Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1879-04-19
PLEASE EMPLOY BEAREn..
How Things Were Done Last Fall
ia the Brooklyn Board
ORC City Works. ~
n. v. World.

The trial of John w. FIaherty
and George @. Bennett, the indict-
ed majority of the Brooklyn Board
of City Works, and of Peter Milne,
Water Purveyor, was begun i'm the
Brooklyn City Court yesterday, Gen
eral Tracy assisting in the prOsecu-
tion and Messrs Jesse johnson and
Ira Shafer appearing for the defen-
dants. In opening the case, 6fener-
al Tracy said that the people had
learned recently to look to the
Grand Jury for relief from official
corruption, and intimated that this
was a case to be classed with certain
Others recently made notorious.
They should attempt to show, he
said, that the majority of the Board
of Works, being desirous to contin-
ue in office, had used their Office to
secure the election in 1878 of a Board
of Aldermen which would reject Ma
jor HowelI's nominations of their
successors. In that fall he said the
Bureau of Sewers was so crowded
with sinecurists that for, September,
October and November its expendi-
lures were raised five-fold over those
of 1877. Certain sewers were cleaned
by contract for $4,000 and men
were paid $3.50 to see the work
done. Extraordinary repairs We're
concentrated on those months till
the engineer said TO one of the fire.
men:
"Why, great heaven what are
you doing with all these men +? Get
them out of the WaV.''
A man who had never seen q
sewer was appointed foreman of the
River Street sewer, where nothing
was done and $4,000 spent and where
there was already Il "Superinten-
dent" and he did no work and
drew pay for it. The board eX-
changed contract pipe-laying at %
cents for days work pipe-laying at
58@ cents. Hundreds of men were
employed of whom the President of
the board had no knowledge until
the pay-rolls came in. Mr.. Tracy
read notes from Commissioner Ben
nett to superintendent of Sewers
Dady, asking to nave place found
for VIM. Hasburee "and oblige."
"Will you please employ Joseph
Scott ?'' Mote by Mr.. Dady "To
be employed for Aitken"-candi-
date for Alderman.) Scan you sug-
gest place for Lewis Lewis ?'' 81
want Daniel Springstein's salary adj
vanced." "We have a man in the
Eighteenth Ward whom it is very
desirable that we should place. Our
friend Lindsey will tell you all
about him." Then there came notes
from Mr.. Flaherty to Dady:
Please employ Edward penehue for Mr.,
: Please employ Thomas McClancy for AL
derInan Baird,
Please employ Charles McCann as per-
Please employ the bearer for Alderman
AitlIen. / suppose this is political.
Please EMPLOY the bearcr, John Walker,
until after the election,
please employ Martin Haies and John
Roankes until after the election.
Please put this man TO work for Daniel
O'Reilly.
Please employ John Brosnan for Alder
man Aitken.
laborer in your department at 81 80 per day. |
His arm il broken and you Will have togiYe !
him something easy to do. lie Is friend
of Alderman Aitken.
Please employ the bearer, Joshua Wallace. |
Let him go around as much as You can, be-
cause he is appointed Cor political services.
Much laughter greeted these last
productions. In the afternoon Pres
ident Massey was called as wit
ness, but most of the time was ta-
ken up by counsel in arguments up
on the admission of certain evil
dence. Judge Nelson ruled that
the counsel could not go back of the
defendants term of Office.