The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1873-12-23

"
Commissioner and bosom friend was powerless
to save him. Thanks to Judge Daniels, who
came from Buffalo to try the case-to District
ATTORNEY Phelps, the ablest prosecuting officer
New York has ever been blessed with, whose
system of searching scrutiny has kept bad men
off the jury in these Ring trials-and to Wheel
er III. Peckham who has won just renown as q
judcious and capable advocate of the people,
Henry w. Genet who has been in turn member
of Assembly, Clerk of the County and Senator
of the State, who has been one of the leaders
of Democracy in New York, who lived in a
palace, and has continually Haunted his stolen
property in the faces of those whom he des-
poiled, with an effrontery second only to that OF
his associate, confederate and ally Tweed, ex-
changes the toga of the statesmen, for the uni
form of the felon, and will for the first time in
his life be made of some service to the State by
course of productive labor.
There is pow erful moral to be deduced from
this and the recent preceding convictions, which
have overtaken the Tammany criminals. 1t is
that wealth dishonesty acquired, is dearly
bought
Probably every one of these pitiable wretches
ributive justice, has, at some time in his ca
reer of fortuitous prosperity, been the object of
certain sort of envy among his poor ueighbors
or acquaintance, because of his rapid acqusi-
tions. Young men, especially, seeing these be-
Jewelled adventures, glittering in diamonds,
aud rolling in gaudy equipages. and for a long
time not merely untouched by, but utterly de-
faint of, the law, n ay have been tempted to
WOO fortune by criminal practices in the hope
of escaping with equal impunity. Then there
may be mauy who, with too much caution to
place themselves within the ''due and forfeit
of the Law" have nevertheless entertained at some
period of their lives, the dangerous suggestion
to incur the hazard OF losing their good name
for pecuniary gain. But in the awful fate which
has overtaken the gang, which three years ago
held in its grasp the municipality of New York
its property, its courts of law, its executive
and legislative authority, we have a striking il
lustration of the wisdom of the axiom that
honesty is the best policy Only few of the
leaders of the Ring will expate their crimes in
penal servitude. Some are fugitives and out
casts, others will avoid prosecution through an
insufficiency of legal proofs of their guilt, but
all will bear upon their brows perpetual brand
of shame. Their lives will be clouded By the
terrible consciousness that they are objects Of
suspicion and aversion. Their children and
chldren's children will suffer for their mis-
deeds. Occasionally, one of these gorged plum
derers tries to appear indifferent to his badge of
infamy, and to brazen it out by keeping him
self before the public as if there was nothing
wrong about him.
L had occasion in recent letter to call the
attention of your readers to the case of Fernan-
do Wood who is no better than Tweed or Gen
ct, but who having cunningly kept out of the
clutches of the constabulary till his crimes
were Outlawed, now affects national statesman
ship, and has managed, somehow, to secure
recent endorsement from his democratic col
leagues in Congress, though whether at the ex
pense of their morality or their intelligence, or
both is not quite clear. STILL even in his case,
the scarlet letter is always emblazoned on his
forehead, and there must be times when even
he, hardened as he is, would accept poverty
and privation, if with them he could obtain an
unbranded character, 'lost evermore to him."
The great varieties of ways in which these
municipal offenders came to grief deserve
notice and comment. Thirteen years ago, a
Bank President named Platt purchased from
the acting m,-or of the city the Office of
Chamberlain che price he paid for it was
$4,000. Platt had previously borne an ex-
cellent reputation. He was member, aud if
I recollect rightly, deacon of the first Baptist
church. The terms Of the negotiation were
long kept secret, and while most people were
aware that the office could not under that
regime, have been acquired without an equiv
alent, the friends of the new incumbent were
10th to suspect him of an act of such gross
venality as the actual buying of place of
mere emolument. Subsequently, however, an
Investigation unearthed the transaction in all
its CHASTITY corruption. But it proved blight
ing calamity to poor Platt, who at the time
was in partnership-w;th his brother in thriv-
ing jewelry business in Maiden Lane, and in
comfortable circumstances. The Bark by an
improvident use of the city deposits turned
them to loss instead of profit and became in
solvent. Platt lost his Office and was heavy
sufferer by the failure of the Bank. His health
broke down under his accumulated cares and
responsibilities and he never rallied. In 1868
he died. 1t now appears, as the result of legal
proceedings which have been in progress ever
since, that while he was holding the purchased
Office of Chamberlain his brother and copart-
ner in business, conceived the scheme Of de-
priving him of all his property without paying
him one dollar for it, BY undue influence, by
false entries and balances in the partnership
books, by inducements and coercion he pro-
cured the conveyance to himself of many par.
GELS of valuable real estate and all his share of
the partnership property" The executors of
the ex chamberlain have been seeking ever
since through the medium of the Courts to OBJ
tain restitution. They have IN ten years got as
far as decision by the general term of the Su
preme Court, and may within the remaining
twenty-seven years of the present century be
able to reach the final arbitrament of the tri-
bunal of last resort. For though the law is
full of uncertainties there is one sure thing
about it and that is the most tedious delay
A man who expects to survive the simplest
litigation should begin it early in life, give his
whole time to it, and have an unlimited for
tune with which to pursue it. Under these
conditions whichever way it turns he will in
evitably be loser.
] cited the case Of Platt as a marked ex-
ample of the dangers which beset the path to
opulence through improper means. This man
was in the enjoyment of competen ~, had a
reasonably lucrative business, and was held in
good repute by his fellow men. He swerved
from the path of rectitude, compromised HIM
self by fragrant act of bribery, and within
three years, died impoverished, dishonored
and broken hearted Surely gold can be
bought too dear. The unhappy creatures who
did the bidding of the Ring for pelf, and are
now covering beneath the suspended sword of
justice, hesitating between encountering the
terrors of the criminal dock with upright
judges on the bench, or flying in gnominy
from home and country. no doubt bitterly
lament that they ever practiced stealing.
We certainly were In great danger for a
time that rascality would become fashionable.
So many conspicuous rogues paraded them
selves 10 public places, Respondent in stolen
adornments, that society had succeeded already
from endurance to pity, and from pity to adj
miraton, if not embrace 1t was no uncom-
| mon thing to hear it said of some of the most
barefaced of these scoundrels when be had per-
petrated deed in which little cunning was
mingled with his knavery, oh! he is smart