The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1857-07-28

MUNICIPAL BODIES ON GRAND UEAD-dEAD
SPREE The Mayors and members Of the NUM-
cipal Councils of st. Louis, Cincinnati and Chill
llcOthe have been for some weeks past indulging
in moet magnificent pleasure trip at the ex
pense of other people, just as great many indi-
viduals in the world are always ready and willing
to do. Some line of railroad or other has been
completed, it seems, which connects the Chesa-
peake bay with the Mississippi; and the COM
pany were unable to find any better mode of cele-
brating the event and calling attention to the
fact than by getting hold of the Mayors and
Common Councils OF these three Cities and some
three or four hundred other sponging characters
men and women--always on hand for chances
of the kind, whiskiug them off in excursion
trains, supplying them with ham and chicken,
champagne and segars by the way, and dumping
them down in this, that and the other city along
the route to be provided for at the expense of the
several communities honored with such visitation.
All the way from st. Louis to Baltimore these
four hundred dead heads have been riding andeat-
ing, and drinking and carousing at the expense of
the railroad company and of the tax payers of the
various places where they halted. To give an
idea of the coslines of one of these vistations it
is only necessary to say that the tax payers of
Baltimore were saddled with the nice little sum
of $4,000 in order to supply these travelling
gourmands with grand banque4a at the Mary
land Institute. They made descent the next
day on the city of Washington and we suppose
have bankrupted the municipal treasury of the
al no 1oof haorI Of hou,f hau
meditating descent on Philadelphia; and it was
not improbable that even this city would be in
cluded within the devastated circle. In fact, the
danger is, or was, go imminent that a proposition
to appropriate $1,000 is before our Common
Council, just as if that Insignificant figure would
be circumstance in the cost of their entertain
ment.
Now this and all similar railroad excursions
appear to us to be grandhumbugs. People now
a-days are not In the habit of outstepping the
bounds of liberality for nothing. They usually
expect an equivalent in some form or other No
doubt the railroad company that has incurred
the enormous outlay attendant on this jaunt of
municipal Legislators will have some favors to
expect frsm them in return; aud we do not see
how such favors can well be refused. If they do
not expect to advance the interests of their road
by such means, then they have no right to squan-
der money In this way at the expense of the
stockholders Mayors and municipal legislators
chow bad example in accepting these treats
They can only render an equivalent for them by
being faithless to their trusts; and when they do
accept such favors, the natural inference is that
the equivalent will be forthcoming Besides
these deadhead excursionists are always
unmitigated nuisances to those who are
travelling for either business or pleasure
and who pay their fares like Christian peo.
pie. On the whole, this grand Western dead
head excursion evinces much folly on the part of
the railroad directors, much meanness on the
part of those functionaries and others who &C
cepted public charity in this way, and muchsim-
plicity on the part of the civic authorities that
assumed the duties of hospitality thus thrust on
them. We hope to hear no more Of such follcs
or gwipdes