Year: 1872

chart the limits and zones within which they


will move. Such result would be of profound


interest to the whole world.


The Importance OF the Municipal


Contest-Who Shall no the Next


Mayor OF New York;


ALI the readers of the HERALD, as intelli-


gent well-informed citizens, will, no doubt,


cast their ballots for municipal officers to-


morrow with full appreciation of the i'm


portant influence the choice of the people in
the present election may have upon the future
interests of the city. We have kept the local
issues of the campaign prominently before the
public for months past, because we believe that
the metropolis is on the turning point of its
history, and that upon the character of the
administration now to be initiated will de-
pend, in great measure, the degree of pros
perity it will reach in the next ten years. We
have faith in the future greatness Of the city
Of New York With the development of the
Asiatic Continent. the settlement of our own
vast territories, the construction of railroads
between the Pacific and the Atlantic, and
the establishment of American lines of
ocean steamships, it must one day
become the central depot of the
worlds commerce and news. One of the
candidates for Mayor, native of New York
and yet young in years, tells us that within
his own remembrance the city has grown from
three hundred thousand inhabitants to over
million, and has stretched out from Fourteenth
street to Harlem Bridge. We cannot believe
that it is in the power of scheming politicians
or Of narrow-minded economists to destroy its
future progress But while misgovernment,
either by corruption or parsimony, cannot
prevent the ful6lment of the grand destiny in
store for the metropolis of the Western
World, it may so retard it that many of the
present generation may fail to share in the
advantages of the general prosperity. At this
particular time vigorous, enterprising and
honorable administration of our municipal
affairs is especially desirable-frst, because
the local government, disorganized by the
revolution of last year, has not recovered that
compactness of responsibility and that har-
mony essential to it's efficiency, and, next, be-
cause we have reached that point when
we must furnish accommodations for our
swelling population or drive away from
among us large amount Of capital and of
valuable busine ess qualities We, therefore,
regard it as matter of self-interest that every
elector who has stake in the prosperity of
the city should cast his vote for whichever
candidate for the Mayoralty he may deem the
hast 1nr11o% %oI ko boz klo
nicipal departments, to push vigorously for
ward those works of public improvement now
under way, as well as those imperatively de-
manded by the public necessities. and to prac-
tise honesty and proper economy in the gov
ernment without suffering his action to be
controlled by personal prejudices or unwise
parsimony. We have kept the charter election
and its issues constantly before the people in
order that these important points might be
properly impressed upon their minds and not
lost sight of in the whirl and turmoil of q
Presidential contest


A great deal of noise has been made during
the last two or three weeks over the old ques-
ton Of municipal reform, but the people are
now sensible to the impositions practised upon
them by those who assume to speak in the
name of the reformers. Last year they were
told before election Of the great services that
would be rendered to the cause of reform if
the republican party should obtain control Of
the State Legislature. Tweed was to be at
once expelled from the Senate; an honest
charter was to be passed for the city; the
whole government was to be reorganized under
honest men, and the official criminals were to
be consigned to the State Prison. Tweed re-
tains his seat in the Senate at the present mo-
ment; the charter was made the football of
the corrupt Assembly and more corrupt Sem
ate and the guilty officials and their fellow
conspirators are laboring politically for
the party that is creating them welr'
and contriving to push over their
trials until "after election" This year
the Committee Of Seventy, impudently assum-
ing to speak for the Independent voters of
the city, have betrayed the cause Of reform by
entering into bargains and intrigues for the
of one of their own body to the
Mayoralty. A number of names were offered
to them early in the campaign for their en-
dorsement. They might probably have OBJ
tanned the valuable services of Mr.. William
Butler Duncan in that Office if they had chosen
to do so; or they might have endorsed Mr.. j.
Grenville Kane, Colonel Henry G. Stebbins or
the great merchant, Alexander T. Stewart
They rejected all these, and when at last Mr.
Abraham r. Lawrence--a candidate whose
capacity and honesty they guaranteed by
striving to induce him to decline the Mayor
atty and accept the Committees nomination
for Judge of the Supreme Court or District
ktfornav-vaa mt into the fia1d NV tha