But when the Tweed "ring" came into complete power, with its unbridled policy of accommodating anyone who could pay bribes enough, the landowners and merchants rushed to get water grants among other special privileges. On Dec. 27, 1865, William C. Rhinelander was presented with a grant of land under water from Ninety-first to Ninety-fourth street, East River.[148] On March 21, 1867, Peter Goelet obtained from the Sinking Fund Commissioners a grant of land under water on the East River in front of land owned by him between Eighty-first street and Eighty-second street. The price asked was the insignificant one of $75 a running foot.[149] The officials who made this grant were the Controller, Richard B. Connolly, and the Street Commissioner, George W. McLean, both of whom were arch accomplices of William M. Tweed and were deeply involved in the gigantic thefts of the Tweed ring. The same band of officials gave to Mrs. Laura A. Delano, a daughter of William B. Astor, a grant from Fifty-fifth to Fifty-seventh street, Hudson River, at $200 per running foot, and on May 21, 1867, a grant to John Jacob Astor, Jr., of lands under water between Forty-ninth and Fifty-first streets, Hudson River, for the trivial sum of $75 per running foot. Many other grants were given at the same time. The public, used as it was to corrupt government, could not stomach this granting of valuable city property for virtually nothing. The severe criticism which resulted caused the city officials to bend before the storm, especially as they did not care to imperil their other much greater thefts for the sake of these minor ones. Many of the grants were never finally issued; and after the Tweed "ring" was expelled from power, the Commissioners of the Sinking Fund on Feb. 28, 1882, were compelled by public agitation to rescind most of them.[150] The grant issued to Rhinelander in 1865, however, was one of those which was never rescinded.