The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1892-08-02

property inside the city limits and
therefore open to the gaze of the Argus.
eyed tax man. The next heavy tax
[ payers are: The Consolidated Gas Com
pany. 1922, ooo, 900; Mr.. Gould's Manhat-
tan Elevated railroad, $4,000, 600; the
r. and o. Goelet estate, se,670, 900; Lo-
rillard family, s6,55o.oOo; Equitable
Life Insurance Company, $4,000, 900, and
so on up to 100 separate individuals,
estates and firms that own one
eighth of the entire city of New
York, the elevated railroads above
New York and the subways be-
meath New York. This gathering in and
gobbling up, so to speaF is not the
pleasant phase of this topic by any
means, but it is one that we cannot ig-
more. And in all likelihood it is one that
some day in the not very dim and dis
tant future may require serious con-
sideration. The simple everyday desire
and attempt of one man to get possess
ion of and distribute the wealth which
some other fellow has does not seem to
meet the requirements Of the case
'sUnto him that hath shall be given, and
he shall have abundance; but from him
that hath not shall be taken away even
that which he hath" 1t was,not added,
sand may the Lord have mercy on his
soul;' but it might have been. ''Hin
that hath not and is billed to lose even
that ought to have some surety as to
his immortal soul. But this is getting
away from the problem of the centrali-
cation of capital It is, however, a
question that cannot be disposed of in
one paragraph. anyhow.
IN THE AMERICUs CLUB PARLoRs.
Sailing up the sound some days ago
with a party of frieads--and, by the
way, if there is prettier body of water
in the world than Long Island sound I
should like to know where it is located
we rounded in at Indian Harbor.
which is the port Of entry, so to speak,
of Greenwich, Conn. The handsome
summer hotel which stands on beau
tiful and commanding position on the
harbor was at one time the clubhouse
Of the famous Americas club, of which
Tweed in the days of his glory was the
1cCUCI. vi ullS AOOE OIL UllG ul6tll
parlor there is a carpet which was made
for the Americus club more than TWEEN
ty years ago, and which is to-day al
most as bright in its colors as it was
the day it was put down. In the cen
ter of this carpet there is a fowery ring,
in garish red, and beautiful copy of
the Americas badge, which consisted of
@ba %;oa,.c boa5 Tho mama of +l,o o1,,h
is woven in, and the head of the tiger
has the ferocious snarl which distin-
guishes the symbol of Tammany to-
day in the cartoons. One of the
corner rooms now used by the hotel
people was especially fitted up for Boss
Tweed, and here we find the tiger head
of the Americas club carved in wood
on the window fittings and mantel-
pieces. In the Office of the hotel there
is a large photograph of a group of the
Americas gentlemen taken ON the front
piazza of the clubhouse. I studied it
carefully to see whether I could find any
of the potential men of the Tammany
Hall of to-day in the group. There was
not one that I could recognize. The
picture of Tweed in this group is very
good one indeed. At the time it was
taken, some twenty years ago or more,
Mr.. Tweed had not grown stout, and
his beard and hair were still dark. He
had a very benign appearance, and he
is really the only man of character or
consequence in the group. In their
boating costumes and general negligee
these sons of Americas resembled in the
picture very much gang of western
cowboys and plainsmen. If l had had
with me on this occasion some of the
local politicians whose memories go
back thirty years, they could doubtless
have pointed out the various members
of this group who, after looting the
city for years, died in exile. in
prison or in distress. One has
but to stand here upon this spot,
contemplating Mr.. Tweed and his band
of freebooters, to understand something
of the mutation of politics, and the
natural inquiry arises in the mind: SIS
history to repeat itself in New York;"
To saunter through this great hotel
parlor, resting the eye occasionally on
the tigers head of the Americas club,
is to be reminded of Thomas Mast, the
artist, who very justly claims to have
fastened upon Tammany and it's cohorts
the symbol of the fierce tiger. Mast
and his pencil were great factors in the
overthrow of the Tweed ring, back in
the seventies, and the whole country
became pretty well familiarized with
the beast of the jungles which he intro
duced into our politics. It is there to-
day. Speaking of Mast, saw him
standing abstractly on the corner of
Twenty seventh street and Broadway
the other morning, as though waiting
for an inspiration or a street car He
is beginning to show his age very much.
His hair and his Vandyke beard are
tinged with that shade of gray which
indicates an early poisoning into the
snowy white of old age. Aside from
some sporadic cartoon work which he
does he is concentrating his energies
upon weekly newspaper here which his
son is publishing. 1t is rampant free
trade organ, and, of course, highly mug
in it's attributes. Mast has re-
vived an interest in himself through the
cartoon contest which he is carrying on
with the well-known artist, Baron de