New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1865-05-18
sANCTITy IN sODOM.

We beg those of our City readers who fancy
that our Municipal authorities can never do
right, even by mistake to read the Mondays
proceedings of the Board of Aldermen, fully
given in our last, and specially the report OF the
Finance Committee of that body on the Tax
Levy for the current year and its Legislative
revision. Amazing as it may seem, that docu-
ment, though intended as general apology for
robbery and rottenness. contains much whole
some and pertinent truth. 1t is fact that the
Legislature altered the Tax Levy in many par
ticulars, and we think oftener for the worse. 1t
is fact that appropriations were inserted which
the City authorities had not publicly
asked for and that other items
were increased, contrary to sound
principle, The Legislature is empowered tn
scrutinize and revise the Tax Levy in the in
terest of our taxpayers and citizens, not that of
contractors, office-holders and jobbers. 1t has
no moral right to insert therein one dollar
which has not been reSponsibly required by the
CITY Fathers. The habit of inserting items and
enarring Others. at the beck Of this or that head
of department or other tunctionary, Is an
abuse. which naturally tends to grow steadilyin
enormity and in cost. Whoever goes up to
Albany to beg the Legislature to insert TINS
item or increase that Ono matter though 1t be to
increase the pay Of the Common Council ITSELF
is prima tacie robber, and should be sent home
with the largest possible flea in either vilainous
ear.
1t has been abundantly proved that the cor
rection at Albany of even the most glazing
Municipal abuses is task of extreme difficulty.
Take the City Advertising for example; The
Common Council, Board of Supervisors and
certain Heads Of Departments, have been ac-
customed to advertise without stint or dis
erection. At least $780, 900 per annum is habitu-
ally pad for Advertising in sheets without char
acter, without circulation, without fitness for
this service, and some of them filed to the brim
with the rankest treason. The Common COun-
Gil might have stopped this, but would not
nay, it was directly responsible for good share
of it, At length, the Legislature interposed,
and directed that the City Advertising should
be confined to the four daies Of largest circula-
ton that would do it for stipulated
price, Those journals were, after needless
hesitation and delay, finally designated. Now, II
the Common Council and Board of Supervisors
had in conformity to this most righteous and
wholesome provision of law, withdrawn their
designation of other journals as Corporation
papers," and all authorization of Advertising in
any but the four aforesaid, very great saving
of public money would have been effected. But
the thieves in and out of those Municipal bodies
defeated it, and piu defeat it indefinitely. They
know they are stealing; they mean to steal;
they lore to steal; they can and mA steal.
How large share of the proceeds go directly
into the pockets Of. the Municipal partners in
this wholesale, systematic robbery, we cannot
say; but they are not accustomed to steal for
the pure love of it, when they can at once graft
fy their propensity and fill their pockets: so
we presume they take a share Of the swag. If
not, why do they persist in jerking it out Of the
treasury
"A word now, as to their complaint of the
proviso added to the Advertising item in the
Tax bill: The Boards usually meet at 5 p. IN,
and sit some hours. The official report has
then to be made out and duplicated; and it
often covers page in fine type of our great
popular dailes. 1t has been found O physical
impossibility to print uniformly this page Of not
particularly lively matter in next mornings
issue of the live journals. But the Boards
eager to do their worst to defeat and spite the
Legslature--have tried TO establish the rule
that. If not printed the next morning, it shall