It would not be just to lay the blame exclusively upon the Tammany inspectors, though, of course, being in the majority and in full control, they were chargeable with all that took place. Republican inspectors either openly co-operated with or quietly acquiesced in the perpetration of the fraud.--_North American Review_, February, 1894, p. 210. The fraud on the ballot, to which both parties were privy, was all the more abominable because the provisions of the law against such abuses were very strict. But it is a favourite method in other countries than the United States to salve an uneasy conscience by passing a rigorous law without taking any precautions to see that it is carried into operation. This mode of relieving the feelings had been indulged in by New Yorkers in 1890, when the Ballot Reform Act passed into law. But, writing in 1894, Mr. Goff, who was Counsel to the Committee for the Prosecution of Election Frauds, said:-- Since the enactment of the reform-ballot law in 1890 no organised effort has been made to watch its operation or to detect any illegal practices. The public was satisfied with the popular catch-name of the Act, and it slept peacefully upon the assurance that fraud was no longer possible; but the evidence obtained by the volunteer watchers, and the finding of over sixty indictments by the Grand Jury, mainly against election officials, demonstrate that false registration, false voting, and bribery are as easily and as safely practised as they ever were, and that perjury has enormously increased, owing to the number of safeguards which must be sworn away by the fraudulent voter and the collusive inspector.--_Ib._, p. 204. There were 1,157 polling stations in New York in 1893, and it was not possible to obtain competent watchers for all of them. But the evidence obtained was sufficient to show on how colossal a scale the frauds were practised, with the co-operation or connivance of both parties. Ballot-stuffing seems to have been common. Mr. Goff says:-- Almost without exception there were more ballots found in the ballot-box than the ballot clerk’s number showed to have been delivered or the poll-list showed to have been voted, and in a great number of districts more than the registration. How they came there is to some extent a mystery: but in some places ballots were folded in duplicate, and in others the pile of ballots on the table was added to by a sleight-of-hand performance.--_Ib._, p. 209.