orks of the world, cost less than
$10,000,000. The Capitol of the United States at Washington, the largest
and most magnificent building in America, will cost, when completed,
about $12,000,000, yet, the unfinished Court House in New York has
already cost more than the gorgeous Houses of Parliament, and as much as
the grand Capitol of the Republic.

[Picture: THE NEW COUNTY COURT HOUSE]

The Court House was not the only means made use of to obtain money.
Heavy sums were drawn for printing, stationery, and the city armories,
and upon other pretexts too numerous to mention. It would require a
volume to illustrate and rehearse entire the robberies of the Ring.
Valid claims against the city were refused payment unless the creditor
would consent to add to his bill a sum named by, and for the use of, the
Ring. Thus, a man having a claim of $1500 against the city, would be
refused payment until he consented to make the amount $6000, or some such
sum. If he consented, he received his $1500 without delay, and the $4500
was divided among the members of the Ring. When a sum sufficient for the
demands of the Ring could not be obtained by the connivance of actual
creditors, forgery was resorted to. Claims were presented in the name of
men who had no existence, who cannot now be found, and they were paid.
The money thus paid went, as the recent investigations have shown, into
the pockets of members of the Ring. Further than this, if Mr. John H.
Keyser is to be believed, the Ring did not hesitate to forge the
endorsements of living and well-known men. He says: "The published
accounts charge that I have received upwards of $2,000,000 from the
treasury. Among the warrants which purport to have been paid to me for
county work alone _there are upwards of eight hundred thousand dollars
which I never received nor saw_, _and the endorsements on which_, _in my
name_, ARE CLEAR AND UNMISTAKABLE FORGERIES."

Another means of purloining money is thus described by Mr. Abram P.
Genung, in a pamphlet recently issued by him:

"A careful examination of the books and pay-roll (of the Comptroller's
Office) developed the important fact that the titles of several accounts
might be duplicated by using different phraseology to convey the same
meaning; and that by making up pay-rolls, by using fictitious names of
persons alleged to be temporarily employed in his (the Comptroller's)
department, he could even cheat the 'heathen C