It has since transpired that the Republicans were promptly advised by the Western Union Telegraph Company of all that passed over its wires, my despatches to Mr. Tilden being read in Republican Headquarters at least as soon they reached Gramercy Park. [Illustration: From a photograph owned by F. H. Meserve STANLEY MATTHEWS OF OHIO] Mr. Tilden did not adopt the plan of a direct proposal to Mr. Hayes. Instead, he chose a body of Democrats to go to the “seat of war.” But before any of them had arrived General Grant, the actual President, anticipating what was about to happen, appointed a body of Republicans for the like purpose, and the advance guard of these appeared on the scene the following Monday. Within a week the St. Charles Hotel might have been mistaken for a caravansary of the National Capital. Among the Republicans were John Sherman, Stanley Matthews, Garfield, Evarts, Logan, Kelley, Stoughton, and many others. Among the Democrats, besides Lamar and myself, came Lyman Trumbull, Samuel J. Randall, William R. Morrison, McDonald, of Indiana, and many others. A certain degree of personal intimacy existed between the members of the two groups, and the “entente” was quite as unrestrained as might have existed between rival athletic teams. A Kentucky friend sent me a demijohn of what was represented as very old Bourbon, and I divided it with “our friends the enemy.” New Orleans was new to most of the “visiting statesmen,” and we attended the places of amusement, lived in the restaurants, and “saw the sights,” as if we had been tourists in a foreign land and not partizans charged with the business of adjusting a presidential election from implacable points of view. My own relations were especially friendly with John Sherman and James A. Garfield, a colleague on the Committee of Ways and Means, and with Stanley Matthews, a near kinsman by marriage, who had stood as an elder brother to me from my childhood. Corruption was in the air. That the Returning Board was for sale and could be bought was the universal impression. Every day some one turned up with pretended authority and an offer. Most of these were of course the merest adventurers. It was my own belief that the Returning Board was playing for the best price it could get from the Republicans and that the only effect of any offer to buy on our part would be to assist this scheme of blackmail. The Returning Board consisted of two white men, Wells and Anderson, and two Negroes, Kenner and Casanave. One and all they were without character. I was tempted through sheer curiosity to listen to a proposal which seemed to come direct from the Board itself, the messenger being a well-known State senator. As if he were proposing to dispose of a horse or a dog he stated his errand. “You think you can deliver the goods?” said I. “I am authorized to make the offer,” he answered. “And for how much?” I asked.