"There is not in the history of villainy a parallel for the gigantic crime against property conspired by the Tammany Ring. It was engineered on the complete subversion of free government in the very heart of Republicanism. An American city, having a population of over a million, was disfranchised by an open vote of a Legislature born and nurtured in Democracy and Republicanism, and was handed over to a self-appointed oligarchy, to be robbed and plundered by them and their confederates, heirs and assigns for six years certainly, and prospectively for ever. A month's exhumation among the crimes of the Tammany leaders has not so familiarized us with the political paradox of the New Charter of the City of New York, that we do not feel that it is impossible that the people of this State gave to a gang of thieves, politicians by profession, a charter to govern the commercial metropolis of this continent--the great city which is to America what Paris is to France--to govern it with a government made unalterable for the sixteenth part of a century, which substantially deprived the citizens of self-control, nullified their right to suffrage, nullified the principle of representation--which authorized a handful of cunning and resolute robbers to levy taxes, create public debt, and incur municipal liabilities without limit and without check, and which placed at their disposal the revenues of the great municipality and the property of all its citizens. "Every American will say: 'It is incredible that this has been done.' But the history of the paradox is over two years old. And it is a history of theft, robbery, and forgery, which have stolen and divided twenty millions of dollars; which have run up the city debt from $36,000,000 in 1869 to $97,000,000 in 1871, and which will be $120,000,000 by August, 1872; which have paid to these robbers millions of dollars for work never performed and materials never furnished; which paid astoundingly exorbitant rents to them for offices and armories, many of which were never occupied and some of which did not exist--which remitted their taxes, released their indebtedness, and remitted their rents, to the city due and owing--which ran the machinery for widening, improving and opening streets, parks and boulevards, to enable these men to speculate in assessed damages and greatly enhanced values--which created unnecessary offices with large salaries and no duties, in order to maintain a force of ruffianly supporters and manufacturers of votes--which used millions of dollars to bribe and corrupt newspapers, the organs of public opinion, in violation of laws which narrowly limited the public advertising--which camped within the city a reserve army of voters by employing thousands of laborers at large pay upon nominal work, neither necessary nor useful--which bought legislatures and purchased judgments from courts both civil and criminal. * * * * *