New-York tribune., 1872-07-20
THE CUSTOM-HOUSE AGAIN.

The minority report of the Senate Custom
house Committee has been long delayed; but
late as il is, it is too important to be over
looked. The investigation was ordered on the
Jath of last December. 1t was clOsed-Or, to
10 more exact, was abandoned untinished-On
the 25th of May. In the last hours of Con-
tress the majority report was suddenly sprung
upon the Committee in manuscript and pre-
sented to the Senate by the Administration
,nembers before the minority could fairly ex-
anime it. Messrs. Bayard and Casserly, who
had followed the whole inquiry with
the closest attention, of course dissent from
the whitewashng report of their colleagues,
ard present a summary of the evidence which
is almost startling, even though 1T Is so Old.
We read again with new amazement the story
Of the Presidents young friend, MIR. Leet, who
came to New-YoIk with that famous letter to
Mr.. Grinnell, and on the strength of it got
the privilege of swindling our merchants
through the General Order business; who ex-
tended his operations under Mr.. Tom Murphy
until lls profits must have been at
least 100000 a year; from whom two inves
tigating committees have tried in vain through
several days examination to obtain true
statement Of the amount of his business and
a sight of his books and whom neither the
remonstrances of the most respectable mer-
chants nor the disclosures of the Patterson
Committee in 1871 could remove from his
post. We read of General Order charges for
less than two days exceeding the whole ocean
freight; of charges six times as high as those
of other bonded warehouses of exactions so
enormous that, in the opinion of Mr.. William
f. Dodge, the port of New York is the most
expensive in the whole world. We read of
regular system of Custom-house bribery, 80
firmly rooted that ship-owners cannot carry
on business without resortng to it. and the
steamship agents are forced to pay regular
salaries to the inspectors who discharge their
vessels We are shown wholesale perjury,
theft, blackmailing, and extorton, and a Gus
tom-house so thoroughly demoralized that an
official witness cOnfesses he "dOes not know
"where to commence refOrms.n Crime is en-
couraged by the system of mOieties and seiz-
ures. Merchants are at the mercy of disrepu-
table special agents with rowing commissions
to examine their books, and monstrous
powers over their private correspondence
and papers. A Collector who does not know
a single detail OF his business, except that in
all emergencies uo InubJ beUu IOr
"Clinch,r devotes his time to the quarrels of
partisan factions, and barters away places in
the Custom-house for delegates to the State
Conventions; while as natural consequence
the bureaus are largely filled by political ad
venturers, the clerkships by broken-down,
drunken. disreputable fellows, whom a lead
ing merchant swears he would not employ in
any capacity whatever, and the lower places
by bruisers, bulies, and pot-house statesmen.
But this is an old story. SO are the politi.
cal ostracsm and corrupt bargain and sale of
which the Custom-hOuse is the Federal head
quarters. The significance of the report of
Messrs. Bayard and Casserly is in the clearness
with which they fix the responsibility for such
q state of things where it belongs. They
speak of the extOrtiODs Of Leet and Stocking
and the scandals of the General Order bust
ness in the following pointed language:
"The VIC consider the facts the less mystery ia
there as to the power that alone upheld them and
their exactons throughout.
"Twce one hundred OF the largest importing and hank
tnghouses OF EewYork demonstrated against the new
General Order system first Collector Grnne and ne,t
TO Collector Murphy.
"As early as May, 1870, Messrs Robinson and Evans,
the Commissioners appointed by the Secretary OF the
Treasury reported IN favor VI the restoration Of the old
General Order system.
the Presdenrs attention to the subject and the strong
necessity of reform-once in October 1870 and again in
the Of ISL Ii tLis greet merchant the Presi.