New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1873-12-30


somebody from deposit in bank The same
report says further. "that it was the constant
practice of somebody. during the whole OF
Mr. Spragues term OF office, to use
for outside and wholly unauthorized
purposes and for various periods large sums
" of the public money! Within a month after
this abstraction by somebody" had begun.
the sum thus feloniously retained aggregated
S3la4S9 30. Mr.. Warren does not say who
this somebody was; he desgnates such
persons as the managers of tho Retained
4" Fund.- and stops short in his inquiries,
although he says it would be simple
matter to discover who the thieves were
by an examination of the bank accounts
He was rot ordered to make this inquiry by
Mayor Controller Common Council, or
District Attorney, each of whom had
power to do so. Now the people Oh
Brooklyn put Mr.. Britton on guard
against Just such persons and expected him
to act upon just such hints and information
They demand that these persons shall be ex-
posed and indicted; Mr.. Britton' dares not do
it, He has already accepted as States EVIL
dence the man who is known TO have
been the instrument of the wrOng-doers,
and has arrested the City Treasurer
who permitted the frauds by negligence
or design, on an indictment so loosely
drawn that a new one has been found
necessary. There is no possible chance
of discovering these men as long as Mr..
BrittOn remains where he is, for they
are of the party and the Ring that by fraud
made him District Attorney. The legal eVl-
dence which would indct these SOmebodies"
the Reformers of Brooklyn are deprived OF by
the very fact of Mr.. Britton's presence In the
District Attorneys office.
Mr.. BrittOn was elected by fraudulent
vote, and the legal proof of that fraud was In
his office before he went into it. A Commit
tee of RefOrmers spent $4,000 in collecting
that evidence; they furnished the District
Attorney then in Office, Mr.. s. ID. Morris, with
an assistant, A. c. Davis. and in month and
half these two indicted twenty-four of
the men who had perpetrated these cleo
ton frauds, convicted five of them,
and drove several others to seek safety in
flight. Not one of the others was tried by
BrittOn after he came into office; those who
had fled returned the day BrittOn was IN
stalled, and have been about the Courthouse
unmolested ever since. During the investiga-
ton lately closed, Britton plead that he was
ignorant of their presence, but it was shown
that he was repeatedly informed by the police
that they had in charge the very men for
whom he had bench warrants covered with
dust in his Office. During the investigation,
two of the same men were actually In the
courtroom, yet they remain to this day I'M
disturbed except by the prospect of the re-
| mOval OF the man who has thus long protected
| them.
| Now these men did not stuff the ballot
boxes as matter of sport, and they did not
do it without suggestion or reward. Some
body" instigated their crime and paid them
for doing it, WhO7 That is what the Re-
formers insist on knowing. and which they
can never know while Mr.. BrittOn is in office,
| for he profted by the crime and dares not
expose the criminals.