Year: 1871

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| FrasAs % tho Rizss Tack as Last.


The criminal prosecutions initiated against
the parties alleged to have been implicated In
the frauds committed upon the City Treasury
afford some hope that justice will at length be
done and that the mystery enveloping these
notorious crimes will be cleared away. The
civil suits heretofore instituted in the matter
have not promised any satisfactory results
The well known delays of the law threat
ened to protract the litigation for years; and
even should the most favorable termination
have been reached in the end and the full
amount of the claim set up on behalf of the
people have been recovered from the defend
ants, the demands Of justice would not have
been satisfied. 1t was generally felt by the
people that the mere disagreement of three
million dollars by men who had stolen more
| than five times that amount from the public
treasury would be q mockery Of justice.
Without entertaining any vindiotive feeling
against those who have been recklessly led
into these crimes by the passion for sudden
wealth, our citizens have believed that .





guilty parties was public necessity
in order to deter others from similar viola
tions of trusts in the future 1t was with this
feeling that the charge of Judge Bedford to
the Grand Jury Of the General Sessions call
ing to their attention the duty Of thoroughly
investigating the city frauds was received
with universal favor, and that the action Of
the jury has since been watched with jealous
anxiety. II is in accordance with this senti-
ment, and not from any morbid desire to-
arraign the city officials at criminal bar,
that the arrest and formal commitment of
Tweed and Connolly afford satisfaction to the
people of New York.


From the time of the formation of the Com
mittee of Seventy at the Cooper Institute
meeting there has been danger that the move
ment originally instituted to secure q thorough
municipal reform and to detect and punish the
criminal violation of public trusts might be
perverted to subserve political purposes, and
thus rather injure than benefit the cause Of
good government in the future. AS the
political campaign progressed this appre-
hension was strengthened, and it at last became
evident that the most noisy advocates of
reform were laboring only to transfer the
spoils of Office from one set of adven-
turers to another. For partisan purposes
bargain or alliance was made with the
ex-Comptroller Richard B. Connolly, and the
efforts of the reformers were directed towards
winning victory at the polls rather than to
the detection and punishment of those who
had been guilty of frauds against the munich
pal government. Indiscriminate abuse was
lavished upon prominent men who happened
to be on the side opposed to the self-styled re-
form party, while the worst corruptionists in
the city were taken into the confidence of the
reformcrs, aud in some instances advanced by
them to positions of trust. As soon as cleo
ton was over and the victory was won the
organs of the party that had most profited by
the result set to work to claim its fruits
as all their own, and to belittle the
services rendered in the cause of reform by
those leading democrats to whom the over
throw of Tammany was in reality due. The
attacks that had before election been leveled
at such men as Isaac Bell have been since
election directed against Charles O'Conor,
August Belmont and Samuel ]. Tilden. The
evil of this partisanship has not, however,
been confined to malignant Misrepresentation
of the action of individual citizens. 1t is
felt in the sudden revulsion against any
measures looking to the bona fde in
vestigation of the city frauds and the
punishment of the guilty parties. The evil
dent design Of the politicians, who, having
of the State Legislature, are eager to seize upon
the government of the city Of New York, and
| to appropriate to themselves the spoils that
had so enormously enriched their predeces-
sors, is TO hush up all agitation about munich
| pal corruption, and to suffer the excitement
against the dishonest office-holders to die out.
1t is easy to see that they desire an oppor-
tunity to enrich themselves illegitimately out
| of the public departments, and that they,
therefore, no longer wish to prosecute
criminally the men who have been
engaged in the past three years in defrauding
the city out of millions Of dollars. The very
action of Judge Bedford, which has brought
about the present indictments, has been the
subject of abuse and ridicule in the special
organ Of the political reformers, and our citi-
zens have been assured day after day, not only
that the professed desire to prosecute the
guilty parties was pretence and sham, but
that the offences charged against the unfaith-
ful city officials were Of a vepal character and
probably could not be made the subject of
criminal indictments.


The full and graphic account given else
where in the HERALD of all the details con-
nected with the indictments and arrests will
render our readers familiar with the proceed
ings SO far as they have gone. Tweed is
! caooiaIlz cha NTH falanx in having