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BENNO LOEWY LIBRARY
COLLECTED BY
BENNO LOEWY
1854-1919
BEQUEATHED TO CORNELL UNIVERSITYHOW NEW YORK CITY
GOVERNED.
BY
JAMES PARTON.
[REPRINTED FROM THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.]
BOSTON:
TICK NOR AND FIELDS.
1866.Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by
TICKNOR AND FIELDS,
in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.
University Press: Welch, Bigelow, & Co.,
Cambridge.THE GOVERNMENT OF THE CITY OF
NEW YORK.
1.	Manual of the Corporation of the City of New York. By
D. T. Valentine. From 1841 to 1865. Prepared and
published at the Expense of the City.
2.	Documents of the Board of Aldermen of the City of New
York. From No. 45 to No. 64. McSpedon and Baker.
1854.
3.	Annual Reports of the Comptroller, exhibiting the Receipts
and Expenditures of the County Government. The New
York Printing Company. 1864 and 1865.
4.	Report of the Citizens’ Association. New York: George
F. Nesbitt & Co. 1865.
5.	Wholesale Corruption. Sale of Situations in Fourth Ward
Schools. Report of the Committee appointed by the Board of
Education. Published by the Citizens’ Association of New
York. 1866.
6.	One Job of the Conspirators who govern our City. Pub-
lished by the Citizens’ Association of New York. 1866.
7.	Clean Streets for Three Hundred Thousand Dollars a Year.
By D. D. Badger. Published by the Citizens’ Association
of New York. 1866.
8.	Work is King. A Word with Workingmen in Regard to
their Interest in good City Government. Published by the
Citizens’ Association of New York. 1866.
9.	Who pays for the Stealings ? The Workingman ! Pub-
lished by the Citizens’ Association of New York. 1864.
10.	A few Questions for Workingmen to think of Published
by the Citizens’ Association of New York. 1865.
11.	Improved Dwellings for the Industrial Classes. A Plea
for the Wives and Mothers. Published by the Citizens’ As-
sociation of New York. 1866.
12.	City Finances. Items of Expenditure for Stationery and4
THE GOVERNMENT OF THE
Printing. Published by the Citizens’ Association of New
York. 18G6.
13.	Items of Abuse in the Government of the City of New York.
Published by the Citizens’ Association of New York. 1866.
14.	Report of the Executive Council to the Honorary Council
of the Citizens’ Association of New York. 1866.
15.	Analysis of the proposed Tax Levy for the City and County
of New York for the Year 1866. Published by the Citizens’
Association of New York.
16.	Important Reform Measures passed by the Legislature of
1866. Published by the Citizens* Association of New York.
17.	An Appeal by the Citizens’ Association of New York against
the Abuses of the Local Government, to the Legislature of the
State of New York, and to the Public. 1866.
18.	Communication to the Commissioners of the Central Park.
By Andrew H. Green, Comptroller of the Park. New
York : Bryant & Co. 1866.
19.	Petition to the Market Committees of the Boards of Aider-
men and Councilmen of the City of New York. By Thomas
F. De Yoe, Butcher, No. 8 Jefferson Market. Published
for the Author. 1855.
On certain conditions, a very large proportion of the whole
human race will steal. The opportunity must be good, of
course, and the chance of detection small; the stealing must
easily admit of being called by another name ; and, above all,
the theft must be of such a nature that the thief does not wit-
ness the pain which the loss of the stolen property occasions.
On these conditions, almost all children and other immature
persons, as well as a great number of average honest men and
women, will steal. One proof of the civilizing power which
the late Horace Mann excercised over the pupils of Antioch
College in Ohio was, that no depredations were committed by
those raw lads upon the orchards and gardens of the neighbor-
hood. Mrs. Mann is justified in mentioning this fact as one
that does honor to the memory of her husband ; for the boy
who steals apples from an orchard usually has an excellent op-
portunity and seldom has the slightest sense of doing an in-
jury to the owner. He takes a handkerchief full from an un-
seen person, who has whole acres strewn with fruit and trees
bending with the weight of it, and who will never know that
particular loss. If the stolen property presented itself in its
ultimate form, — a piece of bread and butter going into the
mouth of one of the farmer’s little children, — not one boy in
ten thousand would steal a crumb of it; but so long as it is
mere apples lying in an orchard, all boys will steal it withoutCITY OF NEW YORK.
5
compunction,'unless they have been exceptionally well bred or
taught.
Well-informed persons, who have been officially obliged to
consider the matter, assure us that a majority of car-conductors,
omnibus-drivers, and all other takers of unrecorded and un-
traceable money, are habitual thieves in all countries. It is
the constant study of able managers to arrange a system that
shall remove a temptation which experience has shown to be
generally irresistible. Our fair readers, if we are so happy as
to have any for so repulsive a subject, are acquainted with a
class of active little mortals, — the cash-boys of our large dry-
goods stores. Cash-boys had never appeared on earth if clerks
had never stolen. But we need not multiply examples. The
self-knowledge of the most honest men suffices. Who has not
observed the unwillingness of persons of tried and punctilious
integrity to put themselves in the way of temptation ? It is
because those know most of the moral weakness of men who
have converted that weakness into strength. How often have
we admired the exquisite modesty of Benjamin Franklin in that
passage, written when he was an old man, in which he attrib-
utes the honesty of his early life to the fact that his trade
brought him in such “ plentiful supplies ” of money that he
had little temptation to do wrong. This was not a confession
in the “ high-toned ” style, but that is the way honest men feel
who know themselves.
We have undertaken to write something about the govern-
ment of the city of New York, and yet we have fallen into a
discourse upon stealing. The reason is, that, after having
spent several weeks in investigating our subject, we find that
we have been employed in nothing else but discovering in how
many ways, and under what a variety of names and pretexts,
immature and greedy men steal from that fruitful and ill-fenced
orchard, the city treasury.
That the government of the city of New York has had, for
several years past, an exceedingly bad name in the world, is
probably known to all our readers. It has fallen into com-
plete contempt. It is a dishonor to belong to it. Persons of
good repute do not willingly associate with the rulers of the
city, unless they are known to be of the small number who
hold their offices for the purpose of frustrating iniquitous
schemes. When it was found, last winter, that the Aldermen
and Councilmen of the city must necessarily attend the ball of
the Seventh Regiment at the Academy of Music, many re-
spectable persons who had bought tickets sold them again,
rather than jostle those magnates. The Rev. Henry Ward
Beecher recently said, in the pulpit, that perhaps the govern-6
THE GOVERNMENT OF THE
ment of the city of New York did more moral harm to the
people of New York than all the churches together did good.
Nevertheless, since we are all disposed to exaggerate evils
vaguely known, and since the cry of corruption is habitually
raised by corrupt men for purposes of intimidation or revenge,
we entered upon our task fully prepared to find the affairs of the
city less corruptly administered than they are supposed to be.
It is an old remark, that good people are not quite as good,
nor bad people as bad, as popular rumor gives them out.
It occurred to us that perhaps the best way of beginning an
investigation of the city government would be to go down to
the City Hall and look at it. It proved not to be there. To
keep the whole city from falling a prey to the monster, it has
been gradually cut to pieces, and scattered over the island;
but, like the reptiles whose severed fragments become each a
perfect creature, with maw as spacious and appetite as keen as
the original worm, so each portion of the divided system
is now a self-operating and independent apparatus. In the
City Hall, however, the legislature of the city still assembles.
It consists of two honorable bodies, — the Board of Aldermen,
seventeen in number, elected for two years, and the Board of
Councilmen, twenty-four in number, elected for one year,—
each member of both boards receiving a salary of two thousand
dollars a year. Considering that they meet but twice a week,
always in the afternoon, and that the session averages one
hour’s duration, these gentlemen cannot be said to be ill paid.
They are compensated for their valuable services at twice the
rate at which the labors of the Chief Justice of the Supreme
Court of the United States are rewarded. But then it costs
those city legislators something to be elected. The legitimate
expenses of an election to either of the boards amount to about
three hundred dollars; but many a candidate expends a thou-
sand dollars of his own money and several hundred dollars of
other people’s.
It is to the Chamber of the Board of Councilmen that we
beg first to invite the courteous reader. This apartment being
in the second story of the building, we pass many open doors
on our way to it, through which we see idle men with their
feet upon tables, smoking cigars. There are few buildings in
the world, probably, wherein the consumption of tobacco in all
its forms goes on more vigorously during business hours than
the City Hall of New York. Smoke comes in clouds from many
rooms, and the vessel which Mr. Thackeray used to call the
“ expectoratoon ” is everywhere seen. If we enter the Coun-
cilmen’s Chamber a few minutes before the time of beginning
the session, we observe many members smoking; and as soonCITY OF NEW YORK.
7
as there is a prospect of an adjournment, the same gentlemen
begin to fondle their cigars, to hand them about, or even toss
them to one another, so that when the adjournment does take
place not a moment may be lost. Twice we have seen a
member light his cigar before an adjournment was carried.
The very clerks of this “ honorable body ” write out their notes
of the proceedings smoking cigars of a flavor beyond that
which the pursuit of literature allows.
The Councilmen’s Chamber, a lofty and spacious room, pro-
vided by the liberal forethought of honest and public-spirited
men sixty years ago, is furnished with preposterous magnifi-
cence ; not “ regardless of expense,” however, as some have
inconsiderately alleged. On the contrary, expense was evi-
dently the first object sought by the persons who had the work
in charge; and, accordingly, wherever a thousand-dollar thing
could be put, there you behold it. The apartment is arranged
on the plan of the Representatives’ Chamber in the Capitol at
Washington. The President sits aloft, in a richly canopied
recess; below him are four clerks in a row; the members sit
in two semicircles, in chairs of the most massive mahogany,
at desks of solid elegance. The windows are shaded by cur-
tains heavy with expense, and the carpet is thick with it. In
case the session, which begins at 2 P. M., should chance to
prolong itself to the evening, there is a chandelier of the most
elaborate and ramified description, such as would rejoice the
heart of any contractor to furnish. To remind members, who
all have gold watches, of the passage of time, there is a clock
of vast size, splendid with gilt and carving. Four staring, full-
length portraits of Fillmore, Clay, Young, and Hamilton Fish
disfigure the walls, and the father of his country looks coldly
down upon the scene in marble. He never had such furniture
either at Mount Vernon or at Philadelphia, nor did he ever see
such at Independence Hall. The ceiling is frescoed, and a great
gilt eagle spreads his wings over the President’s canopy. Be-
sides this gorgeous apartment, the Councilmen have a large
and handsomely furnished room for their clerks and books,
and a private room, densely carpeted, for themselves, where
there is a wardrobe for each member’s overcoat and umbrella.
These wardrobes are very properly provided with lock and
key.
To asssist this “ honorable body ” in the business of legislation,
there is a ‘‘chief clerk,” whose salary is $ 3,000 a year ; there
is a “ deputy clerk,” at $ 2,000 a year; there is a “ first assist-
ant clerk,” at $1,500 a year; there is a “second assistant
clerk,” at the same; there is a “general clerk,” at $ 1,200 a
year; there is an “ engrossing clerk,” at $ 1,250 a year ; there8
THE GOVERNMENT OF THE
is a “ sergeant-at-arms,” at $ 1,200 a year; there is a ‘*reader,”
at the same ; there is a “door-keeper,” at $ 750 a year; there
is a “messenger,” at $1,200 a year; and there is an “as-
sistant messenger,” at $ 1,100 a year. In short, there is not a
legislative body in the world more completely provided with all
external aids and appliances for the work in hand than the Hon-
orable the Board of Council men of the City of New York. To
the salaries of these officers the Councilmen add, in the form of
gifts for “ extra services,” six or seven thousand dollars more,
and they bestow upon the reporters of seventeen newspapers,
for not reporting their proceedings, two hundred dollars a year
each. Perhaps the clerks also are paid for not doing their
duty, — if any duty can be found for so many, — for we were
present in the chamber, last June, when a communication from
the Mayor was read, in which he complained that bills came to
him for approval so badly written that he could scarcely read
them, and declaring that hereafter he would pay no attention
to acts not properly engrossed.
The twenty-four Councilmen who have provided themselves
with such ample assistance at such costly accommodation are
mostly very young men, — the majority appear to be under
thirty. Does the reader remember the pleasant description
given by Mr. Hawthorne of the sprightly young bar-keeper
who rainbows the glittering drink so dexterously from one
tumbler to another ? That sprightly young bar-keeper might
stand as the type of the young men composing this board.
There are respectable men in the body. There are six who
have never knowingly cast an improper vote. There is one
respectable physician, three lawyers, ten mechanics, and only
four who acknowledge to be dealers in liquors. But there is
a certain air about most of these young Councilmen which, in
the eyes of a New-Yorker, stamps them as belonging to what
has been styled of late years “our ruling class,” — butcher-
boys who have got into politics, bar-keepers who have taken a
leading part in primary ward meetings, and young fellows who
hang about engine-houses and billiard-rooms. A stranger
would naturally expect to find in such a board men who have
shown ability and acquired distinction in private business.
We say, again, that there are honest and estimable men in the
body ; but we also assert, that there is not an individual in it
who has attained any considerable rank in the vocation which
he professes. If we were to print the list here, not a name
would be generally recognized. Honest Christopher Pullman,
for example, who leads the honest minority of six that vainly
oppose every scheme of plunder, is a young man of twenty-
seven, just beginning business as a cabinet-maker. HonestCITY OF NEW YORK.
9
William B. White, another of the six, is the manager of a
printing-office. Honest Stephen Roberts is a sturdy smith,
who has a shop near a wharf for repairing the iron-work of
ships. Morris A. Tyng, another of the honest six, is a young
lawyer getting into practice. We make no remark upon these
facts, being only desirous to show the business standing of the
men to whom the citizens of New York have confided the
spending of sundry millions per annum. The majority of this
board are about equal, in point of experience and ability, to
the management of an oyster-stand in a market. Such ex-
pressions as “ them laws,” “sot the table,” “ 71st rigment,” and
“ them arguments is played out,” may be heard on almost any
Monday or Thursday afternoon, between two and three o’clock,
in this sumptuous chamber.
But what most strikes and puzzles the stranger is the crowd
of spectators outside the railing. It is the rogues’ gallery
come to life, with here and there an honest-looking laborer
wearing the garments of his calling. We attended six ses-
sions of this “ honorable body,” and on every occasion there
was the same kind of crowd looking on, who sat the session
out. Frequently we observed looks and words of recognition
pass between the members and this curious audience; and,
once, we saw a member gayly toss a paper of tobacco to one
of them, who caught it with pleasing dexterity. We are un-
able to explain the regular presence of this great number of
the unornamental portion of our fellow-beings, since we could
never see any indications that any of the crowd had an inter-
est in the proceedings. As the debates are never reported by
any one of the seventeen reporters who are paid two hundred
dollars a year for not doing it, and as the educated portion of
the community never attend the sessions, this board sits, prac-
tically, with closed doors. Their schemes are both conceived
and executed in secrecy, though the door is open to all who
wish to enter. This is the more surprising, because almost
every session of the board furnishes the material for a report,
which an able and public-spirited journalist would gladly buy
at the highest price paid for such work in any city.
Debates is a ludicrous word to apply to the proceedings of
the Councilmen. Most of the business done by them is pushed
through without the slighest discussion, and is of such a nature
that members cannot be prepared to discuss it. The most
reckless haste marks every part of the performance. A mem-
ber proposes that certain lots be provided with curbstones;
another, that a free drinking hydrant be placed on a certain
corner five miles up town; and another, that certain blocks of
a distant street be paved with Belgian pavement. Respecting10
THE GOVERNMENT OF THE
the utility of these works, members generally know nothing
and can say nothing; nor are they proper objects of legisla-
tion. The resolutions are adopted, usually, without a word of
explanation, and at a speed that must be seen to be appreci-
ated. The first and last impression made upon a disinterested
spectator is, that this most expensive body, even if every
member were an honest man, would be absolutely useless. A
competent street inspector, properly aided by the police, could
do all the real work that is left to them to do; for such has
been the flagrant abuse of their power, that, by degrees, they
have been deprived by the State Legislature of a great part
of the authority they once possessed; but the power to do
mischief remains. This “honorable body” can still waste,
give away, and steal the money of their constituents.
The only way in which we can convey to the reader’s mind
a lively idea of the character of the city legislature is to relate,
as simply as possible, a few of their acts of last summer, which
we witnessed ourselves and recorded on the day of their per-
petration. There is no “ mystery of iniquity ” in the business;
to understand the game which the majority of this body are
playing, it is only necessary to sit out two or three of their
ordinary sessions. We own it is a trial to the patience. There
will be moments when a person of vivacious turn of mind will
feel an almost irresistible impulse to throw something at the
head of those insolent young bar-keepers, who have contrived
to get their hands into the public pocket, and are scattering
wide the hard-earned money of good citizens and faithful
fathers of families.
At almost every session we witnessed scenes like the follow-
ing. A member proposed to lease a certain building for a city
court at two thousand dollars a year for ten years. Honest
Christopher Pullman, a faithful and laborious public servant,
objected on one or two grounds; — first, rents being unnatu-
rally high, owing to several well-known and temporary causes,
it would be unjust to the city to fix the rent at present rates for
so long a period; secondly, he had been himself to see the
building, had taken pains to inform himself as to its value, and
was prepared to prove that twelve hundred dollars a year was
a proper rent for it, even at the inflated rates. He made this
statement with excellent brevity, moderation, and good temper,
and concluded by moving that the term be two instead of ten
years. A robust young man with a bull-neck and of ungram-
matical habits said, in a tone expressive of impatient disdain,
that the landlord of the building had “ refused ” fifteen hun-
dred dollars a year for it. u Question ! ” “ Question! ” shouted
half a dozen angry voices. The question was instantly put,CITY OF NEW YORK.
II
when a perfect war of noes voted down Mr. Pullman’s amend-
ment. Another hearty chorus of ayes consummated the iniquity.
In all such affairs, the visitor notices a kind of ungovernable
propensity to vote for spending money, and a prompt disgust
at any obstacle raised or objection made. The bull-necked
Councilman of uncertain grammar evidently felt that Mr. Pull-
man’s modest interference on behalf of the tax-payer was a
most gross impertinence. He felt himself an injured being, and
his companions shared his indignation.
We proceed to another and better specimen. A resolution
was introduced, appropriating four thousand dollars for the
purpose of presenting stands of colors to five regiments of city
militia, which were named, each stand to cost eight hundred
dollars. Mr. Pullman, as usual, objected, and we beg the reader
to mark his objections. He said that he was a member of the
committee which had reported the resolution, but he had never
heard of it till that moment; the scheme had been “ sprung ”
upon him. The chairman of the committee replied to this,
that, since the other regiments had had colors given them by
the city, he did not suppose that any one could object to these
remaining five receiving the same compliment, and therefore
he had not thought it worth while to summon the gentleman.
“ Besides,” said he, “ it is a small matter anyhow ”; — by which
he evidently meant to intimate that the objector was a very
small person. To this last remark, a member replied, that he
did not consider four thousand dollars so very small a matter.
“ Anyhow,” he added, “ we oughter save the city every dollar
we kin.” Mr. Pullman resumed. He stated that the Legis-
lature of the State, several months before, had voted a stand
of colors to each infantry regiment in the State; that the dis-
tribution of these colors had already begun; that the five regi-
ments would soon receive them; and that, consequently, there
was no need of their having the colors which it was now pro-
posed to give them. A member roughly replied, that the colors
voted by the State Legislature were mere painted banners,
“ of no account.” Mr. Pullman denied this. “ I am,” said he,
“captain in one of our city regiments. Two weeks ago we
received our colors. I have seen, felt, examined, and marched
under them; and I can testify that they are of great beauty,
and excellent quality, made by Tiffany and Company, a firm
of the first standing in the city.” He proceeded to describe
the colors as being made of the best silk, and decorated in the
most elegant manner. He further objected to the price pro-
posed to be given for the colors. He declared that, from his
connection with the militia, he had become acquainted with
the value of such articles, and he could procure colors of the12
THE GOVERNMENT OF THE
best kind ever used in the service for three hundred and sev-
enty-five dollars. The price named in the resolution was,
therefore, most excessive. Upon this, another member rose
and said, in a peculiarly offensive manner, that it would be
two years before Tiffany and Company had made all the col-
ors, and some of the regiments would have to wait all that
time. “ The other regiments,” said he, “ have had colors pre-.
sented by the city, and I don’t see why we should show par- >
tiality.” Whereupon Mr. Pullman informed the board that1
the city regiments would all be supplied in a few weeks; and,1
even if they did have to wait awhile, it was of no conse-
quence, for they all had very good colors already. Honest
Stephen Roberts then rose, and said that this was a subject
with which he was not acquainted, but that if no one could
refute what Mr. Pullman had said, he should be obliged to
vote against the resolution.
Then there was a pause. The cry of “ Question! ” was
heard. The ayes and noes were called. The resolution was car-
ried by eighteen to five. The learned suppose that one half of
this stolen four thousand dollars was expended upon the colors,
and the other half divided among about forty persons. It
is conjectured that each member of the Councilmen’s Ring,
which consists of thirteen, received about forty dollars for his
vote on this occasion. This sum added to his pay, which is
twenty dollars per session, made a tolerable afternoon’s work.
Any one witnessing this scene would certainly have sup-
posed that now the militia regiments of the city of New York
were provided with colors. What was our surprise to hear, a
few days after, a member gravely propose to appropriate eight
hundred dollars for the purpose of presenting the Ninth Reg-
iment of New York Infantry with a stand of colors. Mr.
Pullman repeated his objections, and recounted anew the gen-
erosity of the State Legislature. The eighteen, without a
word of reply, voted for the grant as before. It so chanced
that, on our way up Broadway, an hour after, we met that
very regiment marching down with its colors flying; and we
observed that those colors were nearly new. Indeed, there is
such a propensity in the public to present colors to popular i
regiments, that some of them have as many as five stands, of i
various degrees of splendor. There is nothing about which *
Councilmen need feel so little anxiety as a deficiency in the |
supply of regimental colors. When, at last, these extravagant
banners voted by the Corporation are presented to the regi-
ments, a new scene of plunder is exhibited. The officers of
the favored regiment are invited to a room in the basement
of the City Hall, where city officials assist them to consumeCITY OF NEW YORK.
13
three hundred dollars’ worth of champagne, sandwiches, and
cold chicken, — paid for out of the city treasury, — while the
privates of the regiment await the return of their officers in
the unshaded portion of the adjacent park.
It is a favorite trick with these Councilmen, as of all politi-
cians, to devise measures the passage of which will gratify
large bodies of voters. This is one of the advantages pro-
posed to be gained by the presentation of colors to regiments,
and the same system is pursued with regard to churches and
societies. At every one of the six sessions of the Councilmen
which we attended, resolutions were introduced to give away
the people’s money to wealthy organizations. A church, for
example, is assessed a thousand dollars for the construction of
a sewer, which enhances the value of the church property by
at least the amount of the assessment. Straightway a member
from that neighborhood proposes to console the stricken church
with a “ donation ” of a thousand dollars to enable it to pay
the assessment; and as this is a proposition to vote money, it
is carried as a matter of course. We select from our notes
only one of these donating scenes. A member proposed to
give two thousand dollars to a certain industrial school, — the
favorite charity of the present time, to which all the benevo-
lent most willingly subscribe. Vigilant Christopher Pullman
reminded the board that it was now unlawful for the Corpo-
ration to vote money for any object not specified in the tax
levy, as finally sanctioned by the Legislature. He read the
section of the act which forbade it. He further showed, from
a statement by the Comptroller, that there was no money left
at their disposal for any miscellaneous objects, since the appro-
priation for “ City contingencies ” was exhausted. The only
reply to his remarks was the instant passage of the resolution
by eighteen to five. By what artifice the law is likely to be
evaded in such cases, we may show further on. In all proba-
bility, the industrial school, in the course of the year, will re-
ceive a fraction of this money, perhaps even so large a fraction
as one half. It may be that, ere now, some obliging person
about the City Hall has offered to buy the claim for a thousand
dollars, and take the risk of the hocus-pocus necessary for
getting it, — which to him is no risk at all.
It was proposed, on another occasion, to raise the fees of the
inspectors of weights and measures, who received fifty cents for
inspecting a pair of platform scales, and smaller sums for scales
and measures of less importance. Here was a subject upon
which honest Stephen Roberts, whose shop is in a street where
scales and measures abound, was entirely at home. He show-
ed, in his sturdy and strenuous manner, that, at the rates thenn
THE GOVERNMENT OF THE
established, an active man could make two hundred dollars a
day. u Why,” said he, “ a man can inspect, and does inspect,
fifty platform scales in an hour.” The cry of “ Question! ”
arose. The question was put, and the usual loud chorus of
ayes followed.
As it requires a three-fourths vote to grant money, — i. e.
eighteen members, — it is sometimes impossible for the Ring
to get that number together. There is a mode of preventing
the absence- or the opposition of members from defeating fa-
vorite schemes. It is by way of “ reconsideration.” The time
was, when a measure distinctly voted down by a lawful ma-
jority was dead ; but by this expedient the voting down of a
measure is only equivalent to its postponement to a more fa-
vorable occasion. The moment the chairman pronounces a
resolution lost, the member who has it in charge moves a re-
consideration ; and, as a reconsideration only requires the
vote of a majority, this is invariably carried. By a rule of the
Board, a reconsideration carries a measure over to a future
meeting, — to any future meeting which may afford a prospect
to its passage. The member who is engineering it watches his
chance, labors with faltering members out of doors, and, as
often as he thinks he can carry it, calls it up again, until at
last the requisite eighteen are obtained. It has frequently
happened that a member has kept a measure in a state of re-
consideration for months at a time, waiting for the happy mo-
ment to arrive. There was a robust young Councilman who
had a benevolent project in charge, of paying nine hundred
dollars for a hackney-coach and two horses which a drunken
driver drove over the dock into the river one cold night
last winter. There was some disagreement in the Ring on
this measure, and the robust youth was compelled to move for
many reconsiderations. So, also, it was long before the wires
could be all arranged to admit of the appointment of a “ mes-
senger ” to the City Librarian, who has perhaps less to do
than any man in New York who is paid eighteen hundred dol-
lars a year; but perseverance meets its reward. We hear
that this messenger is now smoking in the City Hall at a sal-
ary of fifteen hundred dollars.
There is a manoeuvre also for preventing the attendance of
obnoxious, obstructive members, like the honest six, which is
ingenious and effective. A “ special meeting ” is called. The
law declares that notice of a special meeting must be left at
the residence or the place of business of every member. Mr.
Roberts’s residence and Mr. Roberts’s place of business are
eight miles apart, and he leaves his home for the day before
nine in the morning. If Mr. Roberts’s presence at a specialCITY OF NEW YORK.
15
meeting at 2 P. M. is desired, the notice is left at his shop in
the morning. If it is not desired, the notice is sent to his house
in Harlem, after he has left it. Mr. Pullman, cabinet-maker,
leaves his shop at noon, goes home to dinner, and returns soon
after one. It* his presence at the special meeting at 2 P. M. is
desired, the notice is left at his house the evening before, or
at his shop in the morning. If his presence is not desired, the
notice is left at his shop a few minutes after twelve, or at his
house a few minutes past one. In either case, he receives the
notice too late to reach the City Hall in time. We were
present in the Councilmen’s Chamber when Mr. Pullman
stated this inconvenience, assuming that it was accidental, and
offered an amendment to the rule, requiring notice to be left
five hours before the time named for the meeting. Mr.
Roberts also gave his experience in the matter of notices, and
both gentlemen spoke with perfect moderation and good
temper. We wish we could convey to our readers an idea of
the brutal insolence with which Mr. Pullman, on this occasion,
was snubbed and defrauded by a young bar-keeper who
chanced to be in the chair. But this would be impossible
without relating the scene at very great length. The
amendment proposed was voted down with that peculiar roar
of noes which is always heard in that chamber when some
honest man attempts to put an obstacle in the way of the free
plunder of his fellow-citizens.
These half-fledged legislators are acquainted with the device
known by the name of the “ previous question.” We witnessed
a striking proof of this. One of the most audacious and inso-
lent of the Ring introduced a resolution, vaguely worded, the
object of which was to annul an old paving contract that
would not pay at the present cost of labor and materials, and
to authorize a new contract at higher rates. Before the clerk
had finished reading the resolution, honest Stephen Roberts
sprang to his feet, and, unrolling a remonstrance with several
yards of signatures appended to it, stood, with his eye upon the
chairman, ready to present it the moment the reading was
concluded. This remonstrance, be it observed, was signed by
a majority of the property-owners interested, — the men who
would be assessed to pay for one half of the proposed pavement.
Fancy the impetuous Roberts with the document held aloft,
the yards of signatures streaming down to his feet and flowing
far under his desk, awaiting the time when it would be in
order for him to cry out, “Mr. President.” The reading
ceased. Two voices were heard, shouting, “ Mr. President.”
It was not to Mr. Roberts that an impartial chairman could
assign the floor. The member who introduced the resolutioni6
THE GOVERNMENT OF THE
was the one who “caught the speaker's eye," and that
member, forewarned of Mr. Roberts’s intention, moved the
previous question. It was in vain that Mr. Roberts shouted,
“ Mr. President." It was in vain that he fluttered and rattled
his streaming ribbon of blotted paper. The President could
not hear a word of any kind until a vote had been taken upon
the question whether the main question should be now put.
That question was carried in the affirmative by a chorus of
ayes, so exactly timed that it was like the voice of one man.
Then the main question was put, and it was carried by an-
other emphatic and simultaneous shout.
We have spoken of the headlong precipitation with which
all business is done in this board. Measures involving an ex-
penditure of millions, and designed to bind the city for a
great number of years, are hurried through both boards in less
time than paterfamilias expends in buying his Sunday dinner
in the market; and, frequently, such measures are so mys-
teriously worded that no one outside of the Ring can under-
stand their real object. We happened to be present when a
resolution was brought directly from the Board of Aldermen
(who had passed it without debate), directing the Street
Commissioner to make a contract with the lowest bidder for
lighting the whole island for twenty years with gas, — the
price to be fixed now, when coal and labor are twice their
usual price. No such simple words, however, as twenty years
were to be found in the resolution; which merely said, that the
contract should be for “ the same number of years as the con-
tract last made and executed with the Manhattan Gas Com-
pany.” A member, bewildered by the furiously rapid reading
of this long and vague resolution, timidly inquired how many
years that was. No one seemed to know. After a pause,
some one said that he believed it was ten years. Whereupon,
Councilman White, a faithful and intelligent member of
the honest minority, proposed that the term of the contract be
two years, which Mr. Pullman supported. The amendment
was instantly voted down, and the original resolution was
carried by the usual eighteen votes. The Mayor promptly
vetoed the scheme. The Tribune thundered against it; but
the veto message had no sooner been read, than it was passed
over the veto by the Aldermen; then taken to the Council-
men's Chamber, where the requisite eighteen votes were imme-
diately cast for it. This resolution, as we were afterwards
informed, was merely one of a long series of measures designed
to tap the lamp-posts of the city, like so many sugar-maples,
and make them run gold into the troughs of a few notorious
politicians.CITY OF NEW YORK.
17
We are lingering too long in the Councilmen’s Chamber,
and must abruptly leave it. Nor can we remain more than a
moment with the Aldermen. It is not necessary, for there is
not a pin to choose between the two bodies. We observe in
tJieir chamber the same lavishness of furniture and decoration;
pictures as numerous and as bad as those which hang in the
chamber opposite; the same wild profusion of clerks, assistant-
clerks, readers, engrossers, messengers, and assistant-messen-
gers ; the same crowd of unwashed and ugly spectators outside
the railing. Except that the Aldermen are a little older and
somewhat better dressed than the Councilmen, we could dis-
cern no difference between them. Whatever dubious scheme
is hurried through one body is rushed through the other.
Sometimes the Councilmen point the game, and the Aldermen
bring it down; and sometimes it is the Aldermen that start up
the covey, and the Councilmen that fire. As with the Council-
men, so with the Aldermen, there is a sure three-fourths vote
for every scheme which has the sanction of the interior circle
who control the entire politics of the city. And, as among the
Councilmen, so among the Aldermen there are a few honest
and public-spirited men who vainly protest against iniquity, or
silently cast their votes against it. If one such body is one too
many, how shall we express the enormous superfluity of two ?
It is impossible.
But there is a third legislative board sitting in the City Hail.
The island upon which New York is built is a county, and that
county has its board of twelve Supervisors, who have the spend-
ing of seventeen millions of dollars per annum. The city and
the county cover the same territory. Each creature in the
island of Manhattan lives both in the county and in the city of
New York. The existence, therefore, of a separate legislature
for each is a complete absurdity; and, if both were honest, there
would be constant danger of clashing between them. They do
not often clash, because both have in view the same object, and
pursue that object under the direction of a central gang, — the
masters of both. It is the Board of Supervisors who, being
authorized, eight years ago, to build a court-house at an expense
not to exceed two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, have ex-
pended upon it two millions and a half; and there it stands
to-day just half done. It is computed, by architects profession-
ally employed, that for every dollar spent upon this unfinished
edifice another dollar has gone elsewhere.
Our principal object in this article is not to present the reader
with a startling catalogue of iniquities, but to endeavor to con-
tribute our little towards discovering a mode of expelling the
thieves, keeping them expelled, and getting a few honest meni8
THE GOVERNMENT OF THE
in the place of that great multitude of plunderers. Before
entering upon that part of our subject, however, we must show
to readers remote from the scene, that the corruption exists,
that it taints nearly every branch of the public service, that it
is an evil of gigantic and menacing proportions, and that the
numerous expedients devised for holding it in check have
failed. Hitherto we have related what we have ourselves
seen and heard: we now proceed to glean a few of the more
striking facts from our notes of what others have told us and
from printed testimony.
The volume the title of which may be found at the head of
this article, “ The Manual of the Common Council,” is itself a
curious specimen of the artifices resorted to by these official
plunderers of the public purse. In the year 1841, a zealous
assistant clerk to the Common Council conceived the idea of
publishing a little volume, which should be a kind of city alma-
nac ; containing, besides what an almanac usually presents, a
list of all the persons connected with the city government,
their places of business and residence, and a map of the city.
A neat, small volume of 180 pages was the result of his labors.
Even this was unnecessary, because the most useful part of the
information which it gave respecting the members of the gov-
ernment had already appeared in the City Directory, and an
almanac could be had of pill-venders for nothing. No good
reason could be given why even so inexpensive a work as that
should be paid for out of the public treasury. But see to what
proportions this trifling imposition has since grown. The next
year, our zealous assistant clerk added to his catalogue of city
officials a list of all previous members of the Corporation, from
the earliest period of the city’s existence, and a picture of New
York as it was two hundred years ago. This year the volume
swelled from 180 to 253 pages. The picture was interesting,
and caused the work to be much spoken of and sought after,
which was only another proof how unnecessary it was that it
should be published at the expense of the city. The next
issue, besides the list of names and residences, contained exten-
sive extracts from ancient city records, which increased the
number of pages to 312. Every year the Manual increased in
bulk, in the quantity of superfluous matter, in the number and
costliness of the pictures, until it has now become a manual of
folly, extravagance, and dishonesty. Let us glance at the
Manual for 1865; for, to add to the exquisiteness of the art
employed in its preparation, the book is not published until
the year is nearly expired, and a new set of officers are about
to be chosen, so that the volume for 1866 had not appeared
when these lines were written. The Manual for 1865 is aCITY OF NEW YORK.
19
most superb and lavishly illustrated duodecimo volume of 879
pages. It contains one hundred and forty-one pictures, of all
degrees of expensiveness, — steel-plate, woodcut, plain lith-
ograph, and colored lithograph. The large colored map of the
city, at the beginning, cost as much money as a map of that
kind could any way be made to cost. Next comes a steel por-
trait of the person who, for twenty-five years, has hired people
to compile the annual volume, and whose name has always ap-
peared on the title-page as its editor, and who is supposed to
be liberally remunerated for his editorial labors. Next appears
a very elegant colored title-page, containing six finely executed
pictures.
Before proceeding with the list, we remind the reader that
the ingenuity of the compilers of this work has been severely
taxed for many years to devise and discover subjects for illus-
tration. Subjects that could be called legitimate, or that ap-
proached the legitimate, having been long ago exhausted, the
editor this year appears to have been in the direst straits to
supply his lithographers and engravers with the regular quan-
tity of work.
Accordingly, the next illustration is a plan of the Aldermen’s
Chamber, designed to show where each member sat in 1865 ;
and the next is a four-paged, folding lithograph, containing —
O precious gift to posterity ! — a fac-simile of each Alderman’s
signature. In the next two plates posterity is blessed with the
signatures of the Councilmen for 1865, and the means of ascer-
taining the precise arm-chair occupied by each. The following
are the subjects of a few of the costly colored lithographs : —
the “ fur store ” established in 1820 by the father of the Mayor
of the city in 1865 ; the u old frame-house ” in which the editor
of the Manual “ passed his youth ”; “ Mr. Stewart’s house in
Fifty-fourth Street”; “a grocery and tea store” of the year
1826 ; the house in North Moore Street in which Speaker
Colfax was born; “ twin frame-houses in Lexington Avenue ”;
Tammany Hall in 1830 ; a billiard saloon in the Fifth Avenue;
Harlem Lane, with fast horses travelling thereon ; the “ Audu-
bon Estate ” on the Hudson; the upper end of the Central
Park drive. Besides these, there are pictures, not colored, of a
prodigious number of public and private buildings, and por-
traits of undistinguished persons. The number of pages occu-
pied by extracts from old records, newspapers, and memories
is 423 !
Such is the book which the tax-payers of the city are called
upon every year to pay for, in order to swell the income of
sundry printers, lithographers, politicians, and the compiler.
But this is not all. The number of copies annually ordered to20
TEE GOVERNMENT OF THE
be printed is ten thousand ! The number paid for is ten thou-
sand. The number actually printed, we are positively assured
by men who are in a position to know, is about three thousand.
Of this number, about fifteen hundred are distributed gratis
about the City Hall, and the rest are sold by, and for the ben-
efit of, the compiler. A considerable number find their way
into the second-hand bookstores which make Nassau Street so
fascinating to poor students and rich collectors. We bought
our copy there, and its price was three dollars. The booksel-
ler informed us that he laid in his supply of the Manual for
1865 at two dollars per copy, which is three dollars and thirty-
six cents less than a copy costs the city. Nor have we yet
got to the bottom of this enormous “job.” We have said
that the city pays for ten thousand copies of the preposterous
volume. It pays for nearly twice that number. The items of
the Manual account rendered for 1865 were these: —
Bill of engraving ....	. $ 4,353.10
Bill of engraving and printing .	. 733.00
Bill of drawing and printing .	5,150.00
Bill of lithographing and printing	. 3,185.00
Bill of printing 10,000 copies	. 27,951.20
Bill of corrections and alterations	. 300.00
Bill of paper for title-pages .	600.00
Bill of thirty reams tissue paper	. 150.00
Bill of papering 10,000 copies	100.00
Bill of ten reams wrapping paper	. 150.00
Bill of binding 5,000 copies in cloth	5,000.00
Bill of binding 4,000 copies in muslin	. 4,000.00
Bill of binding 1,000 copies in morocco .	2,000.00
Total ....	$ 53,672.30
D. T. Valentine, for compiling	3,500.00
Total ....	. $ 57,172.30
This shameful account being brought to the notice of the
present Mayor of the city, Mr. John T. Hoffman, he did him-
self the honor to veto the resolution authorizing a similar ex-
penditure for 1866. He told the men who passed that reso-
lution, that he had made inquiries of such publishing houses
as the Appletons and the Harpers, and had ascertained that
ten thousand copies of the work could be manufactured for
$ 30,000, instead of $ 53,672 ; although a new publisher would
not have the benefit of the large amount of stereotyped mat-
ter which appears in the Manual from year to year, with little
alteration. The truth is, that the book actually costs the com-
piler about $ 15,000 per annum : and the difference betweenCITY OF NEW YORK.
21
that sum arid the amount charged is taken from the pockets
of the New York tax-payers by a process which we leave our
readers to characterize with the proper term.
The most usual manner of stealing is to receive money for
awarding or procuring contracts, appointments, donations, or
increase of salaries, which money, of course, the favored per-
son gets back, if he can, from the public treasury; and he
usually can. The President of the Board of Health, last
spring, when New York was threatened with the cholera, had
occasion to remonstrate with a person who held the contract
for removing dead animals from the streets, and threatened
him with the breaking of the contract if its conditions were
not better complied with. “ That would be rather hard, Mr.
Schultz,” replied the man, “ for that contract cost me $ 60,-
000.” And well it might; for the city pays $ 25,000 a year
for getting rid of a commodity every pound of which ought to
yield the city a revenue. A dead horse, worth twenty dol-
lars, the city pays for having carted off to where it can be
conveniently converted into twenty dollars. Another con-
tractor receives $ 21,000 a year for removing night-soil, which
could be sold for enough to pay the cost of its removal. By
various extra charges, the holders of this contract have con-
tinued to swell their gains incredibly. Mr. Jackson Schultz,
the energetic and capable President of the Board of Health,
has recently published his conviction, that the “ total swindle
under this contract is a $ 111,000,” and we have had the ad-
vantage of hearing him demonstrate the fact. The story,
however, is too long for our very limited space.
Does any one need evidence that the men who award such
contracts, in the teeth of opposition and elucidation, receive a
large share of the plunder ? The fact is as certain as though
ten witnesses swore to having seen the money to them in hand
paid. Three years ago a contract was awarded for sweeping
the streets for ten years, at $ 495,000 a year. Since the ac-
cession to power of the new Board of Health, responsible men
have handed in a written offer to buy the remainder of the
contract for a quarter of a million dollars, i. e. to clean the
city for seven years at $ 495,000 a year, and give the city a
quarter of a million dollars for the privilege. There are those
about the city offices who know, or think they know, how the
plunder of this contract is divided. We believe we are not
violating any confidence, expressed or implied, when we say,
that it is the conviction of the Board of Health that $ 100,000
per annum of the proceeds of this contract are divided among
certain politicians ; that a certain lawyer, who engineered the
project, and stands ready to defend it, receives a salary ofo ~>
THE GOVERNMENT OF THE
$ 25,000 per annum as “ counsel to the contract ”; and that the
men in whose name the contract is held are “ dummies,” who
get $ 6,000 a year for the use of their names and for their la-
bor in superintending the work. The contract is further bur-
dened with the support of several hundred cripples, old men,
and idle men, all of whom are voters, who are put in the street-
cleaning force by Aldermen and Councilmen who want their
votes and the votes of their relatives, thus kindly relieved of
maintaining aged grandfathers, lame uncles, and lazy good-for-
nothings. These statements, we are aware, cannot be proved.
Such compacts are not trusted to paper; and a witness driven
to bay can always balk his assailants by refusing to criminate
himself. The reader, therefore, may decline to believe these
details. One thing remains, and is certain, that the working-
men of New York are annually plundered of two hundred
thousand dollars per annum by this single contract.
How the work so munificently paid for is done is sufficiently
well known. Into that foul subject we cannot enter, except
to notice the blind devotion of the great mass of poor men who
annually vote to keep in power the people who steal their
earnings and poison their children. New York boasts a Dem-
ocratic majority of more than thirty thousand votes, and the
government of the city is always in the hands of the party so
named. Is it, then, the rich men’s streets that are unswept,
and the poor men’s crowded avenues and lanes that are clean ?
Are the small parks and squares where thousands of poor chil-
dren play better kept than those to which scores of rich men’s
children are carried ? Is the Bowery cleaner than Broadway,
and Tomkins Square more inviting than Union ? In the
spring, when the March thaw has unlocked the accumulated
dirt of the winter, and the whole city is deep in mire, which
are the streets that a Democratic contractor first throws him-
self upon ? Does he first remove the festering mounds of pol-
lution that block the poor man’s path to his home, and make
that home loathsome to him, and then betake himself to the
coating of mud that soils the rich man’s boots ? Or does he
leave reeking with abomination the crammed thoroughfares
where Democratic voters live, half a hundred in a house, until
every shovelful of dirt has been removed from the places where
rich men reside, seven voters to a block ? But why ask idle
questions ? It is the law of this world that the strong shall
rule it. In a commercial city, the strong men are rich. Label
your government what you will, it is the strong men in a com-
munity who have their way; and therefore, under all govern-
ments, the streets where rich men live are clean.
The plunder of the perso'ns who are so unfortunate as toCITY OF NEW YORK.
2 3
serve the public, and of those who aspire to serve the public,
is systematic, and nearly universal. Our inquiries into this
branch of the subject lead us to conclude that there are very
few salaries paid from the city or county treasury which do
not yield an annual percentage to some one of the “ head-
centres ” of corruption. The manner in which this kind of
spoliation is sometimes effected may be gathered from a narra-
tive which we received from the lips of one of the few learned
and estimable men whom the system of electing judges by
the people has left upon the bench in the city of New York.
Four years ago, when the inflation of the currency had so en-
hanced the price of all commodities that there was, of neces-
sity, a general increase of salaries, public and private, there
was talk of raising the salaries of the fourteen judges, who
were most absurdly underpaid even when a dollar in paper
and a dollar in gold were the same thing. Sonle of the judges
were severely pinched in attempting to make six thousand
half-dollars do the work which six thousand whole ones had
accomplished with difficulty; and none, perhaps, more se-
verely than the excellent and hospitable judge whose experi-
ence we are about to relate. A person known by him to be
in the confidence of leading men about the City Hall called
upon him one day, and informed him that it was in contem-
plation to raise the salaries of all the judges $ 2,000 per an-
num. The judge observed, that he was much relieved to
hear it, for he had gone so deeply into the Sanitary Commis-
sion and other projects for promoting the war, and had made
so many expensive journeys to Washington in furtherance of
such projects, that he did not see how he could get through
the year if the inflation continued. “ Well, Judge,” said the
person, “ if the judges are disposed to be reasonable, the thing
can be done.” “ What do you mean by reasonable f ” asked
the judge. The reply was brief and to the point: “ Twenty-
five per cent of the increase for one year.” The judge said
no. If his salary could not be raised without that, he must
rub on, as best he could, on his present income. The person
was evidently much surprised, and said: “ I am sorry you
have such old-fashioned notions. Why, Judge, everybody
does it here.” Nothing more was heard of increasing the
judges’ salaries for a whole year, during which the inflation it-
self had become inflated, and every door-keeper and copyist
had had his stipend increased. At length, the spoilers deemed
it best, for purposes of their own, to consent that the salaries
of the judges should be increased $ 1,000; and, a year after
that, the other $ 1,000 was permitted to be added.
It was recently proved, in the presence of the Governor of24
THE GOVERNMENT OF THE
the State, that the appointment of the office of Corporation
Attorney was sold to one incumbent for the round sum of
S 10,000. This is bad enough, but worse remains to be told.
Sworn testimony (from thirty-six witnesses), taken by a com-
mittee of investigation, establishes the appalling fact, that ap-
pointments to places in the public schools are systematically
sold in some of the wards, — the wards where the public
schools are almost the sole civilizing power, and where it is of
unspeakable importance that the schools should be in the hands
of the best men and women. One young lady, who had just
buried her father and had a helpless mother to support, applied
for a situation as teacher, and was told, as usual, that she must
pay for it. She replied that she could not raise the sum de-
manded, the funeral expenses having exhausted the family
store. She was then informed that she could pay “ the tax ”
in instalments. Another poor girl came on the witness-stand
on crutches, and testified that she had paid $ 75 for a situation
of $ 300 a year. Another lady went to a member of the Ring,
and told him, with tears, that she saw no way of procuring the
sum required, nor even of saving it from the slender salary of
the place. The man was moved by her anguish, took compas-
sion upon her, and said he would remit his share of “ the tax.”
It was shown, too, that the agent of all this foul iniquity was
no other than the principal of one of the schools. It was he
who received and paid over the money wrung from the terror
and necessities of underpaid and overworked teachers. We
learn from the report of the committee that the Ring in this
ward was originally formed for the express purpose of giving
the situations in a new and handsome school “ to the highest
bidder ”; and, as the opening of the new school involved the
discharge of a small number of teachers employed in the old
schools, the Ring had both the fear and the ambition of the
teachers to work upon. u There was a perfect reign of terror
in the ward,” says the report of the investigating committee.
“ The agent performed his duty with alacrity and with a heart-
lessness worthy of the employers. It appears that he not only
summoned the teachers to come to him, but that he called on
their parents and friends as to the amount they should pay for
their appointments, — the sums varying from $ 50 to $ 600,
according to the position sought.”
And who were the Ring that perpetrated this infamy ?
They were a majority of the Trustees elected by the people,
and the School Commissioner elected by the people, — six
poor creatures, selected from the grog-shop and the wharf,
and intrusted with the most sacred interest of a republic, the
education of its children. It was known before that in someCITY OF NEW YORK.
25
of the wards the school trustees were drunkards ; it was known
before that little children were piled up, like flower-pots in a
greenhouse, in small, ill-ventilated rooms; but no one sup-
posed, before this investigation in 1864, that men could be
elected to office who were capable of such revolting meanness
as this.
When appointments are sold, appointments are likely to be
numerous. Some of our readers, doubtless, have smiled at the
ridiculous catalogue of offices created to relieve the pecuniary
straits of Louis XIV., and given by Voltaire in his history of
the reign of that expensive monarch. In Paris, in the year
1710, men holding the rank of counsellors of the king held such
posts as hog-inspectors, inspectors of calves, of wigs, and of
slaughter-houses, inventory-drawers, measurers of fire-wood,
deputy measurers of fire-wood, pilers of fire-wood, unloaders of
fire-wood, comptrollers of timber, markers of timber, charcoal-
measurers, grain-sifters, comptrollers of poultry, barrel-gaugers,
barrel-rollers, butter-testers, beer-testers, brandy-testers, linen-
measurers, unloaders of hay, and removers of boarding. Not
that counsellors to the king performed any of these labors.
That was done by underlings; the counsellors to the king
merely pocketing the greater part of the fees. But how mild
and tririal was their abuse of kingly power, compared with the
hoards of superfluous officers that swarm in the public buildings
of the city of New York ! In the office of the City Comptroller
there are one hundred and thirty-one clerks. The Street
Commissioner employs sixty. In the precious Manual de-
scribed above, the reader, amazed at the interminable list of
persons employed by the city, is every now and then puzzled
by such items as these: twelve “ manure-inspectors,” at $ 3
a day each; twenty-two “ health-wardens,” twenty-two “ assist-
ant health-wardens,” twenty-two “ street-inspectors,” all at
$ 3 a day each ; seven “ assistant inspectors of meat, at $ 900
per annum each; seven “ inspectors of encumbrances,” at
$1,250 each; twenty-two “distributors of corporation ordi-
nances,” at $ 2 each per day. We have not space to continue
the catalogue. Who has ever seen any of these wardens and
inspectors ? A gentleman connected with the Citizens’ Asso-
ciation, last year, had the public spirit to sally forth, Manual
in hand, in quest of the twenty-two health-wardens and twenty-
two assistants; for neither he nor the writer of these lines, nor
any of their acquaintances, had ever so much as heard of the
existence of such officers. Long and painful was the search.
He found that those guardians of the public health were bar-
keepers, low ward politicians, nameless hangers-on of saloons,
who absolutely performed no official duty whatever except to
226
THE GOVERNMENT OF THE
draw the salary attached to their places. They were the
merest creatures of the worthless man who appointed them, —
the man who sold or gave away blank interment-permits, signed,
to favored undertakers, “ to save them the trouble of coming
down town every time they had a funeral.” * For the benefit
of those gentlemen of leisure in New York, who excuse their
want of public spirit by saying that the city government is so
corrupt that it is of “ no use to try ” to reform it, we will men-
tion that, very much through the exertions of the warden-hun-
ter referred to above, those three twenty-two’s were abolished
a few months ago, as well as the entire department to which
they belonged. To that single item of reform we owe it that
the city was not desolated by the cholera during the past sum-
mer.
The reader has, perhaps, heard something lately respecting
the cost of “ opening ” new streets in the city of New York.
Under cover of those innocent-looking words, incredible sums
of money are stolen from the owners of real estate. In the
year 1811, the entire island, except a small strip at its
northern extremity, was surveyed; the sites of all the future
streets and avenues were settled, marked with stone pillars,
and laid down on maps; so that, ever since that time, all land
has been bought, sold, held, and improved with reference to
the streets that were one day to run through it, by it, or near
it. The work was so well done that those maps, and no
others, are still used by assessors of taxes, and for all other
official purposes. Copies of them are to be found for refer-
ence in one of the rooms of the building whereto all the world
repairs every November to be taxed. Bearing these facts in
mind, the reader will easily comprehend the audacity of the
theft to which his attention is now directed.
A new street is ordered to be “ opened,” and the judges of
the Supreme Court appoint three commissioners to perform the
work, at four dollars per day each. To “ open ” a street, in
the legal sense, is not to go to work with shovel and pickaxe
and convert a strip of meadow into a street, but merely to buy
the strip from the owners, transfer the title to the Corporation,
and then formally declare the street “ opened.” Since the
surveys are already done, and the maps already made, and
since the expense of the whole transaction is borne by the
owners of land upon the street, who bought that land because
the street would one day exist, this legal opening is the merest
* This was the reason given by the undertakers when they were
questioned on the subject by members of the new Board of Health.
The possession of blank permits did not, however, prevent them from
Charging for the permits in their bills.CITY OF NEW YORK.
2 7
form. The commissioners buy the land required at the rate
of one dollar for each lot taken, which is one amon<* many
proofs of the pure formality of the business. We will now
state, first, what the three commissioners actually do who are
so lucky as to have a street to open ; and then we will show
what is charged for the arduous work.
They meet in a room in the third story of a building in
Nassau Street, which is from five to eight miles from the street
about to be opened. They hire the room for the meetings of
the commissioners. True, it is already occupied, and no change
in it is made by the occupant; but they hire it, nevertheless.
They appoint a surveyor, a clerk, an assistant clerk, and some-
times, we believe, a messenger. These appointments cost them
three minutes of their valuable time; for there are people who
have acquired, in some way, a claim to those appointments,
and are appointed as a matter of course. There is not, there
cannot be, a doubt that the “understanding” between the
judges, the commissioners, the surveyors, and the clerks is
complete before the first step is taken. The clerk is the ruling
mind of the affair. It is he who lets the room; it is he who
draws up the final report; it is he who divides the spoil, and
takes, probably, the largest single share. He conceives, ar-
ranges, starts, and conducts the operation, and he does it at
his ease in his own hired room. The officers being appointed,
the commissioners have earned their four dollars each, and
adjourn.
Every day, between the hours of twelve and two, they visit
the apartment, inquire after the health of their clerk, perhaps
take a cigar with him, see that their names are entered as
having attended, which entitles them to four dollars, and then
return, refreshed, to their private business. Meanwhile, sundry
advertisements are published, announcing to parties interested
what is going on. The surveyor may or may not take a car
and ride up to the street, or walk over the part to be opened.
Perhaps there is a house, built before 1811, which extends
over the line of the street; and if so, the owner is entitled to
compensation. Usually, however, there is nothing of the kind;
and usually the surveyor, an old hand at the business, knows
whether there is or not without going up to see. A draughts-
man, meanwhile, has been copying a map of the street from
the maps of 1811; and the clerk writes along the border of it
(from the tax-books) the names of the owners of the lots on
each side of the street. Sundry other advertisements are
then published, calling upon parties interested to come and
see what has been done, and state objections, if any there are.
The clerk then draws up a report, and the thing is done. None28
THE GOVERNMENT OF THE
of these operations are hurried. Care is taken of the interests
of the commissioners. It is not until they have paid their
noontide respects to the clerk for a prodigious number of days
that the street is pronounced “ open.”
Then the bill is presented. The surveyor charges as though
he had made original surveys and drawn original maps. The
clerk charges as though his report were the result of original
searches and researches. The commissioners charge as though
the opening had been the tardy fruit of actual negotiations.
The rent of the room is charged as though it had been occu-
pied wholly by the commissioners. And all of these charges
are the very highest which any one, in his most lavish mood,
could even think of in connection with the work supposed to
be done. When we add, that half a dozen of these openings
are frequently going on at the same time, in the same snug
upper room, and conducted by-the same individuals, the reader
will not be surprised to learn that the net result of the busi-
ness to the master spirit, for the year ending June, 1866, was
$ 25,466, of which sum $4,433 was charged for the rent of
the room, which he hires for about $ 300 per annum, and $ 950
was charged for “disbursements and postage-stamps.” One
surveyor’s bill for the same year was $ 54,000. It has been
ascertained, after a laborious examination of the public records,
that the total cost of “ opening ” twenty-five streets, or parts of
streets, averaging less than half a mile each in length, was
$ 257,192.12. The public is indebted for this information to
Mr. William H. Whitbeck, president of an association of prop-
erty-owners recently formed to protect themselves against
further spoliation of the same nature.
The Executive Council of the Citizens’ Association has re-
cently given publicity to a large number of facts relating to
the same iniquity. We will select one of them: —
“In opening 124th Street, the Commissioners awarded to the
owner of a house standing in the northwest angle of 124th Street
and Second Avenue some $ 4,500 for the damage to his building
by the opening of the street. If this house had stood in the middle
of the street, and had been entirely destroyed by the opening, he
should not have received one cent, inasmuch as the house was built
subsequent to 1811, when the map of the city was planned. The
fact is, that, in 1811, a monument was planted at the intersection
of 124th Street and second Avenue, and the person who built the
house built it in the angle of the street, and facing the country
road. The owner knew well where the street was to be, and so
avoided building upon it. As the house was built facing the angle,
the two ends of its rectangular piazza extended about six feet over
the line, the one end over the line of Second Avenue, and the other
end over the line of 124th Street. Now, if the owner built hisCITY OF NEW YORK.
29
house encroaching upon the street, he should not have been paid
for the damage caused by his own negligence. It appears, how-
ever, that the piazza has been rounded so as not to extend over the
line, and for this rounding of the piazza, which could have been
done at an expense of certainly not more than $ 1,000, the owner
has been allowed the enormous sum of $4,500. The house stands
there as.good as it ever was. Need we say that the owner is a
prominent politician 1 ”
We have since conversed with the gentleman who was
charged with the investigation of this case. He assures us
that the rounding of the piazza cost, in reality, about $ 250;
and that he placed it at $ 1,000 in his report, because, being
ignorant of carpentry, he deemed it best to mention a sum
much in excess of the probable cost.
Our lessening space warns us to forbear, though we have
scarcely made an impression upon the mass of facts before us.
We cannot dwell upon the favoritism practised toward the real
constituents of the spoilers, — the liquor-dealers, — who actu-
ally paid a less sum per annum for licenses, and contributed a
smaller amount to the Inebriate Asylum, than the liquor-deal-
ers of Albany. We must pass by such enormous frauds as
that known by the name of the Gansevoort swindle, in the
course of which a tract of land was bought from the city at
half its value, kept in costly litigation for several years, then
bought back by the city for twice its value, and all the taxes
remitted for the intervening period. Nor can we give details
of the manner in which mean men steal from the price of the
school-children’s copy-books and slate-pencils, nor open up the
enormous and complicated cheat which is covered by the word
“ stationery.” How the hard-earned claims of poor laborers
are “ shaved,” under pretence that there is no money to pay
them in the treasury; by what means a clerk of a market
enjoys an income as large as that of the President of the
United States; how the funerals of eminent men, the cele-
bration of national festivals, and the return of scarred veterans
from the seat of war ‘have been made the occasion, first, of
drunken revelry, and afterwards of wholesale plunder; how
the delicate wines provided for the sick in the public institu-
tions are poured down the filthy gullets of many whose natural
drink is distilled molasses; how the most valuable ferry leases,
wharf privileges, and railroad charters are given away or sold
for a tenth of their value to “ dummies ” who represent the
very men who grant them; how many men hold two or more
offices at once; and fifty other scandals into which we have
looked, — we must pass by with this brief indication of their
nature. It would be amusing to show the process by whichTHE GOVERNMENT OF THE
30
(until honest Christopher Pullman stopped it last spring) the
city was made to pay $87 every time the corporation granted
permissiorr to an old woman to keep a peanut-stand on a corner,
for which she paid one dollar. As a portion of the “ proceed-
ings ” of the two boards, the “ resolution ” had to be published
in seventeen newspapers, and paid for in each, which cost the
sum just mentioned. The same worthy gentleman has proved,
by personal inquiry, that every rocket or firework discharged
on the Fourth of July by order of the Corporation costs the
city exactly twice as much as a private citizen pays for the
same articles.
The result of all this plunder is, that in thirty-six years the
rate of taxation in the city and county of New York has in-
creased from two dollars and a half to forty dollars per inhab-
itant ! In 1830, the city was governed for half a million dollars.
In 1865, the entire government of the island, including assess-
ments on private property for public improvements, cost more
than forty millions of dollars. In 1830, the population of the
city was a little more than two hundred thousand. It is now
about one million. Thus, while the population of the county
is five times greater than it was in 1830, the cost of governing
it is sixteen times greater. And yet such is the value of the
productive property owned by the city, — so numerous are the
sources of revenue from that property, — that able men of
business are of the deliberate opinion that a private company
could govern, clean, sprinkle, and teach the city by contract,
taking as compensation only the fair revenue to be derived
from its property. Take one item as an illustration: under
the old excise system, the liquor licenses yielded twelve thou-
sand dollars per annum; under the new, they yield one million
and a quarter. Take another: the Corporation own more than
twenty miles of wharves and water-front, the revenue from
which does not keep the wharves in repair; under a proper
system, they would yield a million dollars above the cost of
repairs.
We trust no reader of this periodical — not one — needs to
be reminded that the money stolen by the thieves into whose
hands the city has fallen is the smailest item of the mighty
sum of evil resulting from the system. A person, however,
must intimately know New York to realize what a welling
fount of moral pollution it is. Those within the circle of cor-
ruption, and all with whom they continue to have dealings,
lose at length all sense of honor and shame, all power to dis-
tinguish between right and wrong, and, finally, all knowledge
that there is any difference between them. It is a most insid-
ious thing. Many a good young man has been drawn into theCITY OF NEW YORK.
31
system so insensibly that he has become an habitual stealer of
the public money, almost without knowing it. Others are con-
scious thieves, but not yet hardened beyond remorse. Some
of these are, as it were, imprisoned in the system, and know
not how to escape. A very large number are morally non-
existent, and have no other thought or occupation except to
devise and execute schemes of spoliation. And we do believe
that no man who serves, sells to, or buys from the city, and no
man who tries to serve, sell to, or buy from the city, does en-
tirely escape contamination. What a tale we could tell of one
notorious, but not naturally bad man, who, from a respectable
though humble employment on the wharves, was lured into the
low politics of his ward, and drank himself into such favor that
he obtained, at length, the means of buying the privilege to
steal as head of one of the departments, — and now, his place
being abolished, and all his ill-gotten gains squandered in vice
and ambitious schemes, slinks out of view, fatally diseased, and
bereft of hope ! But this part of our subject we leave to our
readers* own reflections, and we rejoice to know that it will
fare better there than it could in these pages ; for, truly, the
moral harm which this system is now doing in New York, and
to the country through New York, is something which baffles
and eludes written language.
The question now occurs, How was it that a city containing
so many public-spirited and honorable men fell into the contr<3
of ia gang of thieves ?
It has all come about in one generation. Within the mem-
ory of men still living, the affairs both of the city and the State
of New York were so well managed that other States and cit-
ies were glad to copy their methods of doing public business.
The time was when men, after a brilliant career in Congress,
regarded it as promotion to be Mayor of the city; when a seat
in the city legislature was the coveted reward of a lifetime of
honest dealing in private business ; when a seat in the State
Legislature was the usual first step to the highest places in the
national government; when the very ward committees were
composed of eminent merchants and lawyers; and when even
to serve as secretary to a ward committee was a feather in the
cap of a bank-teller or head book-keeper in a great house of
business. In other words, the time was when the city was
governed by its natural chiefs, — the men who had a divine
right to govern it. Nay, more : it was once a distinction to be
a voter, — since none could vote who were not householders.
None could vote who had not given their fellow-citizens some
evidence of an ability to vote understanding^, and some indi-
cation of a disposition to vote correctly. The particular testTHE GOVERNMENT OF THE
32
selected we do not admire ; and all we can say in favor of it
is that it was better than none. It did exclude the great
mass of ignorance and vice ; it did admit the great mass of
intelligence and virtue; it did answer the purpose in a re-
spectable degree.
This system was changed by the Constitutional Convention
of 1821, which abolished the household restriction, and admit-
ted to the polls all citizens, native and foreign, except con-
victed criminals and madmen. Among those who opposed
this fatal change was Martin Van Buren ; and all the dire con-
sequences of it which he predicted have come upon the city.
He said it would utterly corrupt the politics of New York, by
giving it over into the hands of ten thousand ignorant or
vicious men, whose votes could not be overcome. It would
“ drive from the polls all sober-minded people,” from mere
despair of effecting any good by voting. It would take away
one powerful motive to virtue by abolishing the distinction
between voters and non-voters. To be a voter, said Mr. Van
Buren, is uow “ the proudest and most invaluable attribute of
freemen.” It was one of the rewards of industry and self-
control. A proud day it was to a young mechanic, when he
left his new home and his newly married wife, and walked, for
the first time, to the polls to deposit his vote. It stamped him
a respectable man. He was thenceforth a full-fledged citizen,
one of the masters of the city, the rulers of which were his
servants ; and they knew it, and treated him accordingly. Mr.
Van Buren’s remonstrances were not heeded, and the old sys-
tem was abolished.
The evil consequences did not immediately appear, because
the habit of selecting respectable men for the public service
survived the system which had created that habit. The reign
of Andrew Jackson, which debauched the national govern-
ment, developed rapidly all the tendencies to corruption latent
in the government of the city. A lower grade of men were
elected to office, and a grade still lower worked the machinery
by which they were elected. Still, there was no system of
stealing. A defalcation occasionally occurred: aldermen
sometimes pocketed bundles’ of cigars from the “ tea-room ” ;
others contrived to convey their families to evening parties at
the expense of the city; others may sometimes have cribbed
an odd half-ream of paper or a box of pens; and, doubtless,
there was some jobbery, and much favoritism, as there is in all
governments. Honesty, however, continued to be the rule in
the public service. We mean, that, although the politics of
the city were debased, and the men elected were always de-
preciating, there was no thought among them of using theirCITY OF NEW YORK.
33
places as conveniences for plundering their constituents. As
late even as 1850 an alderman or chief of a department would
have actually lost standing with his fellows if suspected of
taking a bribe or of having a concealed interest in a contract.
Yes, even in 1850, but sixteen years ago, it was a disgrace to
steal the people's money on any pretext. If any one had then
foretold that the time was at hand when the only men in the
city government despised and snubbed by their equals would
be the few who did not steal, no man could have believed the
wild prediction.
About the year 1850, when it began to be perceived that
omnibuses could no longer convey the morning and evening
multitudes of people, and when street railroads in many ave-
nues were projected, the Corporation conceived the fancy that
they had the right to grant the privilege of laying rails in the
public streets to private companies. In fact, it was taken for
granted on all hands that this was their right; and it was in
connection with those railroad grants that the corruption, on
a great scale, began. It was then that the low, immature,
ignorant, unprincipled, irresponsible, untaxed persons who
formed the majority of the city legislature discovered that an
alderman could, by a judicious use of his opportunities, not
merely get a good deal of money, but make his fortune, dur-
ing a single term of service. “ Rings ” were then first
formed; “ agents ” were then first employed, — the myste-
rious go-betweens who have to be “ seen ” before anything can
be done. The necessity for this machinery was soon per-
ceived ; for, at first, some sad mistakes occurred, which threat-
ened for a time to spoil the game. One company, for ex-
ample, distributed forty thousand dollars among the Aldermen,
but were outbid, and the grant was given to another company.
Naturally enough, they demanded their money back; but
many of the poor creatures had already squandered their
shares, and were totally unable to refund. One of the de-
frauded men, as it chanced, was a member of the grand jury,
and he announced his determination to bring the matter be-
fore that body. Means were found to satisfy his claim ; about
one half the whole sum was given up, and the rest was paid
in promises that have never been fulfilled. New-Yorkers re-
member the ancient, familiar firm of Kipp and Brown, formerly
blazoned on the gorgeous sides of countless omnibuses. Mr.
Solomon Kipp, the head of that firm, used to say that he per-
sonally expended fifty thousand dollars in “ getting through ”
the two comparatively unimportant railroad grants in which
he was interested. We have the affidavits of other parties
before us, which justify the conclusion that, from this single
2*34
THE GOVERNMENT OF THE
source, the Corporation corruptly gained a round million in
about ten years.
Thus the system of spoliation began. Thus was the cu-
pidity of the politicians inflamed. From that time to this,
the ordinary New York politician has regarded public office in
no other light than as a chance to steal without the risk of the
penitentiary. It is not that the city government, so far as
controlled by politicians, sometimes steals. We do not make
that charge. We say it does nothing but steal; for even the
most useful or necessary public work is sanctioned by it only
so far as it affords promise of gain to politicians.
At the present time, as we are informed by one whose op-
portunities of knowledge are unequalled, all the political con-
cerns of the city are controlled by about seven men, — heads
of city departments and others. In most of the wards, a nom-
ination to office by the party which is ludicrously styled Dem-
ocratic insures an election by the people; and it is these
seven men who work the machinery by which Democratic
nominations are ground out. They are the power behind the
ballot-box, greater than the ballot-box itself. Candidates for
Congress, for the State Legislature, for the numerous boards
of city legislators, must pass the ordeal of their inspection, and
pay their price, before their names can go upon the “ slate ”;
and such is the absoluteness of their power over ignorant
voters, that they have caused to be elected to Congress by
Irish votes a man who, as editor of a “ Know-Nothing ” news-
paper, had been employed for seven years in vilifying Irish-
men and their religion. They have taken up a man who com-
manded one of the companies of artillery that marched from
the field of Bull Run because their “ time was up,” and, while
the whole civilized world was pointing at him the finger of
scorn, elected him to one of the most lucrative offices in the
United States. Of late years, these lords of the town have
had the deep. cunning to give a few of their best appoint-
ments and several minor offices to Republicans, as part of
their system of preventing investigation. This was a master
stroke. Most of the publishers of newspapers were already
bribed to silence by the Corporation advertising, and all the
reporters were hired not to report anything disagreeable by
the annual gift of two hundred dollars. This letting in of
a few Republicans to share the spoils completed the system
of repressing inquiry. They have known, too, how to turn
to account the feud between two Republican leaders, which,
after distracting the politics of the State of New York for
many years, has transferred the battle-ground to Washington,
and now threatens to snatch from the nation the fruits of itsCITY OF NEW YORK.
35
victory over rebellion, or at least to postpone its enjoyment of
them.
Such are some of the consequences that have resulted from
admitting to the polls unqualified and untaxed men, in a city
which catches and retains the worst of the foreign emigration,
and where there are seven foreign-born voters to every five
native. In New York, we actually see the state of things
contemplated by Daniel Webster in his Pittsburg speech,
when he asked, “ Who would be safe in any community where
political power is in the hands of the many, and property in
the hands of the few ? ” Such an unnatural state of things,
he added, could nowhere long exist. Political power in the
city of New York is in the hands of seventy-seven thousand
foreign voters and fifty-two thousand native voters ; while the
great bulk of the property of the city is owned by about fif-
teen thousand persons. Political power in New York simply
means the power to steal with impunity the property of those
fifteen thousand persons. This stealing does not take the
form of open and indiscriminate spoliation, because it can be
more conveniently done, and longer done, through the ma-
chinery of politics.
Having now stated as fully as our limits permit the condi-
tion of the government of the city, it remains for us to do
what little we can towards pointing out the remedy. In con-
sidering this part of our subject, modesty and hesitation would
become the wisest and ablest of men. It is no time to dogma-
tize and declaim, when the dearest interests of civilization are
to be rescued from imminent and deadly peril. Next year,
we trust, there will be a convention assembled to revise the
Constitution of the State of New York, and upon the action
of that body we hang all our hope of speedy and radical re-
form. If any one, therefore, has so much as a single well-
weighed suggestion to offer toward a practicable plan, now is
the time for him to offer it. On this great and most difficult
problem every person in the State of New York who is so
happy as to have a thinking head upon his shoulders should
now habitually meditate and converse.
Patchwork will not answer. That has been tried, and
found insufficient. While the ship is still on the ocean, it is
well to stop the leak with anything that will even slightly
diminish the risk of death. But the thing now in order is to
go into dock, and overhaul the hull from keel to taffraij, or
perhaps to abandon the vessel and build a new one. It is so
exceedingly important for us all to understand this, that we
will pause here a moment to mention a few of the expedients
for checking thievery which have signally failed. AU mereTHE GOVERNMENT OF THE
36
expedients have failed, or are failing. Nothing will ever
stop it but some system, the natural working of which will
put into office a controlling number of honest men.
The total failure of the contract system is a case in point.
To check jobbery and favoritism, it was enacted several years
ago tha* all work done for the city, and all commodities sup-
plied to the city, greater in value than $ 600, should be the
subject of contracts, to be awarded after due notice to the
lowest bidder. The contract system, so far from putting an
obstacle in the way of corruption, has furnished facilities for
it. We have the sworn testimony before us, that it is com-
mon for fictitious bids to be sent in, for genuine ones to be
bought off, and for parties who are best prepared to do the
work required to be kept in ignorance of the proposals. Large
iron contracts, for example, have been awarded before any
one of the great iron firms have been aware that such con-
tracts were in the market; and they have been awarded to
men who never melted a pound of iron nor had any means
whatever of doing the work. To a pork-butcher was assigned
the contract for building a very costly bridge over a wide
river; and the difficult work of grading an avenue, hilly and
rocky, has been awarded to a politician ignorant of the most
rudimental engineering. We have before us a successful bid
for supplying the city offices with stationery, in which we find
the bidder offering to supply “ blue folio post ” at one cent per
ream; “ magnum bonum pens,” at one cent per gross; “ lead
pencils,” at one cent per dozen; “ English sealing-wax,” at
one cent per pound; and eighty-three other articles of sta-
tionery, at the uniform price of one cent for the usual parcel.
This was the u lowest bid,” and it was, of course, the one ac-
cepted. It appeared, however, when the bill was presented
for payment, that the particular kind of paper styled “ blue
folio post” had never been called for, nor any considerable
quantity of the other articles proposed to be supplied for one
cent. No one, strange to say, had ever wanted “ magnum bo-
num ” pens at one cent a gross, but in all the offices the cry
had been for “ Perry’s extra fine,” at three dollars. Scarcely
any one had used “■ envelopes letter-size ” at one cent per hun-
dred, but there had been countless calls for “ envelopes note-
size” at one cent each. Between the paper called “blue
folio post,” at one cent per ream, and the paper called “ fools-
cap extra ruled,” at five dollars and a half, the difference was
too slight to be perceived ; but every one had used the fools-
cap. Of what avail are contracts, when the officials who
award them, and the other officials who pay the bill, are in
league with the contractor to steal the public money ?CITY OF NEW YORK.
~ 37
To prevent one of the most common kinds of theft, it was
enacted that every person who presented a bill to the city
should take an oath before receiving his money, that he had
not paid, and would not pay, any part of it to any one for get-
ting him the work. This law is shamelessly evaded every day.
A school commissioner orders work of a printer, telling him
to be sure to charge a good round price. The work is done,
the bill presented, the oath taken, the money paid. A few
days after, that commissioner or his friend has some printing
of his own to be done, which the printer does, and sends with
the work a receipted bill. We can produce a printer who has
upon his books $ 10,000 worth of work done gratis, in recom-
pense for services rendered in procuring him city jobs. When
the procurer of the work has no occasion for printing, it is
usual for him to borrow sums of money of the printer, which,
like Dr. Johnson’s sixpence, are 44 not to be repaid.” Many
of these petty politicians are, in fact, universal 44 dead-heads,”
and prey on all the town. One remark which we chanced to
hear from one of them was exceedingly suggestive. 44 Pull-
man,” said a young Councilman to our honest friend Christo-
pher, 44 what did you want that Harlem Railroad grant re-
scinded fbr ? ” He alluded to the grant of the privilege to
lay rails and run cattle trains through the handsomest street
in the upper part of the island, in the teeth of the most vehe-
ment opposition on the part of the residents. 44 For my part,”
continued the virtuous youth, “ there is no company I would
sooner give my vote to than the Harlem. If I ask ’em to take
on a hand or give a place to a friend, they ’re sure to do it.
There’s not a more obliging company in New York than the
Harlem.” The Harlem Railroad Company, reader, is Mr.
Cornelius Vanderbilt, one of the ablest men of business now
living. The Councilman whose words we have quoted would
not be employed by him in any post requiring average skill
and honesty. And yet, behold the great, strong man courting
the favor of the weak, little one! Do we blame either of
these men ? We arraign only the system which puts them in
false and corrupting relations with each other and with their
fellow-citizens.
It was lately enacted, that a three-fourths vote of both
boards — the Aldermen and Councilmen — should be requisite
to pass any bill granting or paying money. This was done
because there was always a Democratic majority in both
boards, and that majority was always corrupt. But it did not
even retard the profuse voting of money. It merely required
the Ring to buy up or bully a few more members, which was
done in a week, and the work went on as bravely as before.THE GOVERNMENT OF THE
38
The present board of Councilmen began their term of service
with thirteen Republicans and twelve Democrats, owing to
special exertions on the part of reformers. Those thirteen
Republicans were elected, at great expense, for the sole
purpose of outvoting the thieves, and they were all solemnly
pledged so to do. But the system repels men of strong and
tried honesty, and consequently seven of the thirteen speedily
fell into the toils. Some were purchased, others were intimi-
dated, others were persuaded, but all yielded alike to the
behests of the Ring. And, really, we cannot wonder at it.
The six faithful members of the board are useless to their con-
stituents. The most just, the most necessary measure pro-
posed by them, is voted down as a matter of course. A young,
inexperienced Councilman sees, on the one hand, the favor of
his colleagues, the smiles of the City Hall, the freedom of the
city’s stores and shops, places for his friends, and $7,000 a
year; and, on the other, the frowns and surly opposition of
his colleagues to everything he asks or proposes, a warfare
against nefarious schemes which he knows to be useless, and
which the public neither applaud nor hear of. For his brother,
no easy clerkship is created ; for his second-cousin’s benefit, no
great man discovers that he is in need of a fourth assistant
messenger; and if a carman in his ward loses a horse through
a hole in a wharf, and justly calls upon the neglectful city gov-
ernment to buy him another, it is enough for him to introduce
the bill for it to be voted down. Can we wonder that so many
immature persons yield to a temptation so insidious, and which
addresses itself to so many of the weak places in human nature
at once ?
Another well-meant expedient has completely failed. Owing
to the lavish expenditures, it invariably happens that many of
the sums appropriated for specific objects are exhausted long
before the end of the year. For example, in 1865, the comp-
troller estimated the cost of printing and stationery at $145,-
000, and the Legislature of the State granted $160,000. But
the amount expended in that year was $310,324. This excess
would have presented difficulties to ordinary financiers, but
none to those who control the finances of New York. For-
merly, the deficit was supplied by “ transferring ” the money
appropriated to other objects. “ Transfer the wise it call.”
But this device having been forbidden by legislative enact-
ment, parties interested sued the city for the amount of their
claims; and, having obtained judgment against the unfortunate
city, went through the form of seizing the portraits and fur-
niture of the Governor’s room in the City Hall. Then a
judicial decision was obtained, which declared that judgmentsCITY OF NEW YORK.
39
against the city “ must be paid ”; and, sheltered by this de-
cision, the city treasurer paid them. In the year 1864, the
amount of the judgments paid from the public treasury was
$1,262,398. Last winter, a new expedient was devised to
Erevent this impudent evasion of a most proper and necessary
iw. It was enacted that no amount in excess of a specific
appropriation should be recoverable by judgment. By what
audacious trick this enactment will be set at naught has not
yet appeared; but that it will be set at naught we have little
doubt. If it is not, it will be only owing to the vigilance and
tact of the public-spirited lawyers who are lending the aid of
their talents to the Citizens* Association.
As these minor expedients have failed of their object, so, we
believe, the grand expedient of all — the transfer of the control
of the city government to the State Legislature — is not to be
relied on for the future. That expedient, false in principle,
was justified only by the urgent necessity of the case. To
that temporary transfer of power from a completely corrupt to
an incompletely corrupt organization, we owe it that the city
of New York is still, in some degree, inhabitable. For ten
years past, nothing has stood between the city and universal
spoliation, except the Governor of the State and a small
number of intelligent, incorruptible members of the Legis-
lature. To them we owe the rescue of the police from
the control of city politicians; and to the police, thus
rendered efficient, we owe the deliverance of the city from
rapine during the riots of 1863. For twenty-four hours, until
adequate assistance arrived, they kept the mob in check by
their discipline, courage, and rapidity. No one can tell what
would have occurred, or what would not, if we had then had
. for policemen creatures appointed to serve the mean purposes
of the mean men whose character we have been exhibiting,
and who were in the fullest sympathy with brother savages
torturing our prisoners captured in war. To the Legislature,
also, we are indebted for a tolerable administration of the
affairs of the Central Park, of the Health Board, and of some
other ’departments now controlled by honest men appointed at
Albany.
On the other hand, the interference of the Legislature has,
at length, reduced the city government to a condition of polit-
ical chaos. The Mayor has been deprived of all controlling
power. The Board of Aldermen, seventeen in number, the
Board of twenty-four Councilmen, the twelve Supervisors, the
twenty-one members of the Board of Education, are so many
independent legislative bodies, elected by the people. The
police are governed by four Commissioners, appointed by the40
THE GOVERNMENT OF THE
Governor for eight years. The charitable and reformatory
institutions of the city are in charge of four Commissioners
whom the City Comptroller appoints for five years. The Com-
missioners of the Central Park, eight in number, are appointed
by the Governor for five years. Four Commissioners, appointed
by the Governor for eight years, manage the Fire Department.
There are also five Commissioners of Pilots, two appointed by
the Board of Underwriters and three by the Chamber of Com-
merce. The finances of the city are in charge of the Comp-
troller, whom the people elect for four years. The street
department has at its head one Commissioner, who is ap-
pointed by the Mayor for four years. Three Commissioners,
appointed by the Mayor, manage the Croton Aqueduct depart-
ment. The law officer of the city, called the Corporation
Counsel, is elected by the people for three years! Six Com-
missioners, appointed by the Governor for six years, attend to
the emigration from foreign countries. To these has been
recently added a Board of Health, the members of which are
appointed by the Governor. Was there ever such a hodge-
podge of a government before in the world ? And nowhere is
there any adequate provision for holding these several powers
to their responsibility. Consequently, although the system of
plunder has now been in operation for sixteen years, during
which the public thieves have stolen not less than fifty millions
of dollars, not one man of them has ever been punished, nor
even made to disgorge.
There is a still more terrible objection to governing the city
of New York at a city one hundred and sixty miles distant
from it. The Legislature itself is corrupt. The same seven
men who control Irfie politics of the city nominate the city
members of the Legislature; and these, reinforced by corrupt
men from other cities, control one branch of the Legislature
and are powerful in the other. Sometimes the city leaders
cause themselves to be elected to the Legislature; but usually
they select, from the clerks in the public offices, their own
creatures, — mindless, dependent men, whose only virtue is a
cur-like fidelity to their masters. No language can overstate
the hopeless incapacity of these men for the business of legis-
lation. They can only vote as they are ordered; and if you wish
to buy their votes, you must arrange the price, not with them,
but their owners in New York. To elect such men to the Legis-
lature is only to transfer power from the Legislature to the lobby.
There at Albany we see, within the rails of the Assembly, a
crowd of poor, ignorant, irresponsible clerks; and in the lobby
we find men representing Cornelius .Vanderbilt, the Central
Railroad, the Erie Railroad, the Astor estate, and many otherCITY OF NEW YORK.
41
men and companies controlling vast resources and carrying
great prestige. Moreover, the agents representing these strong
men and powerful organizations are persons of skill and audac-
ity. When such a reversal of the natural order of things
exists, and when the members of the Legislature are paid by
the State a less sum per diem than their board costs, — to say
nothing of drink and billiards, — what must be the result ?
We need not say.
A very able lobby agent, who has been in the business many
years, has given us an inkling of the mode of procedure.
“ When we get to Albany,” said he, “ we make out our lists,
and, after studying them and comparing notes, we classify
members, and make an estimate of what it is going to cost to
get our bills through. We find out about how much each man
expects, and who is running him. Then we arrange the thing
in New York with certain people, whose consent is necessary.
The price for a vote ranges from fifty dollars to five hundred,
unless it is that of the chairman of a committee. He wants
more, because he has to appear on the record as originating
the measure.”
It was probably one of these originating gentlemen who
could explain the testimony given recently in an Albany cor-
ruption case by a lady who proved herself a true helpmeet to
her husband. She testified that a lobby agent called at her
house one Sunday afternoon, when there was “ some conver-
sation ” respecting the accused Senator, which the court “ ruled
out.” She continued thus: “ The next morning I put $ 2,500
in greenbacks into a yellow envelope, and gave it to my only"
son, eleven years old. The boy got into the wagon with his
father. I never saw the money again.”
If there is in this world a man who can be truly said to
know anything, Mr. Thurlow Weed knows the Legislature of
the State of New York. His testimony respecting the corrup-
tion in that Legislature, as given in the “ Daily Times,” a few
months ago, is as follows : —
“ Formerly the suspicion of corruption in a member would have
Sut him ‘ into Coventry/ while knowledge of such an offence would
ave insured the expulsion of the offender. Now ‘ bribery and cor-
ruption ’ prevail to an extent greater than existed in the worst days
of the Parliament of England, where, happily for England, the
practice has been reformed, as it must be here, or corruption will
undermine the government. No measure, however meritorious, es-
capes the attention of ‘ strikers/ Venal members openly solicit ap-
pointment on paying committees. In the better days of legislation,
when no unlawful motive existed, it was considered indelicate in a
member to indicate to the Speaker any preference about committees.
The evil has been growing, each year being worse than the pre-42
THE GOVERNMENT OF THE
ceding, until reform is sternly demanded. Could the secret history
of the present Legislature be exposed to the public gaze, popular
indignation would be awakened to a degree heretofore unknown.
In the Assembly everything was struck at. Not even a religious
charity found exemption. The sources of rapacious corruption
were the Assembly Railroad Committee, and the Committee on
Cities and Villages. I say this upon reliable authority, to correct
the ‘ Tribune' and the 1 Times/ in both of which journals this
Legislature is commended for its integrity. That there were hon-
est and honorable members in both houses, by whose integrity and
firmness much bad legislation was arrested, is true. The Senate,
fortunately, presents an inflexible majority of upright members;
while in the House, the Ring was formidable enough to put through
whatever paid or promised to pay liberally, in defiance and derision
of the efforts of an honest minority.”
Mr. Weed says, that not even a religious charity found ex-
emption. We can confirm that assertion. A committee of
benevolent ladies went to Albany last winter, and asked the
Legislature to give them $ 20,000 in aid of an institution for
the nurture and education of children who lost their fathers in
the war. They said in their petition, that, after having been
compelled to refuse admission to two hundred children of slain
soldiers and sailors, who had no one left on earth to care for
them, they had resolved to try and erect a larger building, for
which purpose they proposed to raise $ 20,000, and asked the
Legislature to double the sum. Even this holy charity the
shameless villains “ struck at.” An agent of the Ring called up-
on the ladies, and said, in the plainest English, “ Pay me
$ 2,000, and you can have half the sum you petition for; pay
me $ 5,000, and you have the whole.” The poor ladies, con-
fronted for the first time in their lives with the extreme of hu-
man depravity, knew not what to think of this proposal, nor
what to say to the man who made it. Anxious for their or-
phans, and far from their natural advisers, they were on the
point of yielding, when the husband of one of them came to
the rescue, and urged them not to taint their infant enterprise
with the leprosy of corruption. They were reluctant to give
up the aid so urgently needed, but they did do so at last.
Later in the session, the Ring, finding that nothing could be
got from them, allowed the honest minority to carry a bill
Othem $ 5,000. This narrative we received from the
the estimable and distinguished lady who headed the
deputation.
It is such facts as these which convince us that the Legisla-
ture, as now elected, cannot be trusted for the future govern-
ment of the city. The reform must be radical. It must begin
at the bottom, with the voters, and work its way up. TheCITY OF NEW YORK.
43
Citizens* Association — a body of eminent merchants, lawyers,
and men of leisure, united for the sole object of reforming the
government of the city —have proved, by most costly and
laborious experiment, that the majority, long controlled by
the plunderers, cannot be shaken from their devotion to them.
By needless interference with the Sunday usages of the Ger-
mans, as well as by some wise and just restrictions upon the
selling of liquor, the friends of reform have rendered the great
grog-shop interest a unit for the corruptionists, and that inter-
est can send to the polls twenty-five thousand votes. By very
great exertions, an honest man can be chosen Mayor; for there
is still in New York a small majority of the whole number of
voters who will vote as they ought, if the issue is clear between
honesty and corruption. But in the wards and districts in-
habited chiefly by ignorant foreigners and vicious natives, the
case is hopeless. Printed matter cannot reach them. They
are untrained in the duties of citizenship. A prodigious num-
ber of them have some small interest in maintaining the system
of plunder; for from the stolen millions flow numberless rills
of lawless or excessive gain ; so that the city is like an Italian
farm irrigated by the dirty waters of a pestilential stream.
They pay no tax. Since their share of the taxation is paid by
them m the form of rent, it is the “ extortionate landlord ”
whom they blame when their rent rises, in five years, from six
dollars to twelve dollars a month, for two little rooms. They
never think of going round to Councilman O’Rafferty’s grog-
shop, or Assemblyman Tooley’s desk in the Comptroller’s
Office, or Supervisor McShaughnessy’s market-stand, and
berating them for cutting down their children’s allowance of
fresh meat and Christmas toys. It has been found impossible
to make them see any connection between their pinching rents
and the reckless votes of a man who has promised one of their
relatives the place of seventh assistant door-keeper to the
scavenger’s office. The thing has been faithfully tried, and
found impossible. What honest men print they cannot read,
what honest men say they will not hear.
In view of the expected Constitutional Convention, we beg
to offer for consideration the following suggestions.
No man should be deprived of the right of suffrage who now
legally possesses it. The State must fulfil its compact to the
end, cost what it may.
But no man, native or foreign, should henceforth be admit-
ted to the suffrage who cannot read English composition of
medium difficulty. More than that the State has no right to
demand. Its right to exclude persons who cannot read arises
from the fact that such persons are dependent upon others for44
THE GOVERNMENT OF THE
the information without which an intelligent vote cannot be
cast. Such a rule, applied to the city of New York, would
exclude not less than fifteen thousand votes; and this alone
would give the city back to its legitimate owners, the virtuous
and industrious portion of its inhabitants. This alone would
do it!
No man should be allowed to vote at any city or State elec-
tion who has not paid a direct tax ; and that tax should vary
with the whole amount to be raised. It would cost about
twenty millions a year, for many years to come, to govern,
tame, and teach Manhattan Island. Suppose the voters’ tax
were thirty cents per million dollars of the levy. Then, if the
city were honestly governed, a workingman’s tax would be $ 6
a year. But if stealing should raise the levy to forty millions,
it would by $12. Now, the difference between $6 and $12
to a man who earns $ 15 a week is such that he would be very
likely to ask his representativer what it meant, which is the
very result to be desired.
The system of governing the city of New York at Albany
should be abandoned as soon it can be safely done. If the
city cannot govern itself, it must learn how to do it; and
there is no way of learning how to do a thing except by
doing it.
No officers should be elected by the people except the Mayor
and the members of the city legislature. The people are puz-
zled and confounded on election days by long lists of candi-
dates, whose names they never heard before. To ask the mass
of voters to select a corporation counsel, a sheriff, a comptrol-
ler, a judge, is self-evident absurdity.
The distinction between the city of New York and the county
of New York, with all its costly train of consequences, should
be abolished.
Longer terms of service for Mayor, Aldermen, and Council-
men would, perhaps, be desirable. The appointments to all
minor offices should be permanent. No creature should be in-
trusted with the unlimited power of removal. If the city
would be well served, it must treat its servants so that men of
honor and capacity will be found to serve it. A man of honor
and capacity will not hold his livelihood at the mere mercy of
another man.
There must be a decided increase of many salaries. Men
capable of managing the finances of a great city, men fit to
control any of the departments, cannot be induced to forego
their chance of fortune in private business by salaries no greater
than those paid to bank-tellers and book-keepers. A rich man
of respectable talents may occasionally be induced to serve asCITY OF NEW YORK.
45
Secretary of the United States Treasury for a sum per annum
less than modest housekeeping costs in Washington. It is in-
sadity to pay him such a salary, it is true ; but then the honor
counts for something. In a commercial city, business is done
on business principles; and if a $ 20,000 man is wanted,
$ 20,000 must be paid for him. It is not just salaries that
burden any people ; it is stealing that does that. On the other
hand, an officer who holds his office until proved to have mis-
behaved in it need not be paid the salary justly due to one
whom a breath unmakes.
Somewhere in the system of city government there must be
a power, a court, a something, independent and disinterested,
before which an officer accused of misconduct or incapacity
can be arraigned promptly and fairly tried.
It might be well that the Board of Aldermen should be com-
posed of men who pay a tax upon $ 5,000 worth of real or per-
sonal estate. With a taxed and restricted suffrage, this safe-
guard against profusion might not be necessary; but if the
suffrage remains unrestricted and untaxed, some provision of
this kind will have to be adopted.
These are some of the ideas which have occurred to us, and
we offer them for consideration, with sincere deference to those
who are versed in the art of governing. It is an arduous task
which the people of New York have before them, and it will
task both their wisdom and their patience to the uttermost. It
will be difficult to dislodge the public thieves. It was difficult
to take Richmond. But the taking of Richmond and the
capture of the Rebel army were not more essential to the
triumph of the United States over its enemies, than the reform
of the government of New York is to the credit and spread of
free institutions throughout the world. We have all heard of
revivals of religion. Why may we not look for a great and
glorious revival of public spirit ? There are, indeed, indica-
tions that such a revival has begun. We hear of several
instances of men of leisure who are awakening to the truth
that there is a nobler way of using the gift of leisure than in
looking out of a club window, or in collecting valueless rarities,
or in printing exactly one hundred copies of antiquated trash
upon “ large paper.” The existence of an organization so re-
spectable and determined as the Citizens' Association is a sign
of promise, and we hope to see its efforts seconded by other
societies. Dr. Franklin mentions that, several months before
the meeting of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, clubs
and societies were formed for the purpose of exchanging
opinions and gathering knowledge relating to the science of
government. One of them met weekly at his own house,THE GOVERNMENT OF THE
46
when papers were read and discussed, and questions were pro-
posed for consideration during the week. Why not have a
dozen such in every ward this winter ready to co-operate jvith
the Citizens’ Association ? The “ Tribune,” which has hon-
orably distinguished itself by giving unrelenting publicity to
schemes of spoliation, and the “ Times,” which has exposed
much of the interior working of the system, and holds no
parley with the thieves, — both, we are assured, are ready to
lend their columns to the work of reform. Whatever any club
may be able to expose or suggest, that is of the requisite brevity
and importance, will find ready access to the public through
those great journals.
We have been obliged in this article to limit ourselves to a
single feature of the misgovemment of New York, — the
stealing of the public money. There are departments of the
system into which we shrink from casting a glance. To some
of these corrupt men are entrusted the pauper, the sick, the
criminal, the insane. It is their duty to guard the myriads of
the virtuous poor against the rapacity which builds for them
habitations that are unsafe and pestilential. Think what the
government of such a city might be and do, what noble insti-
tutions it might found, what grand experiments undertake,
what beautiful edifices construct, what merit employ and re-
ward ! The legislature of the city, composed of men eminent
in business, in science, and in benevolence,—the men first in
their several spheres, — would rank high among the great par-
liaments of the world, and contribute powerfully to its advan-
cing civilization. The city of New York abounds in able and
honest gentlemen, in every sphere of life. On just condi-
tions, they can be won to the public service. Why can we
not have them ?
And let no one suppose that this is a subject which concerns
the people of New York only. It concerns us all. Not only
has every American citizen an interest in the welfare and
honor of his country’s chief city, but the evils under which
New York suffers exist, to some degree, in many other towns,
and threaten all of them. New York, as we have said, is a
sieve which lets through the best of the emigration that comes
to our shores, but catches and retains the worst; and therefore
it is in that city that the system of unqualified suffrage has
been first put to a test under which it has broken down com-
pletely and hopelessly. But in all our large cities there is of
necessity an assemblage of ignorant, irresponsible, and thought-
less men, totally incapable of performing the duties of citizen-
ship. We accordingly find in Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Bos-
ton, New Orleans, San Francisco, Chicago, Albany, Roches-CITY OF NEW YORK.
47
ter, Buffalo, St. Louis, and many other cities, the insidious
beginniugs of that misgovernment which has made New York
the by-word and despair of the nation.* New York, too, is
suffering vicariously for her sister cities. As it has been her
destiny to suffer most from the evils of ignorant and untaxed
suffrage, so it is her duty to wrestle first with those evils, and
apply a remedy which shall be radical, final, and universally
imitable. She will perform that duty. She is performing it.
No city of equal size on earth contains so great a mass of pub-
lic spirit and administrative capacity, and we feel persuaded
that the time is near at hand when those great qualities will
be successfully exerted in rescuing the metropolis from the
hands of the spoilers who have stolen into possession of it.
It looks now as though one half of civilized mankind were
going henceforth to live in town^; and it appears to us that
in the laying out, the decoration, and government of towns
America has shown a particular talent. How full of all pleas-
antness are the villages of New England, with their gardens
and lawns, their tidy fences and spotless houses, their ample
streets, and their mighty elms waving over all. What other
land can show towns so vigorous and handsome as Nashville,
Cleveland, Detroit, Buffalo, Rochester, and fifty others that
will occur to the reader ? What a spirited thing it was in
* During the prevalence of the cholera last summer, an appalling
glimpse was given the public of the interior of a jail in the city of
Brooklyn. An eyewitness wrote: “The cholera there resulted from
over-crowding the cells. The ventilation is bad, the air offensive, the
food, pork, beans, bread and molasses; and when the late intensely hot
and debilitating weather is taken into account, it should be a matter
of wonder that every one was not stricken down. The criminal
courts adjourned from June until October, and to my knowledge there
are many there too poor and friendless to get bail, that will be
able to prove their entire innocence when put on trial. To keep
these persons in over-crowded cells with broken-down drunkards,
whose systems were fitted by long habit for disease, would be little
better than murder......A panic existed that no imagination can
conceive. Terror was in every face. In one cell, an Englishman in
collapse, rising up and falling down convulsively, his cell-mates
running round almost distracted; in another, a corpse about to be
removed. Two little boys, waiting to go to the House of Refuge,
were screaming at the top of their voices from fear; a drunken man
singing a maudlin song in a corridor; men in the halls, with their
faces to the gratings, trying to breathe fresh air, for fear of inhaling
contagion. Several others, with symptoms of approaching cholera,
were expecting death. If all the prisoners could be kept in the jail
until they dropped off one by one, there might be some sense in it,
apart from its inhumanity. But the jail supplies the almshouse, the
penitentiary, the workhouse, and, in many instances, the lunatic
asylum, with inmates. Prisoners are first usually taken there before
being sent to those institutions.”48 GOVERNMENT OF NEW YORK CITY.
Vermont to commission young Larkin Mead to adorn her Cap-
itol with a statue of Ethan Allen; and in Cleveland,,to com-
memorate Perry’s victory by one of the finest out-of-door mon-
uments in the world; and in Tennessee, to crown the heights
of Nashville with a State-House of unequalled elegance and
solidity; and in marvellous Chicago, three times to raise the
entire city for the sake of better drainage, and to bore far out
under Lake Michigan for pure water! How good it was in
great Boston to put it within the reach of all her boys and
girls to learn how to swim, and of all her men and women to
practice the art! This was one of those fine details of civili-
zation which are only reached after the great essentials have
been realized and become habitual. New York, too, might
boast, even amid her blushes. The Central Park was a noble
gift to posterity; the Croton Aqueduct was a truly Boman
thought; and all the islands, — are they not covered with pub-
lic institutions, nobly planned ? We can truly say, that the
people of the United States have shown an aptitude for orderly
and elegant arrangement. They know how to make their
towns and cities fit abodes for civilized beings, and they mean
to make them such.
But the spoiler must be expelled, or he will spoil all. Hon-
est men possess all the true, trustworthy intelligence there is
in the world. Villains of talent there may be, but no wise
villain, still less a villain of public spirit. The thieves must
be driven out, if it costs a bloody war; and it will cost a
bloody war if they are not.
Cambridge : Stereotyped and Printed by Welch, Bigelow, & Co.GRIFFITH GAUNT:
1	A STORY OF JEALOUSY.
i By CHARLES READE.
1 vol. 8vo.
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The Boston Traveller says of it: ' “ As a work of art his novel is excellent *, and if he
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I ft is pages quite as much as it does in the world of reality.”
u ‘ Griffith Gaunt ’ is superbly written. Its style is clear, incisive, and epigrammatic, and
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day in the English language.” — Philadelphia Ledger.
“ ‘ Griffith Gaunt’ will be read by all who thoroughly comprehend artistic writing.” — New
Haven Palladium.
WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
F^g Woffington. $ 1.25.
Christie Johnstone. $1.25.
Clouds and Sunshine. $1.25.
Never Too Late to Mend. 2 vols. $2.50.
White Lies. $1.50.
The Eighth Commandment. $1.00.
Propria Quae Maribus, and the Box Tunnel. Paper, 25 cts.
4
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