New-York tribune., 1871-10-10
HOIST BY THEIR OWN PFTARD.

The last defender of tho Tammany Ring
may as well give up the case of the thieves.
1t was easy enough to charge that the Com
mittee appointed at the Cooper Union
mass meeting were mislcd and even par
tisan in their proceedings in ferreting
out the so-called frauds on the City; but
committee of merchants and business men,
invited by the very officials implicated in the
pending charges to cooperate with sub
committee of Aldermen and Supervisors, must
receive respectful hearing and implicit conf
dence in their report. This Committee have
spent several weeks in a patient examination
into the accounts of the City, the manage
ment of municipal affairs, and the general
condition of the finances of the County and
City. Their labors have been hampered by
the very men who, with an assumed
air of injured innocence besOuglIt their minute
investigation. The City authorities have
steadily refused to send for persons and
papers, and the only potent influence which
the Citizens Committee have really had in
the premises was the semi-ofiicial character
which they borrowed from the reflected dignity
of their association with the County and City
authorities by special invitation. Notwith-
the loose way in which records and accounts
have been kept, the report of the Committee
printed in THE TRIBUNE to-day, presents an
appalling revelation of fraud, corruption, and
misrule.
We cannot at this moment 60 into the re-
voting particulars of this great crime it is
enough to say that the Mayors Committee
have conclusiyely established the fact that the
men who have had charge of public affairs
have deliberately and sedulously embraced
every opportunity to steal the public funds
or to afford the amplest facilities for others
to steal them. The City has not merely suf-
fered from an extravagant waste of money,
but from every variety of fraud that was pos
sble under the management of the Mayor
and Heads of Departments The ridiculous
fraud of pretending to build Count House.
and using that pretense as a sluice to draw o
stream of cash from the Treasury, has been
already exposed. In addition to this, we have
now an exposure of villainies in other de-
partments of the City Administration which
fitly complement that monstrous story. For
instance, it is pretended that the armories and
drill-rooms occupied by the militia have cost
during the two years and eight months
last past, the enormous sum of
$a791,604 90. This money has nomi-
nally been paid out on this account
and it is claimed that only $522, ,S9e 81 has
been paid for rents, and SS,221.s65 90 for
repairs to these armories and drill-rooms
The Committee, unable to secure the informa-
ton which the power to send for persons and
papers would bring them, have employed experts
In eyamine thesa "repairedn armOries with scru-
pulous e1actness, and they find that the work
actually done would be literally paid for by
allowing 100000, leaving more than $4,000, 900
to be accounted for. That this amount was
deliberately stolen there can be no question
Who stole it Perhaps some suggestion of an an
swer may be found in the astounding revelation
respecting the lumber bills of Schuyler & Co.
In this case, S4S00o worth Of lumber was