Year: 1876




NJ Tweed. statesman, presents his compli-
ments to the people of New York. He begs
to say that husks are wretched food for n
man who has dined at the Amcricus Club.
The taverns of Santiago, though conducted
on the European plan,' he found less COM
Portable than the Sheriffs accommodations
in New York. The rocks on which he was
landed on the Cuban coast seemed to him
harder than the chairs on Blackwells s
Island. The Spanish flea he regards rs the
determined enemy of the Tammany Society.
He returns to his native shores sadder and
somewhat thinner, if not a wiser man and
after many wanderings and vicissitudes he
hailed the sight of Sandy Hook as the
promise at least Of decent dinner.


Mr. Tweed begs to inform his friends in
New York that o somewhat varied experience
has impressed upon him the truth Of a neg
lected proverb, ''Be virtuous and you will
be happy" He has come to an age and
figure when the practice of strict honesty
seems to him desirable. Once he thought of
having monument erected to himself in
New York. Now he prefers cell in Ludlow
street to either Santiago Vigo or the Allan
tic Ocean. There may be JOY in travelling
and instruction in seeing the world. but as
for him, give him New York


Here we must stop Mr. Tweed. We can
not give him New York. He had it once,
and he made mess Of it. Instead of giving
him New York our advice to Mr. Tweed is
to give back to the city treasury the immense
sum he stole from it. If this should seem
much to ask Of him we may tell him that it
is after all very little. He cannot give
back the public opinion he depraved
by his bad example; he cannot by
any possible restitution redeem us from
the corruption he brought into our local
politics; he cannot by long life Of repent
ance and virtue, if such were possible to
him, make up for the misery his wasteiul
career has imposed upon the industrious
poor of New York; for the heavy debt which
burdens our taxpayers; for the mismanage-
ment of city affairs from which we have not
yet recovered for the corruption of public
and private morals to which his vicious
career gave rise; for the misgovernment of
which he was the main cause and which
sapped the prosperity and even threatened
the commercial supremacy of the city which,
as it was his birthplace, should have been to
him sacred.


Tweeds bad career should teach our ambi-
tious young men that on the whole honesty
is the best policy. 1t would be badly ar
ranged world if this were not true. A
career of successful and truculent vice like
those of Tweed and Fix does its greatest
evil not in the robberies it involves, but in
the lesson of wickedness which it teaches to
the young men who see it These mems
greatest crime was that by their lives they
struck blow at social morals. But their
fate may warn men against undue haste
to be rich. Fisk, shot down like dog;
Tweed wretched wanderer and fugitive,
like Cain, concealing himself from the faces
of men, and now brought home to disgrace
and the contempt of the city he robbed
these are spectacles which may warn
men that moderate and honest living.
fidelity to trust, and a preference of honor
to ill-gotten wealth are after all sound rules
for the conduct Of life.