“One member, however, more courageous than the others, kept his seat with contemptuous indifference until he saw a missile coming direct for his desk, when he cleverly caught it in his hands, and called on the mayor to maintain order. His Worship looked unutterable things, and told Darcy to do it. The latter, however, disappeared, and was not seen more that night. It was suspected he went over to the enemy, and when he told me next morning that it was ‘the best bit of fun he had seen for many a day,’ I thought there was ground for the suspicion. “But criticisms of the council were not confined to demonstrations of this kind. The press was not backward in saying what it thought, although in a more refined and cultured way. One editor, for instance, gave a free notice of a meeting of council in the following words, in large type: “‘The Municipal Banditti meet in their den at the City Hall at 8 o’clock this evening.’ “We were more deliberate in those days than at the present. We were deliberate in all things. We did not hurry away the snow as we do now. We thought it cheaper to let the sun do that. Now in this advanced age we think nothing of spending $10,000 to beat the sun by twenty-four hours; but speed is everything today. At the time of speaking our whole revenue was not one-fourth of the interest on our debt today. “I have enumerated the personnel to show the speed of time, for at the present time not one of those mentioned, except myself, remain. They have all passed to the ‘majority.’ “Prominently among the aldermen of that period were Ferdinand David, and William Rodden; the former as chairman of the roads committee, may be regarded as having been the father of our expropriation system, and the latter, as chairman of finance, was regarded as the father of our 7 per cent consolidation. Were both these men alive today they would be appalled at the outcome of their pet schemes. In those days we spoke with bated breath of $100,000, now we play with the millions as a very little thing. Then our 6 per cent securities sold at a heavy discount, since then our 3 per cent securities have sold over par. “An orator about this time, haranguing the taxpayers from the steps of the Nelson Monument, assured them that if they should elect him as their representative, he would reduce their taxes 150 per cent. Poor fellow, he meant well, but he was allowed to sink, with his invaluable arithmetical genius, into oblivion, while the other one, who was able to rouse another mob, occupies a seat on the king’s bench. This shows that it is better to break people’s windows than to abolish their taxes and give them a 50 per cent bonus beside. O, tempora, O, mores.”