Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1898-04-30
OUR NEW YORK LETTER.
SPECIAL CORRESPONDENTS. |

SPECIAL CORRESPONDENCE.
The irritability OF Mayor Van Wyck
of this city woald he amusing if it
were not troublesome to those having
business to transact with him. Things
seem to go 'contrawise" with him
with the greatest regularity. He is
William the Testy, spread over q
much greater territory, and in con-
tact with much larger interests
Every day he runs up against u great
batch OF grievances. tha latest being
the new primary law passed by the
last Legislature. In the board of
estimate the other day he denounced
it in good set terms, because to
carry out its provisions there was II
demand upon the city for nearly
S20S, 900, sum which his honor de
clared it infamous to ask the city to pay
when it was already "on the verge OF
bankruptcy. And he further made his
moan" in this fashion: ~ want the
corporation counsel to examine this
matter with the utmost care, to try
and discover il there is not Il plan
somewhere by which this horrible
bargain between the two Republican
factions can be absolutely destroyed
and swept away. They have been per-
mitted to pay their debts and purchase
peace between themselves by digging
into the city treasury. New York
has almost been made bankrupt by
reform mugwumps, and we are left to
save the city from them In spite
of the Bankruptcy shrek, which
seems very imprudent coming from the
city executive himself. it is evident
that the "reform mugwumps' trouble
him more than the $208, 900. The
primary law was one of the best bits
of work performed by the New York
Legislature last winter, and one of the
most creditable to Governor Black,
but, according to the Van Wyckian
standards, it seems IL waste of good
money to put any OF it out into setting
up purer system OF elections. Tam
many has never felt the need of this,
and can always find way to spend
available thousands without applying
them to any such purpose.
A magistrate here has set all ex-
ample which teaches that those who
administer the law should be fore
most in it's service and unquestioning
in it's obedience. The magistrate is
a bicyclist, which speaks well for his
judgment in knowing a good thing
when he sees it, and which augurs
we'll for his healthy and clear headed
Judgment upon the local bench.
In wheeling some of his leisure
hours away, this official clothed in
knickerbocker that did not reveal the
majesty of his position, chanced to be
upon the wrong side of the boulevard.
A bicycle policeman ordered him to 60
upon the other side. The magistrate,
incognito, promptly obeyed. Not
many days afterward, the same bicycle
policeman arraigned before the same
magistrate prisoner. The offense of
this captive was the same, indeed, as
had been that of the magistrate. The
prisoner had been riding on the wrong
side of the boulevard. Warned by the
policeman to obey the ordinance and
wheel over to the right side, he had
refused. Hence his arrest. His excuse
was one Of gallantry, being that he
was escorting a young woman who
had nervous antipathy to crossing
car tracks. But the excuse did not
avail before the bar of Justice. But
the point of this trivial local incident
is of wide Importance. The prisoner
was fined, not because he was wheel
ing on the wrong side Of the boule-
vard, but because he refused to 60 to
the right side when told. SO to do by
the representative of the law. 1t was
not his inadvertence but his obstinacy
that led to his punishment. Thus did
the magistrate not only demonstrate
his own obeisance to the majesty of
the law but his ready inhiction OF its
pains and penalties upon those who,
unlike himself, persist in defiance of
its orderly command.
That politics is the curse of good
city government is emphasized by the
soandalous revelations of the doings
of the Platt ringsters in Brooklyn.
The accusations run the whole gamut
of criminal offense, from petty pilfer-
ing to murder and include the men
upon whom Platt and Quigg relied
last fall to thwart the movement
for hone est and independent city admin
istration. The voters who through
mistaken party zeal fell into the
trap set by these politicians will know
better now than they did then why
these party "leaders" were willing to
ignore Republican platform pledges
and sacrifice Republican future rather
than have any but Organization" men
elected to Office. 1t seems to have
been a question with them between
prison bars or Tammany triumph, and
now they have both.
What's this? A regiment of soldiers
recruited in Wall street? Such an
as this are calculated to
take the wind out of the lingo sails
and make the vehement diatribes di-
rected against sorid plutocracy out of
date. Probably it is safe to say that
the response to the call for men, as
we'll as for the other sinews of war,
will be quite as prompt in Wall street,
and as substantial, as it will be in the
ranks of jingoism. In fact it is not
unlikely that it will be even more so.
Those who shout loudest for war are
not always the bravest or the readiest
warriors. The best fighters are those
who put on their war paint only when
It has become actually necessary.
Another sadder, but wiser, man
IS suing New York matrimonial bu-
reau for having failed to secure for
him a $40, 900 wife after he had put
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