ue, but they
also desired to enrich themselves at the public expense.

Having secured the city offices, with the control of the finances, the
police, the fire department, and the immense patronage of the city, they
believed themselves strong enough to hold all they had won. They did not
believe that the people of New York would ever awake to a true sense of
their public duties, and, if they did, the Ring felt confident that they
could control any election by filling the ballot-boxes with fraudulent
votes. In many cases money was taken from the city treasury, and used to
purchase votes for the Ring or Tammany Hall ticket. It was also used to
bribe inspectors of elections to certify any returns that the leaders of
the Ring might decide upon; and it came to be a common saying in New York
that the Tammany ticket could always command a majority in the city
sufficient to neutralize any hostile vote in the rest of the State. If
the leaders of the Ring desired a majority of 25,000, 30,000, or any
number, in the city, that majority was returned, and duly sworn to by the
inspectors of election, even by those of the party opposed to the Ring;
for money was used unsparingly to buy dishonest inspectors.

As a matter of course, no honest man took part in these disgraceful acts,
and the public offices passed, almost without exception, into the hands
of the most corrupt portion of the population. They were also the most
ignorant and brutal. The standard of education is, perhaps, lower among
the public officials of New York than among any similar body in the land.
Men whose personal character was infamous; men who were charged by the
newspaper press, and some of whom had been branded by courts of justice
with felonies, were elected or appointed to responsible offices. The
property, rights and safety of the greatest and most important city in
the land, were entrusted to a band of thieves and swindlers. The result
was what might have been expected. Public interests were neglected; the
members of the Ring were too busy enriching themselves at the expense of
the treasury to attend to the wants of the people. The City Government
had never been so badly administered before, and the only way in which
citizens could obtain their just rights was by paying individual members
of the Ring or their satellites to attend to their particular cases. It
was found almost impossible to collect money due by the city to private
parties; but, at th