The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1859-08-25

dmlaD'e Tlenu5 VI ue neBeucy may howl u5
much o. they will over this prospect; but there
it L.
The APPROACHING MUNICIPAL ELECroNs-DE-
MoCRAoY DIsRoBED--h letter which we pub
lisbed yesterday from our Albany correspondent,
some important disclosures were made with re- !
spect to the atrociously corrupt programme of
our New York city politicians for the coming
municipal elections, and the depredations they
are preparing to make upon candidates for office.
Places are fairly put up, it seems, to the highest
bidcer, and nominating conventions knock down
the Mayoralty, the Corporation Counselship,
Senatorships, seats In the Boards Of Aldermen
and Counoilmen, to whoever will pay the most,
without the slightest reference to qualifications,
honesty, or that experience which the position
sought after requires We are sinking down,
then, to the very lowest depths Of degradation,
and the experiment of free government will
hsve proved to be total failure If such state
Of things Is to continue.
There are, probably, several thousand persons
in this city who subsst wholly upon the plum
der which they obtain from State, Congressional,
legislative and municipal candidates for Office.
| Just 30 soon as it is understood that an indi-
vidual is in the field, he is approached by these
! cormorants, who are not at all nealy -mouthed,
but bolt out at once the important question:
"lf we will support you, what will you pay?"
| A citizen who shonld reply that be was an old
resident, that his reputation was unstained and
irreproachable, that his energy and capacity were
universally conceded, would be laughed to scorn.
Such requisites are the very last which the wire
pullers of our conventions consider of the
slightest Importance. A manager in Tammany
Hall, the Pewter Mug, Mozart Hall, or other
kindred dens would be hooted as unfit company
for his fellows who should dissociate the idea Of
money from political services to be rendered.
One of these days we intend to analyze bio.
graphically the lists Of General Committees Of
all parties which now hold in their hands the
strings of conventions virtually invested with
respectable portion Of the community will be
startled at the terrible Developments which
truth will compel US to make. Meanwhile, it is
not too much to say that graduates frem Black
wells leland and from Sing Sing, pothouse pro
prietors of the lowest and most degraded de-
scription, keepers and owners Of the vilest dens
of prostitution, shoulder.hitters and strikers
the history of whose hideous exploits is to be
found in police chronicles Of gougings, maimings
and other execrable brutalities-open thieves and
burglars, are numbered among those who are
conspicuous at every period Of nominations and
/ ali md IorU fro, lot
varying in amount according to the nature Of
the office in question, from few hundreds up
to from twenty to thirty thousand dollars. Two
hundred and fifty thousand dollars are calculated
to have been divided up last year alone among
these vagabonds Of all parties.
Candidates for place, when over sanguine o.
success, have not upfrequently been utterly
impoverished by their rascally, greedy support
ers during the course of an excited canvass. II
would not be difficult to give the names of de-
feated aspirants for Congressional station and ,l
the Mayoralty who have been pecuniarily bank
rupted by the wire-pulling fraternities under the
exhaustless plea Of necessary expenses" And
there are political leaders in New York, some Of
them occupying high Offices themselves, who for
long series of years have derived means for
living in low proAigacy and extravaganza from
the systematic practice Of black mailing every
one whom they could persuade that their assist.
ance was indispensable in order to be elected.
The favorite "game" Of our municipal nomi
mating scoundrels is to be found among wealthy
merchants, who naturally aspire, at the close Of
a successful mercantile career, to the chief
magistracy Of their native city. Men of this
class are approached, bled to get their names
before the public, bled again to keep them
q while there; and after their initiatory blood
lettings they are either dropped altogether, OF
else the knife is put into their veins in good
earnest as the time for nominating and electinp
draws on. Lists Of ambitious mercantile princes
are regularly kept, whom the plunderers tag
according to their means and liberalty. Every
man upon it is robbed; but the very highest bid
der OF all is eventually chosen, while the re-
mainder are betrayed. 1t is in this way that sc
large class of floating vagabond population il
enabled to exist here; and the question may well
be put-What are we coming to, if this evil can
| not be remedied?
| OUR STATE CANALS-ALARMING DIMrNUTIOS
OF BUsINEss,-We publish elsewhere table
showing the quantity of produce delivered al
tide water by our canals during the present
year. From this it will be seen that the business
Instead Of increasing, has decreased to such or
as to threaten the ruin Of our canal system
in financial point Of view. For instance, thu
receipts of flour from the opening of the canal;
in 1859 up to the third week in August figure
up 2o3,4OO barrels, against 955,9OO barrels 70,
the corresponding period Of 1858; of wheat
100000 bushels, against 5,061,3OO Of corn
l522, 300 bushels, against 2,s63,s00; and of bar.
ley, 10000 bushels, against 1892, 100. Reducing
the wheat to -four, the deficiency in the receipts
OF 1859, as compared with 1868, would be