Year: 1872

The Legislature cannot afford TO ignore Ol
neglect any longer the claims of the Bar OF


this City to be relieved of the corrupt Judi.


ciary Ring which hampers justice and makes
the law mOckery. 1t has been memorializcd
| on the subject, and charges have been made
which would have justified immediate general


inquiry into the notorious iniquity; but the


answer was returned that specific charges


must be made against particular men. Confident
| in the truth of what they urge, the Committee
has named two of the Judges against whom pro-


ceedings are urged, and the Legislature must
| now take cOgnlzance and afford an impartial
| hearing. The two men named are perhaps the
most corrupt men who have disgraced the


bench of any country for years, and the facts
| regarding them which have been collected are
we are assured, enough to condemn them be-


fore any impartial jury. The Attorney Gene


raj and the Committee of the Association will


urge these charges upon the Legislature at an


early day, and we hope with entire success.
Meantime their legal brethren and the pub


lie, whose interests and rights are involved
in this struggle with the Judiciary Ring,
should not remain idle. The call for public


meeting, heretofore noticed in these columns,


to urge prompt action on the Legislature, was


not made one moment too soon, and the meet


ing should be held. Reform has swept from


their places of power the men who controlled


the finances of the city for their own benefit


and the peoples loss but far the most cor


rupt and at the same time the most danger


Gus of the public enemies still remain in au-


thOrity. Tweed and Connolly and others of


the Tammany Ring have been deposed from
Office but that power of the Courts which,
corrupty used, enabled them to practice their
yillainy so long undisturbed, still holds out its
protecting hand to shield them from the pun
ishment so well merited. The will of the peo-
pie expressed il the November election will
not have been accomplished until this last
power is broken too.


During the progress of this work of reform,
the men who constitute the Judicial Ring of
this city have prostituted the spirit and the
very forms of law to protect their deposcd
brethren of the Tammany Ring. When Tweed
was arrested on criminal charge, Judge
Barnard accepted merely nominal bail and
afterward, in the civil suit against him, Judge
CardOzo accepted as bail the proceeds of the
very thefts which formed the basis of the
suit, and thus turned him loose to plot, and
scheme, and SOW corruption in the new-plowed
fields. THUS, too, at the outset of the movement,
Judge Barnard, through q corrupt bargain
granted the Foley injunction against the thiev-
ing Controller that the Ring might deposo
him. When Connolly by another bargain de-
feated this scheme, Barnard as quickly re-
luced that injunction to naught. And so, too,
Judge Inghham. in the interests of the same
Ring, extended from time to time the session
,f the Grand Jury of the Oyer and Terminer,
Who would not proceed against the public rob-
,ers, to interfere with the action of the Gen.
raj Sessions Grand Jury, which had given
violence of its honest disposition.


Thus these three men, whether holding sep
rate courts or sitting together ut General
Term, exert an evil influence which is felt by
very man, woman and child in the comma.