Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1883-05-17
THE VALUE OF A NEW YORK Law
YER'5 CHEEK.

As the story goes, the Checklist
thing TO descend to slang-on record,
up to a recent date, was the act of
the city that sits by the sea, few years
ago, when it cut street through hill
and assessed the adjacent property for the
cost The lots left in mid-air by the ex-
cavation not realizing enough to satisfy
the assessment, the city sued the owners,
and asked for Judgment for the balance,
thus taking the whole property and de-
manding round sum for the privilege of
past ownership. Assuming this story to be
true, the city has been paid in her own
coin. The great wheel Of time brings
about its revsnges, and the unlucky lot
owners on the hill in San Francisco have
the consolation of knowing that some one
has {" got even with their rulers at last
Whole volumes OF slang, and vocabularies
of adiectives, have been exhausted to ex-
press the sublimity of cheek in individual
cases, but no language, no imagery, no de-
grees OF comparison can do justice to the
cheek of Mr.. Ward, attorney-at-law,
New York City. His audaoity overshad-
ows all previous effrontery; his brass
suggests dreams of colossal metallic
plates, fashioned after the man
ner OF the countenance OF Mr.. Ward /;
his I" front stands supremely triumphant
in its towering grandeur among all the
daisies" of the human superlatives of
cake.takers )" he has put market value
upon " cheek that makes all other ope-
rators in that line green with envy. In
the troublous times, San Francisco, in fear
of rebel cruisers, besought the Govern
ment to send her monitor to guard the
Golden Gate. 1t came stored in the hold
of wooden ship, and great was the re-
ioicing when that vessel was signaled. But
the ship soon after reaching its wharf
sank, and the steel plates and ribs in her
hold were buried in the mud beneath
twenty feet of salt water. The sunken
property was insured against accidents in
fourteen companies. San Francisco pledged
her credit for ST., 666 63, raised the money
necessary to raise the ship, and in due time
the Comsnche monitor was brought to the
surface, and the rebels were defed. The
money was paid to the contractors, who
assigned the policies to the city as collst-
erals for its repayment. About 1869 San
Francisco passed the policies over to one of
the contractors that he might collect from
the companies, and he in turn placed them
in the hands of Mr.. Ward, attorney, New
York City, paying him liberal retainer at
the time. There the matter has slum.
bered, disturbed by one or two nervous
attempts meanwhile on the part of Ward
to make show of doing something.
Shamed by the darkness of her unlighsed
streets and the gloomy brows of her half.
paid police, the city lately bestirred her.
self about this reserve, which would go
far toward relieving the depression of en-.
forced municipal economy. The Mayor was
stirred up by the Supervisors, he awak-
ened the contractor, who in turn reused
up Mr.. Ward, and demanded an account
ing. And now Mr.. Ward, with 4 prompt
ness never to be forgotten, has reported.
He had for ten long years been laboring
to collect the ST.. 900. He was resisted
by the companies; he was compelled to
put men of straw into the case that he
might have something to knock over. He
travelled 5000 miles TO get pass-book to
be used to prove the facts, and when,
after superhumsn efforts, he got it beforsJ