th light and all ablaze with color, the Cooper Union was
fast filling up with the friends of Reform. So enormous had the crowds
in Astor Place become that, although the hour was early, Colonel
Sneekins had wisely concluded to wait no longer, but at once to let them
in. They poured through the wide doorways in abundant streams, while
Colonel Sneekins led the superb brass band of the 7th Regiment, done up
in startling uniforms and carrying along with it a tremendous battery of
horns and drums, to its place in the gallery.

Colonel Machiavelli Sneekins sustained an important relation to the
Reform movement, and at this Grand Rally of Non-Partisan Citizens in the
Interest of Reform, he had, with great propriety, selected himself to be
Master of Ceremonies. Colonel Sneekins was a non-partisan citizen. He
looked upon partisanship as the curse of the Republic, and in his more
enthusiastic moments had declared that if he could have his way about
it, any man so hopelessly dead to the nobler impulses of the human heart
as to confess himself a partisan should be declared guilty of a felony
and confined for a proper period of years at hard labor. What the
country called for, according to Colonel Sneekins, was Reform. The first
step in bringing about the triumph of Reform was to put all the offices
in the hands of Reformers. If the public wished to intoxicate its eyes
with the spectacle of the kind of men who would then administer the
Government, it had but to look upon him. He was a Reformer. As a
Reformer he was in possession of a lucrative municipal office, wherein
he was mightily prospering, and which for the honor and glory of Reform
he was willing to retain.

Colonel Sneekins was the leading spirit of this citizens' movement. He
had prepared the call of the meeting. He had obtained the 1500
signatures now appended to it, representing estimable business men who,
in observing that useful maxim of trade, "We strive to please," esteemed
it one of their functions to sign all the petitions that came along.
Colonel Sneekins had hired the hall and the band; had made up from the
City Directory a formidable list of Vice-Presidents and Secretaries; had
secured the orators, and finally had arranged for the attendance of a
sufficient audience. In perfecting these details he had had the valuable
assistance of other distinguished Reformers and non-partisan citizens.
Editor Hacker, of _The New York Daily Sting_, had boomed the movement
with