Year: 1875

Of the police to retake him. That, fortu-
nately seems to be humiliation too great
for this city to endure. Tweed must be re-
taken or American justice will be the laugh
ing stock of the world.


The manner in which this malefactor
escaped is described in our local columns,
and the first thought that will occur to every
citizen viii be one Of indignation that our
prison discipline is 50 lax that an escape of the
kind was possible. 1t has been known for a
long while, and the fact has been published
repeatedly, that Tweeds imprisonment in
Ludlow Street Jail was merely nominal
He had the freedom of the city just
like any other citizen. He could drive out
In the morning, with q keeper for his coach
man and warden for his footman, and
dined at his own house, with bailiff for a
butler There was no real attempt to de-
priye him of his liberty, as the law required.
The law But what is the law in New York,
when the criminal is rich? Because Tweed
was rich the Jail was only q lodging house
! to him. and that he inhabited it at all
was simply a prudent compliance with
4 certain formalities. Other criminals could
hardly put their noses through the bars, but
this millionaire of public robber had the
doors of the Jail obsequiously unlocked for
him whenever he chose to order. Justice, in
| fact, was his valet 1t was New York justice,
| however, not the beautiful abstraction whose
existence we believe in upon the theory that
faith is the evidence of things that are not
SEEN


Everything unites to make Tweed's escape
inexcusable. In the first place it was crime
to allow him the freedom which was denied
to other convicts. 1t was to give him every
day the chance of escaping, and there is no
doubt that he could have used it long ago
had he chosen. He had the opportunity Of
consulting fully and freely with his friends;
of arranging his DISCUSSES; of planning his
methods of facilitating his flight in hun
dred ways which would have been impos-
sible had he remained secure in prison. To
yield him his virtual freedom was, therefore,
to put the temptation and the means of
escape perpetually before him. Who could
expect that he would not use this chance
when the time came? And the time had
come His jailers knew that he was to be
tried again on Monday that all his schem-
ing and plotting and bribing had failed,
and that he would 60 into court
without a case, and with almost the certainty
Of irretrievable defeat. This fact, which
should have caused him to he guarded more
jealously than ever, was entirely disregarded.
No extra precautions were taken. He was
driven from the Jail to his house-after dark,
it must also be remembered-and permitted
to remain there alone. Could his keepers be
surprised when they found that he had
gone? Why, they had opened the door of
the cage for the bird, and it was natural that
he should spread his wings and fly.


Another point which darkens the suspi-
cions which must inevitably attend the
escape of so great and wealthy criminal as
William NJ Tweed is this, that his escape
was precisely that of another one of the
| great Tammany thieves-Harry Genet.
| Genet, like Tweed, was driven to his house
by deputy sheriff, asked permission to see
his wife, left the deputy cooling his heels in
the parlor and walked of, too safe to run.
This example, one would think, would





ham and Keeper Hagan when Tweed
made the pretext for leaving them. 1t was
the Harry Genet case over again-a palpable
trick by which an ordinary policeman
would be ashamed to be deceived. Taken
altogether this escape is almost unpar-
a,leled in the annals of clever crime and
stupid justice, and that is saying a great
deal. If Tweed should escape entirely
which seems incredible-the triumph Of the
rogue, the disgrace Of the law, will be per-
feet.


There is still another thought involved in
this nefarious transaction. The escape of
Tweed is the end of the old Tammany Ring.
None Of the men now remain who were once
powerful in this city for good and for evil
except the few who hang around the dark
lantern Know Nothing lodge on Fourteenth
street and follow the fortunes of John Kelly.
All that we have Of ''the old Empire" is lost
in the new Tammany. But its spirit
still lives. The mere satisfaction of hold
ing a felon like Tweed in custody man
who has forfeited not only his power but even
the respect Of those who once served him
is in itself small circumstance. So far as
mere punishment could reach him no one
desired either cruelty or vengeance. He had
fallen from his imperial state his property
had been largely sacrificed in his haste to
carry it away or squandered upon
lawyers and blackmailers, or had gone
to swell the fortunes Of adventures
who were only too glad TO fatten like vam-
pires upon his fallen greatness. His col
leagues in power and his vassals in infamy
are either refugees in foreign lands or in
prison, or they have made terms with Kelly,
or wander about the streets like Garvey and
Ingersoll, not alone criminals, but informers.
The anger which the people Of New York will
feellat the escape Of Tweed, the miscarriage