The Portland daily press., 1872-05-03

loo per pound. s -
Most of the people that we meet with are for
annexation, and particularly those OF the farm
ing districts
Our New York Letter.
The yeto of the proposed charter-1he char
ter a good one-The Tansmany thieves stall
to rule Nep York-Many good results from
the fight Of Nooe,nber-The contest to be
continued ~,
n e'.-ff NEW YORK May LIST, 1872.
Gov. Hoffman's veto of the New Charter
was expected and therefore occasion ed no
surprise to the frieuds of municipal reform.
But the extraordinary vote ofthe State Assembly
sustaining the veto was piece of self-stultif-
cation, which it seemed incredible that any
legislative body should commit unless it were
in state of absolute idiocy. II requires
great deal of establishment for man who
voted for measure few weeks ago, to get
up and declare that he never was in favor of
it, never believed in its constitutionality and
should rejoice in its defeat. But several of
those Albanian lawgivers did exactly that
thing and l presume they didn't blush, as
blushing is not common among New York
legislators.
The Charter was one of the most elaborate,
well digested and careful papers that has ever
been suggested as the organic law of our
municipality. 1t is the work of fifteen gen.
tlemen of various professions and large expe-
rience in affairs, who have studied our local
situation diligently and, had a meaning and
purpose in every section and paragraph of
the charter. 1t might have been liable to the
objection of intricacy and want of simplicity.
Very possibly some time would have elapsed
before it could have been put in such working
order, as to have insured ease and harmony in
the action of the machinery. The cumulative
voting system especially seems very hard to
be understood by the mass of the community,
just. tat
The most urgent attack upon it has been
on the question of its constitutionality.
Somehow or other every thing that is
GOOD is AND ALWAYS HAS BEEN UNCoNsTI-
TUTIoNAL.
You recollect in the old days of slavery those,
of us who sought to extirpate it as the 'Fsum
of all villainies" were met with the eonclu-
sive obstacle of the Constitution. 1t acas
constitutional to catch runaway negroes, but
unconstitutional to legislate freedom into the
territories-to coerce the South-to enlist
black men in the war or to proclaim freedom
throughout the land. All these things, you
know, were just SO many death blows struck
at that sacred instrument. Yet they were
all done; the constitution survived them,
thrived under them, and became vastly better
because of them. And that's why I never
get disturbed about a measure, simply because
lawyers pronounce it unconstitutional.
The failure of the Charter leaves in office
all the followers of Tweed except the few who
resigned for very shame's sake, as did Tweed
himself and his direct accomplices Sweeney
and Connolly. Hall remains. So do Tom
Field, and Richard O'Gorman. The Tax
Commissioners, the Police Commissioners,
the Commissioner of Charities and Correc-
ton, the Dock Commissioners, with all their
retainers continue to exercise all the func-
tions with which they were invested by the
Tweed charter and in the discharge of which
they acted in such perfect harmony with
their Chief. A great many of them are Tor
were) Republicans.
SOME OF THEM ARE IN CINCINNATI NOW :
engaged in a laudable effort to purge the Re-
publican party of all corrupt or extravagant
officers. They know what corruption is.
Thus inconsequent, through the imbecility
or treachery of the Legislature, has been the
great uprising of November. True we have
gained much. An honest man supplants a
monster thief in the guardianship of the
Treasury, and thus plumber is in measure
stopped The conspirators who were de-
pleting the exchequer by forging bills against
the city have been scattered. aves
TWEED AND SWEENEY WEAR A BRAND OF
compared with which Gains must have been
a crown. One unjust Judge seeks to escape
punishment by resignation, and the others
are quailing with fear, that they cannot bride
their way clear of impeachment. Public SEN
timent has been quickened into such health
full action that official peculation will no lon
ger find the liberation it has enjoyed in this
city for eighteen years. Still we fall short of
the true measure of reform to which the vic
tory of last autumn entitled us. s.s<.t
ANOTHER CAMPAIGN AGAINST RING COR
must be fought. Whether it will be under
some other leadership, is a question not
yet fully determined. Some of the most dis
interested, earnest and efficient members of
that body, desire to resign their work into
fresh hands. They have had eight months
of hard and unrecompensed labor, and they
are tired of it. Still it would scarcely
be manly to retire just after reverse and so
suppose the committee will continue its or
ganization and make vigorous effort to rally
the people next fall to an emphatic assertion
of their rights. Possibly the Legislature may
displace the Mayor by special enactment, in
which case the contest will come off this
spring. But come, when it may, it will
solve the vexed problem, of the capacity of
the people of New York city for self-govern-
ment. They certainly never have evinced
any great capability in that line, unless we
except the convulsive effort oflast year, but
am SO unwilling to abandon the theory of
selfgovernment that I am disposed to see the
experiment tried once more, and under cir
cumstances which will leave no doubt, when
the result is declared, of the qualifications of
our electors. YARMOUTH