Year: 1866

From the New York Express.l


The Government is selling out cheap, very
cheap, dog cheap, so very cheap, indeed, as
often 10 indicate connivance between buy
ers Thus we read that not long since, one
of those whosesale buyers returned from an
expedition to a Southern city, where he
and five others had inst bought four thou
sand tons of shell at one cent per pound, and
we read also that


"They had purchased other stores at
equally nominal prices, and were quite con-
fident they had done 50 well by Government
that Government would transport their shell
and stores to Boston free of freight~


These are rather startling facts, but they
are in perfect accord with the peoples mas
ters during the five years past. But to go
OF with the record of Government sales,
which include millions of blankets, still
unbroken from the bale thousands Of tons
of uncut camp canvas; thousands of tons of
iron, copper, tin, lead, shot, shell; almost
unknown quantities Of cloth, shoddy, leather,
harness. powder laboratory stores, chemi-
Gals, and indeed everything that could be
used, and much that could not, by any pos
sibility, be used in war"


1t is believed that of these packages just
as they came from contractors, there was on
hand a sufficient quantity in April last to
carry on a var with the combined armies of
Europe for five years. And why? Simply
TO favor party sets who fattened upon the
war, and to control State elections by means
of the patronage upon manufacturing towns.


1t was by such agencies as these that town
and State elections were carried during the
war, and that Gen. Mcclellan was defeated
in 1864 The World, commenting upon
these facts, says:


'The probability is that Englandor or France
would have carried on our war, effecting all
that we did in half the time, and at one
fourth the cost. But as more than one prom
inent Radical publicly pronounced during
the progress of the rebellion, The war is
now the great business of the country The
almost incompatible amount of accumu-
lated goods which the Government is now
peddling out and giving away, shows one Of
two things--either that the Radicals collect
ed these stores for the sake of swindling the
people and enriching themselves, or else
that they were deliberately preparing to
make the war the business of the country
for twenty or thirty years to come. Either
alternative is frightful, but one or the other
is a fact"


HOW IT Is DONE.


There is one set of men from Massachu-
sets alone who have followed these sales
from Washington to New Orleans, and who
have made enormous sums from their lucky
purchases. They carry considerable capital
with them; they buy large lots with a bold
ness that frightens away all attempts at
competition, and they suffer the lot to be
knocked down to one bidder, whom they are
very careful not to bid against, and who is
quite as careful to divide his purchase with
his silent partners.


The Government sells to-day 10000 bot
ties of hospital whisky, and $4,000 bottles
of wine, with large quantities of arrow-root,
cocoa, farina and other stores no longerneeded
for the army. Those who have charge of
these sales continue to give notice of them
in mere partisan presses, and therefore it is
no wonder that the public at large know so
little of what is going on,