The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1859-02-01
NEW YORK HERALD, TUESDAY. FEBRUARY u, 1859

by reducing mems minds to condition OF A'geot
slavery on subjects purely conventional that
they can establish the right of Independent juds-
ment on doctripal points. The age Of humbug
and shams is fast passing away in religious mat
tiers, and those who seek TO perpeluate ecclesias-
teal systems by such influences will, sooner or
later, discover that they have built on rotten
foundations.
BUEGING LEGISLATION FOR New YORK CITY
The Legislature at Albany is now engaged 10
making and unmaking laws for this city, with Its
immense population, mighty interest and vast
wealth. but it is making no progress, and efecting
no good for the taxpayers, who have to pay the
piper, whatever may be the tune to which the
" collective wisdom" think proper to dance. It
is like horse yoked TO an engine for saving
wood in our coal yards-it treads an endless
chain and still tries to ascend, but never gets
any higher; or like the same animal when at
tached to threshing machine-it goes round
and round in CIRCLE but makes no progress,
ever coming back to the same point whence it
started. Thus our Legislature is ever doing and
undoing-the measure of last session being re-
pealed in this, and the measure of this being re-
pealed in the next, or the exploded act being re-
enacted.
Every unfedged and ignorant reformer runs
to Albany with his nostrum for curing this city
matter and that, and finds at the capital quacks
as ignorant and mischievous as himself The pa
tent is now treated upon principles of homGo-
patty, and now on the old approved plan of ailo-
pathy-now she is soothed with anodynes, and
now bled, blistered and purged; but still she
grows worse and worse, and her constitution.ra-
pidly sinks, notwithstanding the increase of me
dicine and doctors bills. Instead of wasting
time and money on petty changes in detail, either
in inventing something new to supersede some
thing old, Or in patching up some of the decayed
raiment with new cloth which, according to Scrip
ture and experience, makes the rent worse, there
must be q complete revolution of the whole-an
entire new garment-a new suit OF clothes
What is wanted is not the removal of one
officer and another, or the modification
and reform of this Office and that, or
the creation of new Offices, or the cutting down
or the increase of salaries but responsible
government, conferred in one head, and all the
parts made subordinate. If this is not done, the
interests of the city will 60 to utter destruction
They have been long on the high road to ruin !;
and unless grand sweeping change takes place,
they will soon reach the goal of perdition.
What is the legislative process which we are
continually witnessing? Some individual owes
a grudge to an officer for the upright discharge
of his duty-perhaps to Judge for measuring
out with firm and impartial hand the just retri-
button due to crime, and necessary for the pro-
lection Of society. Immediately the criminals
friends go to work for the removal Of the officer
or the lettering of his power, or the reduction Of
his income, or, it may be, the total abolition Of
his Office. They do not fail to meet with cor
rupt tools in the Legislature to do their dirty
work and forthwith q bill is introduced, which,
if passed, does infinite mischief and, even if re-
jected, takes up the time Of the Senate and AS
sembly, which ought to be devoted to other
objects. Or some humbug who has an axe of
selfinterest or ambition to grind-perhaps some
sincere but visionary reformer-preposes to attack
or improve some point in our city government
without reference to the effect upon the other parts
or the harmonious working of the whole machine !;
straightway the bungling measure is adopted by
a facile Legislature, to the disgust of the whole
intelligence of New York.
Thus they are always doing more harm than
good, like the tinker who makes two or three
holes in an old leaky kettle in which he stops
one. The only cure for the kettle is new one.
The tinkering legislation, therefore, carried on
by botches at Albany, for this great city, will
not do. We want revolution, new machine,
all of whose wheels and cogs.are in harmony.
and moved by one handspring. Then and not
till then will the city government 60 like clock
work, without confusion, no part interfering with
any other part, but each cooperating with and
assisting the whole.