The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1872-02-11

The Close Of Its Important Duties'
The Grand Jury of the General Sessions
yesterday terminated its labors and was
finally discharged by the Court Its action will
form one of the most striking and important
chapters in the history of the metropolis. Its
existence commenced on the 9th of last Novem-
ber on which day Judge Bedford, in his now
famous charge, called the attention of its men,
bers to the fact that gross frauds alleged to
have been committed against the city had, up
to that time, remained uninvestigated in a
legal manner; that the parties openly accused
of implication in these crimes had not yet been
brought to reckoning; that it was the
province Of the Grand Jurors to inquire into
all such cases, and to present the guilty with
out respect to persons. When this charge was
delivered committees of citizens, individual
volunteers and the whole press of the city had
been discussing, Investigating, exposing and
denouncing the alleged frauds for four or five
months political factions and ciques had
been specializing upon them for their own ad-
vantage; ambitious ofice-seekers had been
striving to turn the exposures to the useful end
of advancing their own chances of obtaining
comfortable public positions, and Cheap Jack
journals had been blatant over startling dis
closures as a means of selling their worthless
wares. But no practical end had been
reached, or was likely to be reached, other
than the accomplishment of change in the
political complexion of those who held con-
troll over the city government. II was not the
object of the politicians to do more than this,
for the reform they desired was rather
a reformation of the Ring from one set of
pecuators to another than reformation of
the abuses that had crept into the administra-
ton of our municipal affairs. The unwieldy
Committee Of Seventy, all respectable, mainly
honest, in some degree self-interested and
wholly impracticable, was being fooled by the
politicians, and foundering about in sea of
confusing figures, theoretical ideas, worn out
crotchets and wordy addressed, The Cheap
Jack journals were hurting and buster
ing about startling developments, and
scattering broadcast their coarse but
harmless epithets in order to draw
few dollars into their empty pockets. 1t is
trne that civil suit had been commenced
intended to compel some of those who were
supposed to have secured the main share of
the plumber to disgorge their ill-gotten gains;
but the complainants had doubtful standing in
Courts the litigation bid fair to extend over
years the whole amount claimed was but
fraction of the sums unjustly taken from the
public treasury the defendants would scarcely
have felt the loss of the entire sum sought
to be recovered if divided up among
them; and, finally, the city would,
under the most favorable termination
of the suit, have been in the condition of the
two clients who received the shells of the
oyster while the lawyer swallowed the meat.
A Grand Jury had taken up the charges made
in the Cheap Jack papers against Mayor Hall,
but the principal complainant, one of the
Cheap Jack genus, had shown himself as tame
as a witness as he had been blatant as an
accuser, and the complaint was dismissed. SO
when Judge Bedford's Grand Jury met in
November last not single practical result
had been accomplished in the direction
of bringing the alleged frauds to
legal test and the accused parties to
the bar of criminal court for trial. II
remained for an upright, fearless Judge, and an
earnest, resolute and incorruptble Grand
Jury, to sweep away all obstacles of political
scheming legal quibbling, corrupt bargaining
and respectable stupidity, and to bring down
these powerful and wealthy offenders to the
level of the criminal law.
1t is impossible to over-estimate the labors
these twenty-one good and faithful jurymen
have been called upon to perform. AS they
set forth in their address to the Court, they
have been in actual session fifty eight days,
and their work has been slow and tedious,
''for the plots of the conspirators were care
fully and cunningly devised and executed"
They have had prejudice, cunning, detracton
and envy to struggle against, for the Cheap Jack
journals in the first instance assaulted their
honesty and sincerity, and the volunteer
reformers were jealous of their work. 1t has
been charged, among other things, that their
protracted session served to obstruct the trials
of other criminals than those they were labor
ing to detect, and kept the Jails crowded;
but it now appears that they actually
acted upon four hundred aud sixty
four cases, or as many as the regular Grand
Juries would have covered in. the same space
of time. They have triumphed over all diff
ficulties, and they have proved, in the words
of Judge Bedford, that 'there can be found
men of sterling integrity ready and will
ing to lay aside all considerations but
those of duty to the public good"
Their purpose was to do right" and
nothing has heen permitted to turn them
aside from the one honest end they have kept
steadily in view. The good they have accom-