New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1866-06-09
{" MOVE ON.v

We have inst read Of an Alderman in one of our
Southern cilies-Nashville we think-but, in view of
the invaluable moral the precise locality is of no
consequence. This Alderman has been stealing
considerable amount Of the public cash. Nature or
art had made bis palms adhesive as well as itching,
and he was under fatal necessity OF stealing what
ever he officially manipulated. Nothing extraor-
binary" we hear some knowing reader exclaimi
Aldermen have done so before" They haye-they
have: but the incomprehensble point about
Alderman is that having got his plumber togethe- he
actually ran Army AS he had got enough-as if his
conscience would not allow him to help himself to
any more-as if gratitude would not permit him fur
ther to sponge his beuelactors This is an Alderman
of the high old Roman days of the Republic,
when VIM. NJ Price "vamosed the rancho"
AM Swartwout gave a new verb to the Ian
guage What, with painful modification, we
are obliged to confess it, that Alderman and other
city officers gifted by nature and art with adhesive
palms as aforesaid don't run away but continue TO
stay and manipulate, and never know when they have
got enough and far from intending to emgrate
they that they buy handsome homesteads and put
permanent silver plates on the front doors, aud give
us the expensive delight of their presence from year to
year, properly speaking from fiscal year to
fiscal year. Asthe Sailors wife in Macbeth 'mounchd
and mounchd and mounchd," so they suck, and suck,
and suck-ihese civic lceches-and full they may
be- they have never the grace to drop off. Under
these distressing circumstances, we feel that il would
be waste of time and space for us to print the
most pathetic circumstances against defacation.
Let US look at the thing from a common
sense point Of view! Lot US take defalca.
49,. 81 ovl. Oh
assume that in consequence of the peryerson of hui
man nature, no man who takes charge of the public
money can be expected TO be honest Having settled
this it is clear that we need new system of morals,
or at least new sense of honor That sense
press in the following formulai WHEN a MAN HAS
fILcngD ENOUGH 1T Is his BoUSDES DUTY TO Run
AWAY. Evasion will give a rounded elegance to his
achievement. II will save the necessity of most
pensiye Committees Of Investigation. 1t will give us
the consolation that the fugitive will never help him
self to little more. But we do not insist upon this so
much as upon the positive uniarness Of not allowing
other meritorous men chance of plunderng in their
tum the seshness ofbeing oinsatably greedy not
to give place, after repleon, to the empty belied and
the hungry; the wickedness of ignoring the great
sacred principle of rotation in rascality. Because
man is lght.fngered it does not follow that he should
be an absolute glutton. Let him fill himself up, and
run away! That 5 our notion of the morality Of il
If that honest gentleman, Mr.. George ii. Purser,
for instance alluded to in columns on the 29th of
May, If he would leave, emgrate, emerge, step ont,
depart exhae, and resign the lucrative business of
opening streets to some other equally deserving and
needer person. he would be, in some sort, benefac
tor, philanthropist and founder of other mems
fortunes. If -, esq, or the Hon. - -,
had but run away after realizing, instead of running
perhaps for Congress who is there so slow at figures
As not to see that it would have been money in
our municipal pocket as well a. in the private peck
cts Of the tax-payersl But no, they don't run these
State Municipal, Federal appropriations they stay to
brave, with brazcn courage, the anmadversons of the
press and the penalties Of the law. If they have
grabbed suficency, they turn vrtuous and are much
esteemed especially by their poorer friends and neigh
bors They die in their beds if not shot in grocery;
they have funerals which are marvels Of undertaking
skill and taste; they have monuments in Greenwood
which lie in their behalf with the most INSCRIPTIONS
freedom. Run away, indeed; not they Tom Crack
skull when he has knocked down beated citizen and
helped himself to the cLronometer Of his victim, may
run away; but a man who has "made" $50 900 out
Of the City may just as well make $4,000 more and
why should be run away We only wish be would.