Another of our important tasks was seeing that the elections were carried on honestly. Under the old Tammany rule the cheating was gross and flagrant, and the police were often deliberately used to facilitate fraudulent practices at the polls. This came about in part from the very low character of the men put in as election officers. By conducting a written examination of the latter, and supplementing this by a careful inquiry into their character, in which we invited any decent outsiders to assist, we very distinctly raised their calibre. To show how necessary our examinations were, I may mention that before each election held under us we were obliged to reject, for moral or mental shortcomings, over a thousand of the men whom the regular party organizations, exercising their legal rights, proposed as election officers. We then merely had to make the police thoroughly understand that their sole duty was to guarantee an honest election, and that they would be punished with the utmost rigor if they interfered with honest citizens on the one hand, or failed to prevent fraud and violence on the other. The result was that the elections of 1895 and 1896 were by far the most honest and orderly ever held in New York City. There were a number of other ways in which we sought to reform the police force, less important, and nevertheless very important. We paid particular heed to putting a premium on specially meritorious conduct, by awarding certificates of honorable mention, and medals, where we were unable to promote. We introduced a system of pistol practice by which, for the first time, the policemen were brought to a reasonable standard of efficiency in handling their revolvers. The Bertillion system for the identification of criminals was introduced. A bicycle squad was organized with remarkable results, this squad speedily becoming a kind of _corps d’elite_, whose individual members distinguished themselves not only by their devotion to duty, but by repeated exhibitions of remarkable daring and skill. One important bit of reform was abolishing the tramp lodging-houses, which had originally been started in the police stations, in a spirit of unwise philanthropy. These tramp lodging-houses, not being properly supervised, were mere nurseries for pauperism and crime, tramps and loafers of every shade thronging to the city every winter to enjoy their benefits. We abolished them, a municipal lodging-house being substituted. Here all homeless wanderers were received, forced to bathe, given night-clothes before going to bed, and made to work next morning, and in addition they were so closely supervised that habitual tramps and vagrants were speedily detected and apprehended.