Lights and Shadows of New York Life: or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great CityMcCabe, James Dabney
History
Lights and Shadows of New York Life: or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City
McCabe, James Dabney
New York (N.Y.) -- Description and travel; New York (N.Y.) -- Social life and customs -- 19th century
In the present state of affairs, there is no evidence showing that Mr.
Hall derived any personal pecuniary benefit from the frauds upon the
treasury. Public sentiment is divided respecting him; many persons
believing that he is a sharer in the plunder of the Ring, and others
holding the opposite opinion. The most serious charges that have been
made against him, have been brought by Mr. John Foley, and Mr. Samuel J.
Tilden. The former is the President of the Nineteenth Ward Citizens'
Association, and the latter the leader of the Reform Democracy. Mr.
Tilden, in his speech at the Cooper Institute, November 2d, 1871, thus
spoke of Mayor Hall:
"These three Auditors met but once. They then passed a resolution which
now stands on the records of the city in the handwriting of Mayor Hall.
It was passed on his motion, and what was its effect? Did it audit
anything? Did it perform the functions? Did it fulfil the trust
committed to the Board? Not a bit of it. It provided that all claims
certified by Mr. Tweed and Mr. Young, Secretary of the old Board of
Supervisors, should be received, and, on sufficient evidence, paid.
Mayor Hall is the responsible man for all this. He knew it was a
fraudulent violation of duty on the part of every member of that Board of
Audit to pass claims in the way they did.
* * * * *
"Fellow-citizens, let me call your attention for a moment to the
after-piece of these transactions. Our friend, Mayor Hall, is a very
distinguished dramatist, and he would consider it a very serious offence
to the drama to have the after-piece left out. Now, what was that
after-piece? When the statements were published in regard to these
frauds, Mayor Hall published a card, wherein he said that these accounts
were audited by the old Board of Supervisors, and that neither he nor Mr.
Connolly was at all responsible for them. A little later--about August
16th--Mayor Hall said it was true they were audited by the Board of
Audit, and, in doing so, they performed a ministerial function, and would
have been compelled by mandamus to do it, if they hadn't done it
willingly. I do not deem it necessary in the presence of an intelligent
audience and the lawyers sitting around me on this stage, to present any
observations upon the idea that 'to audit and to pay the amount found
due' was a ministerial function. . . . . . .
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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