The New York Herald Newspaper, February 1, 1872, Page 6

ae 6 NEW YORK HERALD BROADWAY AND ANN STREET. JAMES GORDON BENNETT, PROPRIETOR, No. 32 "AMUSEMENTS THIS EVENING. BOWERY THEATRE, Bowe: A Huspanp at Sicut. Mati TREETS OF NEW YORK— ST, JAMES’ THEATRE, Twenty-eighth street and Broad- ‘way.—MONALDIL. OLYMPIC THEATRE, broadway.—TuE BALLeT PAN- TOMIME OF Hurry Duxrrty, AIMER’S OPERA BOUFFE, No. 720 Broadway.—La PERICHOLE. BOOTH'S THEATRE, Tweaty-third st., corner Sixth av. — JULIUS CaSaR, FIFTR AVENUE THSAT! Tux New Deana ov Divoner. Twonty-fourth street. — GRAND OPERA HOUSE, corner of Sth ay. and 23d sh EUROPEAN LiproriRaTRICAaL COMPANY, WOOD'S MUSEUM, Broadway, corner 30th st, —Performe ances afternoon and evening.—ON HAND. WALLACE’S THEATRE, Broadway and 13th street. — Joun Gartu. NIBLO'S GARDEN, Broadway, between Prince and Houston streets.—BLAaokx CRovk. MRS. F. B. CONWAY'S BROOKLYN THEATRE.— Man any Wirr, THEATRE COMIQUE, 514 Broadway.—Couto VooaL- 18MB, NEGRO ACTS, &c.—-NEW You«K 1N 1571. UNION SQUARE THEATRE, Fourteenth st. and Broad way.—NEGHO AOTS-BURLESQUR, BALLET, 40. Matinee, THIRTY-FOURTH STREET THEATRE, oear Third ave- nue.—VARIETY ENTERTAINMENT. TONY PASTOR'S OPERA HOUSE. No. 201 Bowery. — NEGRO ECceNTRIGITIRG, BURLESQUES, &C. BRYANT'S NEW OPERA Ki and 7th avs.-KaYant’s Mins’ OSB, 34 at, between 6th RLS SAN FRANCISCO MINSTREL MAL! Bi ~_ Tun San FLANowoo Minernars. "1 5% Broadway. . PAVILION, No, 683 —— Ea jo. Broadway,—Tng Vienna Lavy On- ST. PETER'S HALL, West Twentieth strect.—AN EVEN- ING WITH DICKENS. NEW YORK CIRCUS, Fourteonta sro THE Func, Aczobats, £0. miata DR, KAHN’S ANATOMICAL MU: . — tga birealy SEU M, 745 Broadway. NEW YORK MUSEUM OF ANAT — UB deg Ad ol ‘OMY, C18 Broadway.. TRIPLE SHEET. Now York, Thursday, Vebruary 1 1872. ————— a CONTENTS OF TO-DAY’S GERALD. PaGE. | Advertisements. Adveruusements. suington pt Cox on the Secretary and he Syndic zachary Chandler wa Soaring Mood; The Amnesty “Debate in e Senate; Arizona and as—AWware by the United States and Wrist Mixed Commission—Jersey'’s Great “Lear” Vase: Second Day of the ‘rial at New Bruns- Wick; Another Crowded Court and Another Edition of the strange Storv—Ovituary—New York City News—Raliroad Smash-up in Newark—North Carolina Legislature—Miscel- laneous Telegrams. 4-Our City Charters: How New York Has Beon Goveraed for Two and a Quarter Venturies; the Original Struggle tor Burgher Freedom; the Two Chasers ew Amsterdam; the First. English, or oll's! ter; the “Benckes & Evertsen” and soloe"? Char: ters of New Orange; Andros” the “Dongan,” the “Queen An and the “Mont. gomerie” Charters; ihe Five American Char- ters; Charter Conventions of and 1346; Popular Votes on the Amendments in 1824, 1820, 1546, 1849 Bud 1853; the ejected Char- ter of 1846; Complete Municipal History of the Empire City. G—Our City Carters (Contt from Fourth Page)—«1 he all Is Up:? ndtd Skating at Cenurai Park; 100,000 ple on Skates; Skating in Brooklyn—Literary Chit-Chat—Art Matters—Music and the Draima—All About a Bull's Head—Mnnicipat nents—Large Sale of Coal ‘oad Mortu: ary Statists New Jersey Legislature—A ¥ 6—Editorials: Leading Article, “Our New York Commune and Its End—The New Rings at a Albany—Reform Does Not ean Destruc- tion” —Amusement Announcements, F—Edltorials (Continued from Sixth Page)—Tne War in Mexico: Cortina’s Forces F ed by the Kevolutionists Under Quirog: ‘a; Matamoros Menaced; Juarez’s Troops in a Desperate Co! dition—Spain: Serious Action and Sad sequences from the & jona = Riots; Heavy Reinforcements for the army in Cuba—France : The Commercial ‘Treaty with England—Trade Strike in Beigiam—'the Livingstone Search Expedi- tou—Important News from Utah: Attorney General Williams Asking the Release of the Mormon Murderers on Balti; Judge McKean Refuses—od and the State: Nattonal Con- vention at Cincinnatl Urges §: ecessity of Openly Acknowledging the Creator in All Matters of State, Science and Educavuion—Mis- cellaneous Telegrams—l'ersonal [nteiligence— Business Notices, S—Congress: The Syndicate Under Review; Mr. 8 8. Cox Shattering the Fabric Constructed by Secretary Boutweil; an Open Defiance of Law; Itself @ Fraud and Its Executor De- serving o! Censure; Slavish Dependence on Europeans; the Commission ana Agency Fees Enurely legal; Debate on the Amnesty Hull in the Senate—Ihe Kiltan-frear Contest— Connolly's Legal Contests: The Board of Su- pervisors’ Suit in [ts Relations to tne Albany Suit— he Uoffinan Lunacy —Daring Sneak Thieves in Hoboken—Ace' at tho Hoboken Ferry—The Ship Almora- Shooting—rhat Sct of False ‘Tee Reports. M=—The Custom House Com and No New Fea New York—Dep: ceedings in the United Indian Co! ‘The ovo! 1 icile by Weather A Dull Day the City of Zs—Pro- Catiin's jallery— and Com- 8 Cour onervile 10=The + Capital: Jmpor the Criminal Code; Propose: ions of th Veto of tl Governor Concerning Last Y Lectnre to the Leg the A Mild aN Tweed's”’ Vase Not to Come Up in prem Court Ontii the March Term; Rapid ‘Transit Schemes and a Cross-Town fallroad; The New Capitol Job Investigated— Shipping Intelligence. vertisenents. W=The Courts: Jumel Estate; a Point Ratsed as to the of Giving Evi gree by i Dismk Vassing © rieit M Convict Spee cisions—Brookiyn At No Rest for tu el—Contagtous Disease Slight Dec in the Sinaiipox—How to F form the Cr he Troubles of an Actress— Posial Saving: Advertisements, AV—Advertisements, uks—An Uniceling Woman— Toe London is going ahead. At a pub! at the Mansion Honse on Tuesday ni called by the Lord Mayor, three thousand pounds sterling were subscribed and measnres were taken to fit out an expedition and send it off at an early day, All right; the sooner the better, for there is no time to be lost if the ex- pedition would get safely across the swampy country between the seacoast and Un- yanyembe before the spring rains come on. This we bave learned from the Hrra.p ex- pedition. Tue Spanish DEMONSTRATIONS against the NEW YORK HERALD, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1872.-TRIPLE SHEET. Our New York Commune Mean Destruction, Our New York Commune seems doomed to an existence as inglorious, if not as bloody, as its forerunner, the Commune of Paris, When the Committee of Seventy arose in a night, proclaimed into being by public outery from the platform of a town hall, and the Cheap Jack newspapers and their followers raised the chorus that the millennium had really come, and we were to have no more atealing, no more repeating at elections, no more fraudu- lent registrations, no more elevation of bad men to office, the Hzraxp said that there was no logical purpose in the movement; that it was only a phase of Communism, and that the Committee of Seventy would live its ninety days and dissolve into mist and thin air, and we sould be precisely where we were atthe outset. Even now the prediction has been verified. Where is the Committee of Seventy? The men who called it into life have gained their purpose. Reform meant their own selection and election to office. This gained they have subsided, As to the committee it is an old story, another phase of good Peter Cooper's “Citizens’ Association,” which ran into half a dozen offices for its half dozen managers. We have bad these respectable mobs periodi- cally. Citizens neglect thelr duties at pri- mary clections and at the polls; evil-minded, ambitious men creep into power and plunder the Treasury ; we go from bad to worse, and sud- denly there is a ‘“‘revival,” as the churchmen would call it, Citizens feel they have been remiss and undergo a quickening sense of their political sins. Old gentlemen with gold-headed canes leave their whist and cosy suppers at the club and hurry out to ward assem- blies and mass meetings, and listen sleepily to sparkling declamations about the neces- sity of reform and the days of Brutus, and how much we have lost since the good old times of the Revolution—‘“‘good old times,” be it remembered, when people were as bad as they are now, if we can believe Freneau and Cobbett and Duane. A dozen theories are advanced as containing the only, solution, the true panacea for all the ills of the body politic. One blames the Pope for the general demoralization, another the Freema- sons, a third the democratic party, a fourth the radicals, In time a bevy of shrewd poli- ticians, whohave been members of ‘‘machines” and “rings” all their lives, come to tho front, and the whole movement is resolved into a political party as eager and false and rapa- cious as the one antagonized, and quite as clamorous for office. The old men—gold- headed canes and all—are elbowed out of the way, and we have the same condition of affairs that was seen before. ‘‘Reform” is simply an Appian Way to power, and nothing more, So it was, as all men remember, with this Old Citizen Association! So with the Com- mittee of Seventy or Ninety (we forget the number) which arose in Brooklyn, and has now been absorbed by the Kings county Ring. Our Committee of Seventy was an irresponsible committee generated out of a noisy mass meeting, without authority, law or responsibility, claiming to rule New York even as the Commune ruled Paris. What has it done beyond advertising a few unim- portant and starving Cheap Jack newspapers, who took up reform as a business, just as they had followed the Ring as a business, as long as the bills were paid? We were told Connolly and Tweed were to be imprisoned; yet Connolly lives in splendid seclusion and Tweed is about to sit in the Senate. We were to havea general impeachment of the judges, and yet no judge has been disturbed. We were to havo a new, absolutely safe charter, with all the patented improvements; a model charter, at last, that would realize our hopes of free gov- ernment; yet all we have seen is an occa- sional tinker’s expedient in the way of a bill to amend the old charter. Inscead of a new, clean, sound vessel, we are to have simply a patch upon the sides of the old one, We have a reformed Board of Aldermen and Councilmen, which begins its career by an intrigue. We have James O'Brien instead of William M. Tweed, and John Cochrane in tbe place of Henry Smith, The men who follow O’Brien and Cochrane are the men who followed Tweed and Smith, and who would follow them to-morrow if they were in power, A few of the leaders of the Ring have retired, but the Ring is still unmoved, and controls nine-tenths of the offices of honor and emolument. One material change, to be sure, is that Cheap Jack has no trade in the old line—no one to buy his weary, thrice-told stories about corruption; noone to cheer after his cart as before. So he has taken to abuse Charles O’Conor! The Mayor was to be hurled into the darkness that envelops Lucifer, but he sits in his curule chair, and bas authority, and finds reformers enough willing to have bis name on their commissions, and will probably remain until bis term is over, and win a new one if he cares. In truth, more real reforms have come from the much-abused Mayor than from any one else, and it would not surprise us to see him leading a new reform movement, Instead of a Legislature obeying the new Commune, we have the same kind of men who have been seen for years and years at Albany. There is the old Ring, with a new name, This year it comes as the Erie Ring and the Canal Ring, and from all the indications the hard-working members at Albany wiil receive as large divi- dends as were ever knowa in the most profitable sessions, in spite of the Committee of Seventy, Have we any more purity in politics, any fur- ther assurance of sound legisiation and addi- tional security for the future because of this Committee? We do not see it, although we pray Heaven that some token may come, It is because wisdom has departed from the councils of the Committee, if it ever rested there, which we doubt. Look at one point in its proposed charter, for instance—the pro- municipal gates tolls in Barcelona bronght | posed abolition of the Department of Docks. on very serious consequences. The toll houses were burned, the military fired on the people and the crowd returned the fire. Two of the rioters were killed and others wounded. Spain is always behind in the path of reform. The English people settled the question of turnpike and fair and market place tolls soon after the year 1832, the late Robert Owen and Feargus E. O'Connor leading the movement in ,opposition to the impost in a very lively and exciting manner on the border of Wales and northward generally in Britain, This Department of Docks is one of the most important to us, and yet by the Committee's charter it is abolished and made a mere burean in the Department of Public Works. Now, what New York as a great commercial me- tropolis wants, even more than parks or what are called public works, is a generous, com- prehensive system of docks. We havea good ts Lud—The New Riugs at Albany—eform Docs Not consideration as a commercial city, confidence of the shippers and importers. There is not a politician in its councils, and yet it is sacrificed, while other boards, made up in the interest of politicians and hav- ing only @ party purpose, are perpetuated, This shows simply a desire to strike wildly, to strike in the dark, to pull down something, under the conviction that reform means simply to pull down. Ephesian dome and the destroying Eutropius were the most illustrious reformers iv history. This illustrates the radical error of this Com- Reform does not mean destruction, or New York is a mittee, even arrested development. growing city. Intwo hundred years it has risen to be one of the four or five cities of the earth, In another century we may reasonably expect to see upon this Manhattan Island and the shores of the bays and streams that surround it the largest metropolis in the world, the centre of all the world’s business. Here we shall have transferred the commercial pre- eminence of London, united with the beauty and taste of Paris. The merchants of all countries, from Asia and from Europe, will make their exchanzes in Broadway. The tides of business and trade and commerce and finance all tend hither, and we must en- courage them tocome. What we must do with this island is to make it worthy of the metropolis of the future. We must have boulevards and highways and avenues, parks and breathing places, docks and wharves. There is no reasonable amount of money that we would not spend to accomplish this, What we want from our reform Legisla- ture is the chance to spend this money fairly. We did not complain of the men in power that they expended vast sums, but that they stole them, that they squandered as much upon a half-finished court house as was expended by the government upon our majestic Capitol. So far as the Committee of Seventy and the reformers meet this wish of the people all will be well. Thus far they have not met it, The Tammany Ring has dissolved, but we have a Canal Ring and an Erie Ring, and we really do not think that we are much better in the hands of the new combinations than we were in the hands of the old one. The Mormon Murderers. As predicted by a special despatch to the Herarp a few days since, an attempt has been made to liberate the prisoners indicted for murder in Salt Lake City, A more flagrant breach of the laws of the United States has seldom been planned. A number of men have been arrested after full investi- gation of facts implicating them in the most atrocious crime known among civilited nations; but in order to save the expense of their maintenance in prison, and that the government officials might not be put to the trouble of attending to the duties for which they were appointed, Judge McKean is ogked to let this villanous gang loose again, to commit, if occasion required, a repetition of the acts for which they are now held for trial. Why arrest them at all? Why attempt to maintain order and good government and pay heavy salaries to officials to endeavor to convince the world of security and order when these men proclaim by their acts that the whole affair is a hideous farce and a mockery of justice? If such law be sound, as applied by the Attorney General through District Attorney Bates, then it would be clearly a piece of cruel injustice for New York or any State of the Union to hold for trial any man, no matter of what crime charged or however vile his character. No State, perhaps, can “afford” to keep its crimi- nals in a place of safety any more than the federal government; but, on the other hand, the lives of citizens and their property must be protected, and to provide for prisons and punishment is the only method of doing so. If gross injustice has not been done by the circulation of false reports as to the actual state of affairs in Utah, then the decision of Judge McKean, in refusing to release the pris- oners, proves a loftier conception on his part of the necessities of the situation than is possessed by his judicial superiors in Wash- ington. Toe “Littte Joker” IN FRANogz.—The municipal Syndicates of four of the most cele- brated watering places of France have for- mally petitioned the French government for the repeal of the law against public gambling. They also offer to pay to the French Treasury forty millions of francs per annum for the privilege of licensing gambling establishments in these four towns—summer resorts of fash- ionables and invalids. M. Thiers may well ex- claim that ‘‘poverty makes one acquainted with strange bedfellows” when he finds that a main reliance for his government to pay off that terrible Prussian indemnity is likely to be had in the sale of a tobacco monopoly and the authorizing, for sub-letting, of gambling houses. If the French President can succeed in turning the “little joker” to any honest, profit- able, patriotic purpose, the fact will consti- tute a wonderful incident in the history both of national and personal finance. What will the French Bishops say to the project, and what about the ‘money changers” in the Temple, and so forth? Tne Proor or THE Puppixe, &0.—The Albany printing firm of Thurlow Weed & Co. assure us, through ‘their organ at the State capital, that the majority of both houses of the Legislature “are honestly intent upon what is right, and sincerely desire to answer the fall expectations of the people.” Well, will they refuse to appropriate another dollar of the people's money for worthless books and bogus printing claims? And will they let the people know how much percentage, if any, Weed and his partners paid for the little twelve thousand dollar job of reprinting the State Engineer and Surveyor’s report of 1869 “under direc- tion” of Speaker Younglove? A “Scorr Presipentiat” Cup has been or- ganized in Cleveland. It is Tom Scott of '72, not the General Scott of '52, who is the figure- head on the target. How 18 17 that our immaculate reform Sen- share of the commerce of the world; we are competing for the control of it, and we must have docks as commodions as those of Liver- pool befure we cap hope to bave permanent ate appears to be afraid to touch “the Boss?” They say it is because he has half a dozen Senators under his thumb, and that if they challenge him he can produce his ‘“‘youchers,” This de- partment as created in obedience to the unanimous wish of our merchants and busi- ness men, Its members have possessed the If this isin any sense reform, then the aspiring youth who fired the Our Municipal Government and Its Changes—Should the Oltizens Be Con- sulted Thereon ¢ At the present time, when the State Legis- lature is being called upon to remodel the charter of our city, and when it is probable that more than one scheme and many sugges- tions will be offered—and all, their authors will have us believe, introducing salutary changes—much interest will be found in an article which appears in other columns of to- day’s issue, in which the complete municipal history of the city of New York is nar- rated and reviewed, and the origin and progress of our chartered rights and privileges are carefully detailed. It will be seen therein that the battle of our citizens for just and good local self-government is not.now being fought for the first time. It will be found even that the first modicum of municipal freedom which was wrung by the sturdy Dutch founders of the city from the rulers in their Fatherland, much to the chagrin of the despotic old Director General Stuyvesant, was a conquest as bravely won and as nobly prized as the famed Magna Charta which the English barons forced their reluctant sovereign to con- cede to thom on the historic field of Runnymede, From the days of the first Dutch grant of very limited civil rights, in 1652, down to 1730, the munici- pal privileges were enlarged, as it were, bit by bit, each separate fragment being only gained after a persistent wrestling of the citi- zens with the Dutch and English Governors of the province and the respective home gov- ernments; but the full reward was fioally obtained at the last named date, when the various small favors already granted were enhanced by more valuable franchises, and the whole were moulded into one com- pact instrument, known as the ‘‘Montgomerie Charter,” which, Chancellor Kent says, is “entitled to our respect and attachment for its venerable age and the numerous blessings and great commercial prosperity which have accompanied the due exercise of its powers.” That time-honored document forms the foundation of our municipal rights and privileges, and much of its original form and spirit remain in force to this day, the same having been confirmed by the various State constitutions. As a whole, it withstood the shock of the Revolution, which for a time suspended its functions, and, with the excep- tion of a few legislative enactments authorizing changes made necessary by the transfer of government, it re- mained intact and in force for just one hundred years, with the country for the latter half of that period under republican government, Since the commencement of amending the Montgomerie Charter, in 1829, to the present time, five important changes have been made in the municipal regulations of the city— namely, in 1830, 1849, 1853, 1857 and 1870, with amendments of some moment in 1871; while an attempt to amend the charter in avery extensive manner, in 1846, failed to gain the approval of the city electors. It is interesting to note that the mode of procedure adopted in the first instance was the same as that applied in the revision of our State Constitution, by convention—a fact which seems to be unknown to some of our unusually well-informed contemporaries. At a Convention held in this city in 1829, composed of delegates elected from the various wards, in accordance with a resolution of the Common Council, was framed the amended charter, which, having first received the approval of the electors at an election, was afterwards consti- tuted a law by the Legislature, in 1830, Then again, in 1846, the Legislature passed an act authorizing the election of delegates to another convention, which was empowered either to frame an entirely new charter or suggest amend- ments, which new charter or amendments should afterwards be submitted to the people at an election, and, if adopted, should be then sub- mitted to the Legislature at its next session for its approval. For reasons which will be found stated in the article referred to, a new charter was not submitted, but amendments were suggested, which were voted apon at the general State election, but received such slight attention that only about one-third the voters of the city on that occasion cast ballots for or against the same, and they were rejected. After this a change was made in the manner of seeking a reform of the municipal regula- tions. The amended charter of 1849 was the result of an application made to the Legisla- ture by the Common Council, as will be found on reference to the proceedings of the latter of January in, that year. The altera- tions then made were of considerable im- portance, but related chiefly to the legislative power of the Corporation, its mode of exer- cise and the creation of various departments for the better execution of its municipal powers, the latter of which had formed a leading feature in the rejected charter of three years previous. A clause in the act provided for its being submitted for the approval of the city electors, failing to obtain which it should become null and void. The charter of 1853 was the result of a general demand of citi- zens, as expressed by them in mass meetings ; but its validity, like the charters of the previous twenty-five years, was depend- ent upon the vote of the citizens, Thus far, it will be seen that, since our national independence, the people of this city were permitted to decide upon the manner in which they should be locally governed ; for, in addition to the four cases above referred to, a vote was algo taken in 1824 upon the expe- diency of separating the two boards of the Common Council, when the proposal to sepa- rate them was rejected. But these five occa- sions form the only instances upon which the people have been consulted in a matter so important to their welfare as the nature of their local government. Neither the charters of 1857 or 1870 were sub- mitted for approval by a popular vote. It is asserted by some that they are both invalid for that reason. Hon. Murray Hoffman, in his “Treatise upon the Estate and Rights of the Corporation,” in referring to the popular vote upon the charter of 1830, says:— While thus the assent of the Incorporators to the amendments was obtained In the most authentic manner, the authority of the Lo yay amended, still springs from the Legislature, ie people of the city and Common Council of the city could no more amend an act of incorporation than they couid originally have conlerred upon themselves a corporate capacity. The whole Stato ig interested inthe establishment of such bodies, aud hence the powers of the Crown, in this particu. jar representing the Stare, and of the Legislavure, since that power has ceased, is indispensanle, Nor 18 It @ necessary conclusion that the assent of the Ur'Fepresentation tarough tne "Vommou counell nn 18 Supposed would have sufficient. And in another part of the same work he adds:—But where the Legislature cannot by its own powers abrogate or vary 4 charter privilege it may yet do 80 with the concurrence of the Corporation.” From this reasoning it would appear that the validity of a legislative enactment amend- ing a city charter is dependent upon its ratifi- cation, either by the Common Council as the representatives of the citizens, or by the citi- zens themselves, With regard to the char- ters of 1857 and 1870, the approval of neither the Common Council of the time being nor of the citizens was sought or obtained. How Congress Yesterday—Amnesty and the Negro Vote—The New Loan and the Syndicate. Again the Senate had yesterday a grand powwow over the Amnesty bill and the negro palace car amendment, The Michigan Sena- tor, Mr. Chandler, who has fought the Chicago Relief bill because it might interfere with the lumber trade of his State, true to his instincts, made a characteristic speech against amnesty, declaring that God might forgive an unre- pentant rebel, but that he (Chandler)—a far mightier power in his own estimation—never would. He then expressed the humane opinion that the shooting of two or three hua- dred Ku Klux fellows would effect a great deal more good than the passage of far the citizens may be considered to have | 2 Amnesty bill, and he warned accepted those charters by acting under them | the members of that mysterious is a matter for contemplation. The point isa | Shostly clan that, after all, they were only paroled prisoners of war, and liable to be taken out and shot for violation of their parole, Then Sumner mounted his black woolly hobby-horse and caracoled around in » manner wondrous to witness, declaring that the great difficulty with Morrill, of Maine, who had made a constitutional argument against his Supplementary Civil Rights bill, was that his (Morrill’s) interpretation of the constitution was the old one, in contradistinc- tion to the new rule which had conquered at, Appomattox—in other words, that the Maine Senator had not fully acquired the lesson of deriding and setting at deflance the great charter of national government. He warned the Senators of his own party that if the Amnesty bill should be passed and the Negro’ Palace Car bill rejected the colored vote would be so divided at the next Presidential election as to secure the defeat of the republican party. He an- nounced the fact that the colored voter was a new power in the land, and should be con- sidered. Of course he should; ayg the best consideration that can be paid to him is to restore the respectable white people of the Southern States to the position from which they can direct and control public affairs in those State and get rid of the horde of official thieves who have been bringing the South to bankruptcy and ruin. The Amnesty bill went over without action. The House bill of last session for the retiree ment, on full pay, of superannuated judges of the United States Courts, was reported adversely from the Judiciary Commit- tee of the Senate. A bill to refund to banks, trust and insurance companies, &c., the two and o half per cent collected on profits “for the last five months of 1870 was passed. This is all right, being based on the principle that, having paid five per cent for the first seven months of the year, they had already paid even more than the rate of income tax imposed upon the public at large. The same principle will have to be applied to all the officials of the government who were compelled to pay five per cent income tax for the first seven months of the year and two and a half per cent for the last five, while all other citizens had only to pay the lesser rate for the entire year. : The House spent the whole day in debating the report of the Committee of Ways and Means, which justifies the Secretary of the Treasury in his negotiations with the Syn- dicate. The report was assailed by members on the democratic side, who claimed that the Syndicate arrangement was nothing less than a successful swindle, in which the people had been victimized to the tune of between four and five millions, while on the part of the re- publicans the action of the Secretary was sus- tained and defended, as being at least justified by the law, even if it was liabie to criticism as a good business transaction. The vote on the resolution will be taken to-day, and will undoubtedly result in the excutpation of Sec- retary Boutwell. He must not, however, in- terpret that vote asan authority to repeat such a financial transaction ; for even his friend Mr. Dawes declined, in advance, to admit that such an interpretation would be correct. a knotty one, which we must leave to the deci- sion of lawyers. The article which we print to-day will be found to give not only the full particulars of the votes to which we refer, but the various changes in our city charters which have taken place during the last two and a quarter centuries, and will well repay perusal. It is the only complete history of our local gov- ernment that has yet been given to the public, The Printing Swindle at Albany and the Terwilliger Case—Some Points for Luves- tigation. A very pretty little game is being played at Albany to befog, mystify and cover up the enormous printing frauds by which the people have been bled to the amount of nearly half a million dollars a year for several years past by the enterprising printers and journalists at the State capital, led by the firm of which Thurlow Weed is the head. Several days azo the Hzraxp showed that in the supply bill of 1871, Weed, Parsons & Co,, of Albany, figured for the neat sum total of one hundred and eighty thousand dollars, mainly for worthless books ordered by the Legislature and bogus claims for extra composition, extra litho- graphing and the like, while, in the same year, the whole amount expended upon department and legislative printing reached between four and five hundred thousand dollars. Since then an investigation, now going on before a legislative committee into the management of the State Insurance Bureau, has developed the fact that, to secure the printing of that department, Thurlow Weed and his partners paid to an agent, named South- wick, twenty-five per cent of the amount of their bills, which twenty-five per cent was, of course, made up by overcharges to the State. The Legislatare, unable to close its eyes to these disgraceful operations, moved for an inquiry into the contracts existing and the amounts expended for State printing last year ; but the Senate refused to extend tho investiga- tion into the printing operations of 1869 and 1870, and in the Assembly the subject was referred to the Printing Committee—a parlia- mentary method of smothering it altogether or of submitting a very dirty piece of business to a whitewashing process. The game now is to raise a great deal of political smoke over certain charges of a paltry character brought against the Senate Clerk, James Terwilliger, for receiving the sum of four thousand dollars from Weed, Parsons & Co. for proof-reading or other services, and, under cover of this, to evade all inquiry into the plunder of nearly half a million dollars a year from the State Treas- ury by these Albany cormorants, The Terwilliger business is a picayune affair, not worthy of consideration, and should not be permitted to divert attention from the principal peculators. It has already been proved that Weed, Parsons & Co. paid twenty-five per cent to secure the printing of the Insurance Department report, and this in direct violation of the law creating the bu- reau (chap. 366, sec. 3, Laws of 1859), which provides that such report ‘‘shall be printed by the printer employed to print legislative docu- ments.” Now let the Committee drop the Terwilliger case and set to work to ascertain how much percentage Weed, Parsons & Co. have paid to the State Engineer and Survey- or’s Department for the printing jobs, map lithographing, &c., obtained from that office. While upon this subject let them inquire whether, in 1869, the State Engineer and Sur- veyor’s report was twice printed—once under the regular legislative printing contract of the Argus Company and again by the enterprising firm of Thurlow Weed & Co, To aid their investigation we will supply them with the following points :—In 1869 Truman G. Young- The Audit Bill Misinterpreted=The Powers of the New Board. + | When the Audit bill was about to pass the Assembly Speaker Smith, who led the oppo- sition to any measure that did not give Comp- troller Green sole power fn the payment of claims and the apportionment of money for carrying on the several departments of the city government, offered an amendment to the following effect:—‘‘But said Board of Audit shall not audit or allow any claim at a greater rate or amount than that fixed by law or by a contract under which services were rendered or ma- terials were furnished.” This was considered love was Speaker of the Assembly. Fae > ‘ to be a fair restriction, and it was engrafted t inted ¢ ‘ oy mngar ampponeb geo ibgalative on the bill. Its meaning was obvious. When- pase cutie the COntrRGL After the | ver® rate or amount of compensation for services rendered or for materials farnished was either fixed by law or specified by con- tract the sum allowed by the Board of Audit should not be in excess of such rate or amount. That is to say, if a claim for ser- vices should be presented by an employé whose salary was fixed by law at three thou- sand dollars a year the Board should not allow him a larger sum, and if a claim should be brought in for materials or labor supplied under a writ- ten contract, the claimant should not receive more than the stipulated price. But when services have been honestly rendered, the re- muneratioa for which is not fixed by law, or when materials have been honestly supplied and labor honestly performed without a speci- fied contract price, the Board of Audit is left to fix the amounts to be paid to the claimants according to their own judgment of fair deal- ing and justice to the city and to the city’s creditor. It is said, however, that Comptroller Green interprets the restriction proposed by Speaker Smith as forbidding the payment of any claim for services, materials or labor unless the amount of remuneration has been previous)* fixed by law or specified by written contrac The ground the Comptroller is understood to take is that any debt contracted in excess of appropriations is rendered invalid by the Speaker's proviso, This appears to be a forced and incorrect interpretation of the law, which simply restricts the award in cases in which the law or a contract has fixed the sum due to the claimant, and doves not either in letter or in spirit pro. hibit the auditing and payment of other printed report had been supplied to the mem- bers a resolution was adopted by the Assem- bly ordering some five thousand extra copies to be furnished under direction of the Speaker, Now let the Legislative Committee inquire whether Speaker Younglove, although the re- port was already in priot, gave the order to reprint it to the firm of Weed, Parsons & Co.; whether that firm did the work, using over again the maps they had previously supplied to the Argus Company, and been paid for by the State; whether Weed, Parsons & Co. got into the Supply bill of 1870 two items—one for printing and binding four thousand seven hundred copies of the State Engineer’s report for 1869, amounting to $10,431 36, and the other for lithographing maps for said re- port, $1,390; and finally, whether any per- centage was paid by Weed, Parsons & Co. on this steal, and, ifso, to whom? Tne Latgst News rrom Mexico, according to our special despatch, is that the revolu- tionary General Quiroga has flanked Cortina, preparatory to making mincemeat of him. Why don’t the United States step in and flank the whole lot of them? A Goop Move 1x Kansas—The resolutions of the Legislature urging upon Congress such action as will secure cheaper rail- way ‘transportation between the West and the East. A Bia Jon ror tux Pawrer—That in pre- paration by the Custom House Investigating Committee. Go ahead. Two Goon Tixas—Plenty of coal on band for the winter and a Russian ice crop for the summer. just claims, We believe that the Comptroller on