secured the enactment of laws tending not only to enlarge and perpetuate their powers, and to increase their opportunities for plunder, but also to bar the way of the people should they awake from their criminal carelessness, and seek to overthrow and punish them. It mattered very little to the men who ruled the city of New York how the elections were decided in the rural districts. They could always swell their vote in the city to an extent sufficient to overcome any hostile majority in the State; and they even boasted that they cared not how many votes were cast against them in the city, as long as they "had the counting of them." In this way they filled the statute-book with laws for the oppression and injury of the people, and in this way they passed the New Charter of 1870, which they declared was meant to restore self-government to New York, but which was really designed to continue themselves in power, and break down the last obstacles between themselves and the city treasury. In well-regulated municipal governments, the popular branch, the Common Council, is designed to act, and does act, as a check upon the Executive branch. In New York, a Common Council which thoroughly represented the people of the city--the great commercial, social, and political Metropolis of the Union--would have given the Executive branch of the City Government no little trouble; but the respectable citizens were indifferent to the selection of Councilmen, and the "Ring" took care that the majority of the "City Fathers" were creatures of their own, under obligations to them, and ready to sustain them in any outrage upon the people. The Common Council of the City of New York can hardly be termed a representative body. It does not represent the honestly gotten wealth of the city; for, though many of its members are wealthy, people look with suspicion upon a rich Councilman. It does not represent the proud intellectual character of New York; for there is scarcely a member who has intellect or education enough to enable him to utter ten sentences in good English. For many years the Councils have been composed of small tradesmen, who found politics more profitable than their legitimate callings, of bar-keepers, of men without social position in the city they professed to represent, and many of whom were suspected of dishonest and corrupt practices by their fellow-citizens. Indeed, it may be said, that, with a very few exceptions, there was not a man in this important body who possessed the respect or confidence of the citizens of New York. They were elected by bribery and corruption, maintained their positions by the same means, and enjoyed the favor and protection of the leaders of their party, only by aiding the execution and covering up from investigation the schemes of those men for their mutual engorgement at the expense of the public treasury. Mr. James Parton gives the following account of the proceedings of this worshipful body: