his $5000; the Ring got
$50,000. The building of the Court House, still known as "Tweed's Court
House," was estimated to cost $3,000,000, but it cost many times that
sum. The item "repairing fixtures" amounted to $1,149,874.50, before the
building was completed. Forty chairs and three tables cost $179,729.60;
thermometers cost $7500. G. S. Miller, a carpenter, received
$360,747.61, and a plasterer named Gray, $2,870,464.06 for nine months'
"work." The Times dubbed him the "Prince of Plasterers." "A plasterer
who can earn $138,187 in two days [December 20 and 21] and that in the
depths of winter, need not be poor." Carpets cost $350,000, most of the
Brussels and Axminster going to the New Metropolitan Hotel just opened
by Tweed's son.

The Ring's hold upon the legislature was through bribery, not through
partizan adhesion. Tweed himself confessed that he gave one man in
Albany $600,000 for buying votes to pass his charter; and Samuel J.
Tilden estimated the total cost for this purpose at over one million
dollars. Tweed said he bought five Republican senators for $40,000
apiece. The vote on the charter was 30 to 2 in the Senate, 116 to 5 in
the Assembly. Similar sums were spent in Albany in securing corporate
favors. The Viaduct Railway Bill is an example. This bill empowered a
company, practically owned by the Ring, to build a railway on or above
any street in the city. It provided that the city should subscribe for
$5,000,000 of the stock; and it exempted the company from taxation.
Collateral bills were introduced enabling the company to widen and grade
any streets, the favorite "job" of a Tammany grafter. Fortunately for
the city, exposure came before this monstrous scheme could be put in
motion.

Newspapers in the city were heavily subsidized. Newspapers in Albany
were paid munificently for printing. One of the Albany papers received
$207,900 for one year's work which was worth less than $10,000. Half a
dozen reporters of the leading dailies were put on the city payroll at
from $2000 to $2500 a year for "services."

The Himalayan size of these swindles and their monumental effrontery led
the New York Sun humorously to suggest the erection of a statue to
the principal Robber Baron, "in commemoration of his services to the
commonwealth." A letter was sent out asking for funds. There were a
great many men in New York, the Sun thought, who would not be unwilling
to refuse a contribution. But Tweed declined the honor.