New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1857-06-20

Nothing can be more mischevOus or more fatal
to the good government of our city than the at
tempt now being made on the part of Mayor Wood
and bis organs to set up for the resident citizens
the exclusive right Of regulating and controlling the
whole administration Of the City Government. All
history shows that cities left to the uncontrolled
administration Cf the resident inhabitants have
suffered most severely in consequence aud that
some external autht rity, acting from without is
absolutely necessary to their well-being. Aud the
reason is obvious. The closer people are packed
together, the greater tie masses in which they are
assembled the easier il is to stimulate and stir them
up and the greater the excuses of party spirit to
which they are liable We have already had in
our own experience, in the regular employ
ment in this city by cOntending political fac
tions, Of professional rufians and DULLES to
fight, to terrify and to overawe, rather
alarming specimen of the extent to which we are
liable to be carried by party passions. Let il once
be understood and established that there is to be
interference from withOut-that the city faction
that can carry the day, no matter by what means,
is to be considered as thereby entitled to the absO
lutte control Of our municipal affairs, and that no
interference with them on the part of the State
Legislature s to be allowed TO take effect, except
with the sanction aud full consent of that ruling fac
tiOn--and we shall soon see proceedings more alarm
ing and more bloody even than those Of which Mayor
Wood has been lately and now is the hero We
may expect to see an insurrectiOn of the Five
Points to obtain forcible possession Of the city
government, and perhaps the same gentlemen of
property aud position who lately appealed to Mayor
Wood to be candidate for reelection appealing
anew to the same person to come forward and to
save them from Jacobinicsl Democracy by making
himself dictator and assuming to himself that absO
Lutte control of our city affairs, for which he has
exhibited such hankering.
Should such an instruction take place-shOuld
the forty thousand worthless persons to be found in
this city whose business it is to live BY pundering
their neghbors and the community at large, band
together. with Wood at their head, to make them
selves masters of the city BY force, it is probable
that in such Gaze interference from without and
the march of the country militia into the city might
be very loudly welcomed. But is it not much to be
desired that this interference should come in the
shape rather Of laws than Of bayOnets-that the
evil should be nipped in the bud, rather than be
allowed to expand into full blossom'
Allow Wood AID the sort Of men whom he has
enlisted into his support once firmly to fix them
selves in the control of the city government, with
the principle established that the State Legislature
has no power to interfere with our local affairs,
cept so far as il acts as the echo Of those who
troll the city administration, and we should soon
find ourselves reduced 10 condition much like that
of the city of San Francisco prior to the organi-
cation of the late Vigilance Committee.
The question now pending is in no respect an
ordinary party question. Il is a question between
an ambitious and unscrupulous demagogue who
looks for his chief support to ferocious mob and
the great mass of the quiet, Industrious lawrespect
ing citizens. As the Presidential question is now
disposed Of for the three years to come il is greatly
to be hoped that the good citizens Of New York will
devote certain portion of the interval to the
regulation Of their own affairs Is il not reason
able to EXPECT that all men who have property TO
be taxed and noses that can smell, however they
may have differed on national questions, will unite
in securing municipal administration very differ
ent from that with which we are just now cursed