The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1854-08-10

Of Horace Greeley from the list OF delegates
savors of rank rebellion. The appointment
Of Benjamin r. Butler and Comptroller Flagg
indicates The hand Of the administration in TIE
game, hich is significant Of certain defeat
the country with impatience Is awaiting the
lifting of the curtain. Ladies and gentlemen,
make room for the delegates.
COMPTROLLER FLAoa AND THE New York Press
The object Of corporations has been defined
by legal writer, (Mr. Gilbert Beckett, law
adviser TO Punch,) to be the depletion OF that
tendency towards plethora invariably exhibited
by the public purse. Generally speaking, oil the
municipal officers that we have been blessed
with, have faithfully and conscientiously acted
up to the spirit of this definition; but there
win occasionally arise, even in the best regu-
lated bodies, would.be reformera, who, from the
love Of making themselves singular, and every
hody else uncomfortable, will persist in carry.
ing ont their own peculiar crotchets. OF this
class of eccentric minds is Mr.. Comptroller
Flagg.
A very singular man, indeed, is Mr.. Comp
troller Flagg. Some love the accumulation Of
money for the pleasure which 1t gives them
selves; but it would seem az if the Comptroller
loved 1t solely for the displeasure which it gives
others. His charity, curious to say, neither
blesses him that gives nor him that takes
Neither those from whom he receives, nor
those whom he ought to, but does not pay,
speak of him in the overfullness and thankful
ness Of their hearts. Faithful IS . house dog
to his trust there is this distinction in the
simile--that our city Cerberus shows his teeth
and growls as readily at his masters, when they
attempt to appropriate their own, as if they
were in reality pilfering interlopers. Had the
Comptroller been cotemporaneous with the
Antwerp blacksmith, Qnintin Matsys,we should
no doubt have had a pendant to his celebrated
picture OF the miser, in which the passion of
ayarice would have been represented under a
corporate phase, with Comptroller Flagg as its
What pity it is that great genuises should
be given at such rare intervals to the world
afraid that there will be but one Flagg. In
fact. the appearance OF such men on the stage
Of lie at sll, is a sort of mathematical paradox.
They would have been more in their place
squaring circles in the spheres described in the
new spiritual philosophy, than calculating vul-
gar decimals in this commonplace routine
world Of ours. Mr. Flagg should, in short, have
been Comptroller to the Moon, where contracts
are paid in shadow, instead Of substance
Hsd this great corporate economist been
born bat century sooner, what sums Of profit
gatcly expended treasure would have been
saved to the citizens Of New York Nature
would still have reigned undisturbed in many
of her favoritc haunts, and the invasion Of
brick walls and paving stones would have been
restricted within narrow limits. The grass
would 10 dead certainty, too, te still growing
in our streets, for with Flagg at the head of
affairs they would not have been tagged at all.
Comparing great things with small-rctro-
spective results with present ones-we cannot
help deploring that the tenure which we havo
had of Flsggs services should not have been
sufficiently long to have filed up greater
space in the annals Of our city. What he has
already done during his brief period of office,
in spite Of the understanding opposition tn It
he has met WITH proves what he might have
Effected had he had his own way sooner We
trust that there are more of the family to per-
perpetuate the system and the fame of our
worthy Comptroller. The city should never be
without growing crop of little Flaggs.
The Flagg system! Talk of those OF Copper
h.
be compared for a moment in Importance with
the greater modern discovery of Comptroller
Flagg. We hold that the man who has found
out the wsy Of making everybody work for
nothing, deserves greater credit for ingenuity
than all these star gazers and philosophers put
together.
The only difficulty which the Comptroller
has yet expci fenced in the experimental appl-
ca,iun Of his sys'em is with the Press. But
even this obstacle he has partially overcome.
The truth is that he is one of the longes, headed
e corporate functionaries, and knows the exact
difference between o spike and handsaw.
When we received his circular inviting ne TO
send In proposals for advertising the redemp-
ton sales, and TO forward with them affdavits as
to our circulation, we declined taking any
trouble in the matter, knowing well that the
requirement. as to the latter was all humbug,
and that the advertising would be given to tn,
lowest bidder One Of our contemporaries,
with respectable circulation, was dupe enough
TO put in his tender, backed by formal afids-
Wit, and the result turned out to be just
what we expected. The contract was
given to anot. er paper which hsl not
complied with the requirement as to
the oath, and the circulation Of which does
not amount to more than three thousand copies
Had we, with a circulation Of eighteen times
that amount been fools enough TO respond TO
tbe invitation, we should have found ourselves
IN The mortify ing predicament of the first Of
thesc candidates, and got laughed at for our