closed; that the inside door was sealed by Stevens, Hudson and Moriarty, clerks in the board of election commissioners' office, each of them using an individual seal; that the outer door of said vault was locked by a combination lock and sealed by Isaac N. Powell, chief clerk of the board of election commissioners; that Isaac N. Powell was the only person having the combination of the lock of said vault; that said vault was not again opened until Sunday, the 29th day of April, 1900; that before said vault was opened on said day, Stevens, Hudson, Moriarty and Powell each examined their individual seals on the outer and inner vault doors and found them intact and undisturbed; that on that day the vault was opened and the boxes containing said ballots were taken from the vault by the clerks of said board of election commissioners, placed in baskets and loaded on trucks, put on an elevator, and removed to and stored in another vault located on the fourth floor of said building; that during the removal thereof from the vault on the third to the vault on the fourth floor of said building the seals on said boxes were not disturbed or the ballots tampered with or handled; that the time consumed in the removal of said ballots from the vault on the third floor to the vault on the fourth floor was not to exceed four hours; that after they were placed in the vault on the fourth floor the inner door of said vault was closed and sealed by Stevens, Hudson and Moriarty, each using an individual seal; that the outer door of said vault was locked by Isaac N. Powell with a combination lock, and that said Isaac N. Powell was the only person having the combination of the lock to said vault; that said vault contained only ballots cast at said election, and each time before the same was opened thereafter, Stevens, Hudson and Moriarty examined their individual seals and in all cases found them intact and undisturbed, and that said vault was only opened by said Isaac N. Powell and in the presence of Stevens, Hudson and Moriarty;

that said vault was guarded at night by a watchman employed by said board of election commissioners, and that said boxes containing the ballots cast at said election were never removed from said vault from the 29th day of April, 1900, when they were placed therein on the fourth floor of said building, until they were produced by said Isaac N. Powell to be counted in this contest, with the exception of the boxes containing the ballots from the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth precincts of the twentieth ward; that there was an election contest pending in the city council of the city of Chicago for the office of alderman of the twentieth ward in said city between William J. Danforth and William Eisfeldt; that said Danforth filed a petition with the city council of the city of Chicago setting forth that he and Eisfeldt were candidates for the office of alderman for the twentieth ward at the election held on April 3, 1900; that their respective names as candidates appeared upon the official ballot; that there were irregularities at said election, and charging that he was elected alderman of said ward instead of Eisfeldt. Said contest was referred to the committee on elections by the said city council; that on the 4th day of June an order was passed by said city council ordering that the board of election commissioners of the city of Chicago be requested to produce before a sub-committee of said city council the ballots cast in said precincts of said ward at the election of April 3, 1900, to be used by said committee as evidence in said contest; that said order was presented to the board of election commissioners on the 16th day of June, 1900; that on the 9th day of June, 1900, a sub-committee of the city council of the city of Chicago, consisting of three aldermen, appeared at the office of the election commissioners; that in pursuance of the order of said council of the city of Chicago the clerk of said board of election commissioners produced the boxes containing the ballots

cast at the election on April 3, 1900, in said precincts of said ward, to be used by said sub-committee as evidence in said contest; that the boxes containing said ballots were opened by Isaac N. Powell, the chief clerk of said board, in the presence of said election commissioners, said sub-committee, the contestants and their attorneys, and the ballots counted; that immediately after such recount they were returned to the respective boxes from which they had been taken, re-sealed and again placed in said vault; that during such re-count said ballots were not mutilated, disfigured or in any manner changed, but were returned to said boxes in the same condition in which they were taken therefrom, and after their return thereto remained in said vault, with the other boxes containing ballots, until they were produced in court to be re-counted in this contest.

The ballots were fully identified and properly and safely kept and not exposed to the risk of being tampered with, and the court did not err in holding that they were better evidence, in determining the result of the election, than the returns of the judges of the election, and in basing its decision upon such re-count and not upon the returns of the judges of the election.

The questions raised in the court below and discussed in the briefs filed in this court are numerous, cross-errors having been assigned. The ballots objected to, however, with few exceptions, which are not sufficiently numerous to affect the result, may be classified and the questions raised disposed of under the following heads:

First-A number of ballots were counted which had endorsed upon the back thereof only a single initial of one of the judges of election. The object of requiring one of the judges of election to officially endorse on the back of the ballot his initials before giving it to the voter is to identify the ballot as being one which had been cast at the election. Such identification is as complete from one initial as from all of the initials of such judge, and

the voter should not be disfranchised by reason of the failure of such judge of election to literally comply with the statute in that regard. While the statute requiring such official endorsement is mandatory, (Kelly v. Adams, 183 Ill. 193,) the endorsement of one initial is a substantial compliance with the statute, which is all that is required; also, under a well known canon of construction in force in this State, (3 Starr & Cur. Stat. 1896, chap. 131, sec. 1, par. 3,) words importing the plural number include the singular. The court did not err in counting such votes. In Horning v. Board of Canvassers of Saginaw County, 119 Mich. 51, under the provisions of the election laws of that State requiring the inspector to write his initials upon the upper left-hand corner of the ballot and declaring void all ballots not endorsed with the initials of the inspector, as provided in the act, it was held ballots inadvertently endorsed by the inspector in the lower righthand corner should be counted. To the same effect is Parvin v. Wimberg, 130 Ind. 561; 30 Am. St. Rep. 254.

Second-A number of ballots were counted which had endorsed upon the back thereof the full name of the judge of election, instead of his initials. In Gill v. Shurtleff, 183 Ill. 440, it was held that where a legal voter properly prepares his ballot and the same is placed in the ballot box it should be counted, although some one of the election officers, without participation of the voter, made an endorsement on such ballot which might serve as a distinguishing mark. Under the rule as thus announced such votes were properly counted.

Third-A number of ballots were counted with a cross in the republican and democratic circles and a cross in the square preceding "Bertrand" or "Perkins." In the case of Vallier v. Brakke, 7 S. Dak. 343, a well considered case construing the Australian Ballot act of that State, which is substantially the same as the act in force in this State, the court held that a ballot marked with a circle at the head of both the republican and people's

party tickets and a cross at the left of the name of the plaintiff was correctly counted for the plaintiff, on the ground that the cross at the head of the two tickets neutralized each other and was equivalent to a cross at the head of neither, and that the cross to the left of the plaintiff's name made it a vote for the plaintiff. Under this authority, which seems to be the only one directly in point, the court properly counted ballots thus marked for the candidate before whose name the cross appeared in the square.

Fourth-The court declined to count ballots marked in the circle at the head of the republican or democratic tickets in cases where the voter had erased the other tickets upon the ballot by drawing vertical lines through the same. This ruling was correct. In Kelly v. Adams,

supra, where the fac simile of a similar ballot is printed, the court held that such ballot was improperly counted, on the ground that such lines amounted to distinguishing marks, and avoided the ballot.

Fifth-The court counted a number of ballots upon the face of which appeared letters, words or marks made by the voter, which were claimed to be distinguishing marks. The original ballots have not been certified to us for inspection, and the trial court, from an inspection thereof, was in much better position to determine the question, which is largely, if not wholly, a question of fact, (Kelso v. Wright, 110 Iowa, 560,) whether said letters, characters and marks were distinguishing marks or whether they simply evidenced the honest intention of the voter to indicate the candidate or candidates for whom he desired to cast his ballot, than we are from a description of such ballots or from the exhibits found in the record. We are not, therefore, inclined to overrule the action of the trial court in counting said ballots. In Parker v. Orr, 158 Ill. 609, it was contended that the word "yes" or "get" upon a ballot amounted to a distinguishing mark and that the trial court erred in counting the same.