The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1871-10-10

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The reports Of the joint investigating COM
mittee Of citizens, Aldermen and Supervisors
are published to-day. They place before the
people no new facts. The committee finds
that during the past two years and half i'm
menss sums have been paid BY the city gov
eminent for services that have never been per-
formed and for work that has not been done
that parties having claims against the city have
been unable to obtain their money until they
had assigned such claims to some friend Of the
heads Of departments; that the amounts
thus assigned have been increased with
out the knowledge Of the claimants,
and that s'ffauds and populations of the
grossest character have been practised
in several Of the departments" with
the knowledge, it is believed, of those ''whose
sworn duty it was and is to guard and pro-
tect the public interests" All Of which has
long been well known to the citizens of New
York, and might have been found by the
committee to have been going on for twelve
years instead of for two years and half.
The committee has also made the discovery
hat the city has been shsmefully plundered
under the pretended expenditures on armories
and drill rooms, and that in the matter of the
Schuyler lumber account q sum of over four
hundred and sixty-three thousand dollars was
paid for lumber worth about forty-eight thou
sand dollars. In regard to the latter swindle
the special committee having that matter
under investigation report that Mr.. Carrot L.
Schuyler, the principal Of the firm supply
ing the lumber, asserted that forty
eight thousand dollars was all the money
received by the firm from the city, although
he evinced an unwillingness to supply any fur
ther information as to the transactions. The
committee state that the Schuyler bills were
all paid under the head Of Adjusted Claims,
that they we're certified to as correct by Will
liam N. Tweed, the Commissioner of Public
Works, and that 'sa large part if not the
whole, of the over payment was received by
one Robert Winthrop" who appears to have
been clerk in the Auditors Department of
Comptroller Connolly's Office, Of which de-
partment James Watson was Auditor and
Connolly, Jr., son Of the Comptroller, was
Deputy Auditor. A bewildering mass of fig
ures put together by experts, and which none
but experts can hope to unravel, accompany
the reports, but we do not see that they add
anything to the information previously in pos
session of the people or that they bring the
city corruption problem one inch nearer q
practical solution than it was before the re-
ports were made.
In one respect, however, these reports may
be Of service. They serve to augment the
already ample proof that the Comptroller's
Department has been the hot-bed of all the
rascality from which the city has suffered 80
severely, and to render the longer protection
Of Richard B. Connolly by those who profess
to be DESTROYS Of bringing the guilty to justice
an impossibility. II appears that in the bold
fraud Of this Schuyler account the transfer Of
the claim was made to . clerk In the bureau
ruled over by Watson and young Connolly,
and that this clerk, Winthrop, must have
received "a large part il not the whole Of the
overpayment" Now these particular accounts
were paid under the head Of Adjusted Claims, :"
which means claim that has been disputed
or for the recovery Of which an action at law
has been commenced, and that has been
adjusted" or settled in order to save the
expense Of litigation to the city. All such
adjusted claims" must pass through the
hands Of the Comptroller himself. He alone
is authorized by the law to settle them.
and he personally gives an order setting
forth the amount he has allowed and
directing the Auditor Of Accounts to draw q
warrant for the same. 1t is therefore shown
by the Committees statement that Comptroller
Connolly must himself have fixed the amounts
to be paid on the Schuyler bills, and that If
any such frauds have been perpetrated as the
Committee indicate, the Comptroller must be
responsible for them.
The people will now demand Of the Commit
toe of Seventy that they shall cease all
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