The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1875-10-12
Our New York Letter.
Thr Canal Frauds-New York and ffs
Police Commissieners-City PnuperIsm
The Tweed Decision,


vestigations. The Legislature of last winter
established commission of inquiry into the
canal swindles, the members Of which were
selected by the Governor; then, the Assembly,
being Democratic, created committee to ex
anime into the administration of justice in th
city of New York; and the Senate, being Repub-
lican, authorized a similar inquiry into the op-
erations of the various departments of the
municipal government in the metropolis
The scrutiny into the transactions of the
canal contractors ought to have begun fifteen
or twenty years ago. 1t has been matter OF
common notoriety during all that period that
these men had formed corrupt combination
for the purpose of plundering the state by ex-
cessive charges for work done on the canals
The stories of colusive bids, dishonest meas
urements and all kinds of cheating grew familiar
by iteration. But those were days when official
peculations could be practieed with impunity.
While the Tweeds and Connolleys we're fatten-
ing upon spoils wrung from the helpless tax
payers of the city, Lords and Beldens were
making equal havoc with the treasures of
the State. Anybody who was courageous
enough to denounee either gang was sure 10
encounter the vengeance of both.
The Tweed bandtti came to grief q little
sioner than its rural counterpart but the de-
struction Of the one prepared the way for the
extirpation of the other. The moment their
political power was gone their fate was sealed.
The Canal Ring clung to theirs with desperate
tenacity and managed to hold it till last fall
when they were overpowered in the Demo-
cratic State Convention. They succeeded in
forcing some of their creatures into the legisla-
ture, but not enough to prevent the exposures
of their infamy, which have since been followed
up with such remorseless energy. And now
the ringleaders are casting about for some way
of escape from conviction and punishment Is
felons All the technicaiities and tortuosi-
ties of the law-and they are many-will be in
turn resorted to, to avert the doom which JUS
tice invokes on these hardened criminals.
1t is not safe TO predict that they will re-
ceive the punishment they deserve,
"Plate sin with gold
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks"
but of one thing we may be reasonably sure
stealing can no longer be practiced with the
same license as before, and there is fair ground
| for hope that it has become sufficiently danger
GUS to fall into disuse among men charged with
public trusts.
The Assembly Committee directed its search
mainly into the conduct of the Police Depart
ment and the District Attorneys office. 1t
was an easy matter to find witnesses against
the Police Board, for the kind of people the
Commissioners have to deal with are very apt
to be full of grievances. The old complaints Of
failure to suppress gambling and disorderly
houses constitute the chief counts of the ar
raignment. Probably they are not wholly with
out foundation. 1t is just possible such estab-
ments could be done away with altogether, but
there is no precedent for so hattering q pro-
gress towards millennial goodness in any large
city on the globe. The allegations that they
are sometimes tolerated for a consideration
paid not to the Commissioners but TO their sub
ordinates-are grave enough to require the
most rigid examination. But it happens that
they are made by parties Of such bad character
that their statements are utterly worthless. 1t
is rumored that all the members of the Com
mission have been invited to resign, except
Gen. w. F. Smith, who received his appoint
ment in May, and that in case of their decln-
ing to act upon this delicate suggestion, charges
will be preferred against them. In that event
it is quite likely that Matsell and Disbecker
will be removed "for cause" To be thus dis
placed does not necessarily imply any moral de-
linquency. The Mayor and Governor are the
sole judges of the ''cause," and IL they choose
to sanction the removal on the ground of gen.
eral unsuitableness, it is all the same Matsell
has no friends party-wise or citizen-wise. Dis
becker has identified himself with the Republi-
cans since hs received his appointment from the
late Mayor, but he took the place away from
the candidate supported by the Republicans,
and their acceptance of him was rather q force
put than a pleasure. Voorhees, was also Have
meyers nominee but he is popular and capa-
BILE officer and have no idea that either the
Mayor or Governor wishes to get rid of him.
The overhaulng of the District Attorneys
Office developed nothing to the disadvantage of
that excellent and able official Time was
the incumbent of this important post exercised
great political power through the accumulation
of untried indictments among his archives.
This was notably one of the bulwaIks of the
old Ring. But the accession of Mr.. Phelps was
one of the most substantial fruits of the reforna-
ton which followed the grand uprising of the
peoplein 1871 and he has performed his duties so
aeceptably and uprightly that it will be posi-
tive calamity if the machinery of the Tamma-
ny organization should prove strong enough to
displace him.
The Senate Committee have not made much
headway as yet They have done oae good thing
however, in directing public attention to the
absurd statute which prohibits the employ
ment of penitentiary convicts In mechanical
labor. Many of the penal institutions of the
country are rendered partially or wholly self
sustaining, some of them profitable, by con-
tracts for the work of the inmates. But the
city of New York is not permitted to avail it.
self of this source of revenue, The law express
ly forbids it. Consequently it has to support
thousand or so of able bodied persons who
might be earning their subsistence at least, IL
this ridiculous restriction could be abrogated.
There are 10000 persons exclusively main-
tanned out of the municipal treasury at an
average expense Of $12e per head, iudepend-
emily of the capital invested in the land and
buildings set apart for their occupancy, the in
terest on which would increase the per capita
to quite $500. And besides these there are
81, 900 human beings, on whom tbe pestilent
taint of pauperism has fallen, through their
having sought and received public charity.
This sorrowful enumeration makes no account
of the recipients of aid from the various
benevolent societies which abound in the city
Reckoning the benefciaries of this less huml-
iating form of mendicancy it is not an exsg.
geration to estimate that one twelfth of our
population in the course of the year reach that
depth of destitution which tempts them to So
licit alms.
The theme is not An inviting one. The only
comment have to make on it is that hope as
we'll as believe that our case is exceptional
The tendency of the poor to huddle in large
cities seems incurably fixed, in spite of all the
discomfort to which it subjects them. The
noblest charity to which afluence could devote
itself would be to relieve our overcrowded ten
ement houses, by sending their surplus inmates
tothe green fields of the West, where pure air
and honest work would recruit their bodies and
renew their manhood.
The reversal Of the judgment of Justice
Donohue in the case of Tweed is what every
body anticipated who keeps the run of the
business of the courts. That legal luminary
r.