The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1858-05-06

them, and they fell through. Mr.. Cochrane,
the Chairman of the Committee on Commerce,
has now put the matter into a simple compre-
hensiye shape in the bill he has reported to the
House, which is to be taken up for discussion
by Committee of the Whole on Wednesday
next. Our Washington correspondent, whose
letter will be found in another column, furnishes
the leading points in Mr.. Cochrane's bill They
are very interesting and show that he has sue
ceeded in meeting the existing difficulty in the
proper understanding of the revenue laws.
The COMPrRoLIERs REPORT AND THE CRY
FRAUDs.-The report of Comptroller Flagg,
which we published in full the day before yes
terday, is in many respects most extraord-
nary document. Were it not that it is grave
thing to contemplate a great, intelligent city
like this subjected to the cupidity of horde of
rogues and rascals, and not able protect itself,
Mr. Flsgg's report might be designated funny
one. He sits down coolly, and with the most
astonishing nonchalance, to record a whole batch
of FRAUDS and populations on the city treasury
for the last three or four years, as If
he were not the sole comptroller, mana
ger, and custodian of the public funds,
but simply the reporter of frauds to the
financial department, He tells us that for the
years 1856, IS and Y eightyfour cases of gross
and infamous frauds have occurred in the AS
sessments for opening and regulating streets.
All these trsnspired under his own eyes, and
were undoubtedly connived at by his subordi-
mates, over whose acts he should have exercised
arigorous supervision; yet without seeming to
comprehend that it was his duty to prevent the
commission of these frauds, he merely jots down
the facts at his ease, and lays them before the
public as if it was q matter of fact affair that
the city should be plundered of few millions q
year by its officials. What spectacle! What
an example of the way the officers of our city
government perform their duties
With the assistance of the republican party
and the Know Nothings, the Wood faction of
the democracy was defeated and demolished at
the last charter election, and the debris-the
rump of the old Albany Regency-was
sent down here, and have taken hold
of the city government. Now they have
Tammany Society and all. Mr.. Tiemann, Mr.,
Flagg, Henry Erben, Peter Cooper, and all the
Coopers were members of this reform party, as
they called themselves. The Wood faction may
have been a barefaced, daring set Of rascals
who made no high pretensions to public
honesty-who said openly, fraud is fraud, and
we 90 in for fraud but the reformers, forsooth
are the men Of ali the virtues, all the sanctity
and integrity. Yet their duties now seem to
be simply to help each other along, and they
have appointed parties under them to help
themselves, too. 1t is but transferring the gov.
eminent from one set of rogues to another. 10
private life Mr.. Tiemann, Mr.. Flagg and the rest
of them may be very pious, upright men-we
are not going TO gainsay their claims to pecu
| liar holiness; but they have let loose pack o.
subordinates on the treasury who are fattening
upon it in the most shameful manner; for in
stance the con of Mr.. Flagg's confidential
friend, Smith, who has probably made a hun
dred thousand or so out of the unfortunate tax
payers.
| Mr.. Wood has retired into private life; hi
party lie gone to smash the reform clique hav,
the whole government in their own hands, snt
we see how they are managing IL. Mr.. Flags
holds in bis hand the central power Of the city
for the money power is the most important il
this age; the public have entrusted to biz
charge those interests which, as individuals
they watch over with the dearest solicitude In
the management Of their own affairs; yet Mr.
Flagg-t his.fsithful watch dog of the treasury
slumbers comfortably at his post, without
keeping even one eye open, and just wakes "
in time to tell us that while we have been re
lying securely upon his fidelity, his agents ant
subordinates have been plundering us of mil
iions And this Mr.. Flagg evidently thinks il
rendering proper account of his stewardship