voting. Many, indeed, boasted that they were
utterly indifferent to politics; that it was immaterial to them which
party elected its candidates. Others thought that they could not spare
the time; and others still would not spare it. Again, there were those
whose refined tastes made them shrink from the coarse rabble that
surrounded the voting places. The reasons were almost as numerous as the
delinquents, and the result was that the best portion of the voters of
the city--those who were most interested in a good government--left the
control of public affairs entirely in the hands of the worst and most
vicious classes. As a natural consequence, the suffrage being exercised
chiefly by the ignorant and degraded, corrupt men availed themselves of
the opportunity afforded them, and, by bribery and kindred practices,
managed to secure their election to power. Once in office, they exerted
themselves to remain there. They were the rulers of the great Metropolis
of the Union, and, as such, possessed power and influence unequalled in
any city in the world. They controlled the public funds, and thus had an
opportunity of enriching themselves by robbing the people. They held in
their grasp all the machinery of elections, and, by filling the
ballot-boxes with fraudulent votes, and throwing out those which were
legally cast, they could, they believed, perpetuate their power. If
their strength in the Legislature of the State was inadequate to the
passage of the laws they favored, they robbed the city treasury to buy up
the members of the Legislature opposed to them, and it was found that
rural virtue was easily purchased at city prices. In this way they
secured the enactment of laws tending not only to enlarge and perpetuate
their powers, and to increase their opportunities for plunder, but also
to bar the way of the people should they awake from their criminal
carelessness, and seek to overthrow and punish them. It mattered very
little to the men who ruled the city of New York how the elections were
decided in the rural districts. They could always swell their vote in
the city to an extent sufficient to overcome any hostile majority in the
State; and they even boasted that they cared not how many votes were cast
against them in the city, as long as they "had the counting of them." In
this way they filled the statute-book with laws for the oppression and
injury of the people, and in this way they passed the New Charter of