing narrative. The New York _Times_ has never to this day been reimbursed by the National Committee or William E. Chandler, nor has William E. Chandler or any national committee ever offered to pay the _Times_ for the telegraph tolls or for any of the expenses incurred on that morning. "Mr. Chandler's efforts in behalf of the grand old Republican party on the morning of Nov. 8, 1876, may therefore be briefly summarized as follows: "First.--He frightened two lone women nearly out of their wits. "Second.--He finally discovered the number of Zachariah Chandler's room. "Third.--He acted as an amanuensis for a gentleman who dictated five despatches. (Work well done.) "Fourth.--He asked a servant to bring a carriage around to the Twenty-third Street entrance of the Fifth Avenue Hotel. (Result satisfactory.) "Fifth.--He attempted to open a door to enable the gentleman bearing the despatches the more readily to reach the street. (Made a mess of it.) "Mr. Zachariah Chandler, chairman of the National Committee, asked the gentleman above alluded to, on the evening of Nov. 8, if it would not be well to send William E. Chandler to Florida. The gentleman thought it would. Mr. William E. Chandler left for Florida on the following day at 6 P.M. Mr. William E. Chandler, therefore, did not initiate the idea of going to Florida. The truth is that Zachariah Chandler wished to send to Florida a gentleman who had been formerly a private secretary to William H. Seward, but the person was not at hand and could not be reached in time. William E. Chandler for this important mission was a second choice. "The whole scheme of sending what were afterwards called 'visiting statesmen' to the doubtful States originated in the brain of Zachariah Chandler, not William E. Chandler. "If the New York _Sun_ and Mr. William E. Chandler can find any comfort in the foregoing plain narration of facts they are entirely welcome to it." * * * * * Notwithstanding Mr. Tilden's popular majority, the public needs not now be told that he was counted out by the instrumentality of an extemporized tribunal, not only unknown to the Constitution, but in distinct disregard and violation of the provisions of that instrument for counting the electoral votes for Presidents and Vice-Presidents. A detailed account of the processes by which this great national crime was initiated will be found in the first chapter of the second volume of Bigelow's _Life of Tilden_. To that record, however, some important testimony has since been disclosed which appears to have escaped the biographer's notice.