The Donaldsonville chief. [volume] (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, 1877-04-28
Our New York Letter.
The Tweed COnfessiOn-Bus
ness TrOubles-Rum-
New YORK, April 81, 1877.

/ said, Tweed. The Boss had made
up his mind to split on his associates,
Hall got wind of it in time, and fitted.
Tweed's expose is curious and in
structive piece of reading. 1t shows
that the plundering of the city and
State was not the growth of time, hut
that it was plot made deliberately
and very carefully worked up as to
detail, and one which required great
deal of skill to carry out. There is
squirming among the politicians and
explanations are the order of the day.
Men who have heretofore stood well
in the community are quietly slipping
away to Europe, and those who stay
are fortifying themselves with proof
to make some sort of show against
the damaging disclosures of the old
man in Ludlow street. Several Re-
publicans are already implicated, and
it is expected that more will be. Tweed
had tools in the Republican camp of
course, for else he could not have got
the legislation at Albany necessary to
carry out his purposes. Twenty mill
lions of dollars were distributed, and
the boss, no more guilty than the
others, has had to bear the brunt of
the whole thing. His share of the
plunder bas been spent in litigation,
he has grown old in dodging prosecu-
ton, and now is a wreck financially
and in reputation, while those who
were his associates in villainy are liv-
ing comfortably and in good odor on
their shares. And what vexes the old
man more than any thing else is that
those who made the most of it are
those Who were the first to turn upon
him. Between his rage and his desire
to get out he is making wild work
among the venal politicians. In an
tieipation of snits to recover, scores of
them are conveying their property to
their wives aud brothers, and scores
ln0re are missing altogether.
New York has long been worried
by the discrimination of the railroads
against it, and now the European
steamers are giving the city twist.
Cargoes are brought cheaper from
Liverpool to Boston, Philadelphia and
Baltimore than to New York. The
reason is plain enough. The great
line west from New York is the Cen
trail, and the Central is managed by
Vanderbilt, and the most pig-headed
of all the Vanderbilts. The Pennsyl-
vania and Baltimore roads combine
with the steamships and agree to carry
to Toledo, Chicago, st. Louis aud
Cincinnati, for less rate of freight
than the Central will, and conse-
quently the freight goes to those cities.
The trouble with New York is it has
NO terminal facilities the city and
its railroads are managed as selfishly
as possible, and are not in the interest
of the city at all. They are run in
the interest of Vanderbilt and his ad-
herents, and they depend upon the
fact that a certain amount of freight
and a certain number of passengers
have no other way of getting into the
city. The other roads are managed
on broader ideas, and the other cities,
better governed and depending more
upon their enterprise than natural
facilities, are taking the trade and
New York is suffering. Its trade is
being pared off here aud sliced off
there, till tho diminution is seriously
felt and occasions alarm.
There is trouble among the rum
sellers. A strict Interpretation of the |
laws makes it impossible for the Ex-
else Commissioners to grant licenses
to any except tavern keepers, and the |
Commissioners in New York and
Brooklyn have resolved to adhere to
the law, and to prosecute all others
selling. Already several hundred suits
have been commenced against liquor
dealers who do not according to the
law keep inns or taverns. The law
is that licenses shall not be granted
to any one who does not keep three
spare beds, with proper bedding, for
the accommodation of guests, which
of course none of the saloons or bars
pretend to do. The law officers will
push it, for they can get their costs
p |