The Tiffin tribune. (Tiffin, Ohio) 1868-1887, 1873-12-18


(wiesI is in the State nv Ky.)
November 26, 1878
The nOoze nv the convickshen Nv
the great Tweed by q corrupt court,
and his sentence to a common peni-
tenshary, by = heartless and mercen-
ary judge / refer TO that modern
Jeffries, the infamous Davis perdUost
pe-fOund sensashen at the Corners.
Deekin Pogram, when he hetTd that
Tweed ned bin convicted Nv plundrin
the Treasury, and he'd been sentenced
/ TO priZn, drawd long sigh aud sed
that our liberties wuZ gone now,
shoor- He didn't know who Tweed
wuZ, but he felt it safe, az & Demo-
krat, to draw y sigh for anybody who
WIZ in limbo fog plundrin 3 public
Treasury. That mans instinks alluz
guide him safely, and his faith hez in
iJ-suthin sublime.
But the nOOze did affect me serious
ly. Ny mind leapt over the past, and
lighted down upon the days when /
wuz the sole proprietor NV the Harp
i Nv Erin S'loon, in the 9th Ward, Moo
York. Oh, them happy days! On,
them hours Nv delite There
wuz na long dry hours, sich as I now
spend, with psTched thruat and shaky
system, waiIin for u friendly invite to
take suthin. No There wuz the bar,
with the glasses onto il, the barrel un-
derneath out Nv wich l drew both
Bourbon aud Rye, ez the customers
wanted It; there wuz my own privit
keg, wich wuz not watered, for my
own privit drinkin-there wuz the
red-hot stove, Lhepipes and the crack
ers, and the back room!
All that back room It wuz there
that we held our cSucusses for our
deestFik. Many time hez the great
Tweed hisself sat in that room
many time hez that great diamond
Nv his flashed its light across that
pine table. In that room Patsy Nc
Gonigle, Dennis O'Shaughnessy, Tom
| McGrath, the Boss and myself, hev
many time and oft arranged our re-
peaters, our fighting committees and
our counters.
myself hev seen the Boss in that
rO I'm make his bargains with his re-
peaters-this one to vote so many
times in that ward, the other to vote
so many in the other, and so on. In
that room the ballot boxes and poll
books used to be brought after the
polls wuz closed, and there we wood
wait till we got the returns from out
Nv town, to see how many votes we
needed to stuff into EN- to carry the
State, and il WuZ q site vouchsafed to
but few men to see that great man
take a peck Of ballots and chuck EN-
into box, and tell Thad. Hamerley
| Yleh Good ,WFits4 to ,PElt tRAIPa noffete
tory.
Boss Tweed wuz not only q great
man, but he wuZ good man and just.
Ishel never forgit that mite when he'd
got four niggers drunk and took em
to the polls myself, and changed the
Republican tickets they intended to
vote, to the Demokratic ticket, and
then took wat money they he'd In their
pockets to pay for extra repeating.
"Nasby," sed he, "yoo are man
I who deserves eneouragfn. Go on ez
700 hev begun end take this"
i And he handed me five clean hun
| dred dollar notes.
taCharge S1OOO," he remarked to his
Sectary, "tO the account NV pawn in
the City Hall square,"
Then l remember when Patsey Nc
Gee wuz seriously hurt in an elecshun
fite. how the Boss took material that
he'd bought for the new Court House,
and took carpenters and briek-lay ers
and masons wich wuz at work for the
city, and built Patsey an elegant little
house on lot he owned up town.
That wuZ arranged in my back-roOm.
And in that same room, Dennis
OShaughnessy, eZ reward fur re.
tpeatin twenty times more than he he'd
agreed to, wuz made Assistant Coun-
sci to the Board for the condemnation
Of private property.
Take this" sed Tweed, "and draw
yer salary promptly"
"But l don't know nothin about
law,U sed Dennis.
"Yoo know enuff to draw yer salary
don't 700, and yoo enuff 10 repeet.
That is enutf for me-"
And Dennis drawd his S., 600 year
up to the very day be wuZ histed.
! But ] can dwell on this theme no
longer. It is too painful. "Joys that
we've tasted" aint good to taste over
agin. There Is bitter in EN-.
A corrupt set NV Republicans and
reereant DimOcrats got after the great
and good Tweed, and down he went,
and with him down we all went The
Harp Of Erin S'loOn became n wreck.
There wuZ no more caueusses held i'll
the back room; them eZ held Offis un-
der him he'd their pay stopped, and
instid uv payin cash for their likker !
herd perpetOoally the disgustin words
"Chalk It down" Then come a cris-
is; l got in debt, and the Sheriff, the
most successful Nv all collectors, got
after me.
Well do / recall back that terrible
night. l knoWed my stock wood be
levied onto the next mOrniu. There
I wuz gallon and half Nv farish lik-
ker left in one bari.
Il "He shel not hev that" muLtered
thro my elenched teeth.
|, And so elosed the door and locked
1t. l closed the blinds and locked 'em
and lightin the last gas burner in the
house, sot me down for my lastrevel,
all alone.
They busted the door open In the
mornin. They found me on the floor,
the crackers gone, the red herrIns
gone, and the last drop nv likker
gone.
Gentlemen" said /, calmly, "you
are welcome to the fourteen empty
boxes, the empty barrel, the glasses
and the portrates nv Jackson, Boo,
kannan and JEFF Davis on the wall. ("
i And | walked out into the street q
roOined man.
But do not mourn eZ one without
hope. Tweed is in prizin, so is IDger-
soil; but Tweedism amt squelehed in
Moo York. John MOrrissey hez taken
bis place, and what Tweed did he
will do. Men change in Tammany,
but Tammany does not. The sperIt
is thare eZ it allUz wuz, and alluZ will
be, so long ez the hsrd-fsted yeoman-
~ from Cork control the elecsbuns.
Il While tear starts to my eye for
the fate Nv Tweed, ] wipe Il up with
the hankercher Nv faith In his success
sor. 'The King is dead. Long live
the King" I kin serve under Nor
sissey ez well ez under Tweed I
shell agin open the Harp NV Erin
Sloon, only Morrissey's pOrtrate will
adorn its walls, insted nv 'rweed's.
So long eZ Demokracy lives, there
will be Tammany, and so long ez
TAmmany is, IL viii hev need NV sich
men ez me- So long ez Democracy
Is run by Tammany, there will be
steelins, and it will 90 hard with me
il / can't git my hand in somewhere.
PETROLEUM V. NAsBY,