publications; whereas out of one hundred discovered, an average of but ten are publicly denounced and but one judicially convicted. Here are only the large and important, only the national and state plunder conspiracies; the misdeeds of the chiefs and masters; for each one of these there have been a hundred smaller thefts, pilferings and frauds; a thousand village, town and county knaveries. Below or attached to each chief were scores or hundreds of subordinates or followers; how many of them escaped the contagion of the evil example of their leaders and superiors? These half hundred scandals about to be set down in this chapter, properly considered, do not merely represent the trespasses of fifty individuals; they really show forth the misconduct and depravity of a class and the corruption and disgrace of an entire political system. The Golphin claim for $43,000 was an old revolutionary claim originally made not against the United States, but against Georgia. In 1835 a politician named Crawford became attorney for the claimants on a contingent fee of one-half. In 1848 a bill authorizing its payment out of the U. S. Treasury was passed through Congress without discussion, and the claim was paid in full. In 1850, this same Crawford being Secretary of War, the Treasury Department was induced by some one to pay the claimant $191,000 for back interest in addition to the principal already paid. Of this sum Crawford received $94,000. The names of three cabinet officers were smirched by the scandal which ensued on the discovery of the facts. A majority of the Wisconsin legislature of 1856 was bribed to vote for a valuable land grant to the La Crosse and Milwaukee Railroad Company. Stocks and bonds to the amount of $175,000 were distributed among thirteen senators, and $335,000 among members of the Assembly. The Governor received $50,000; his private secretary $5,000, and other officials corresponding sums all in bonds of the company. (_Rhodes_, III, p. 61.) “The investigation of the scandal of the Milwaukee and La Crosse Railway Company in Wisconsin (1858) showed that about $900,000 worth of bonds had been distributed among legislators and prominent politicians in the state. Conditions like these have probably obtained in all the states at some time or other.” (_Reinsch_, p. 231.) In 1857 three members of the National House of Representatives were proved guilty of corrupt practices, and resigned their seats to avoid expulsion.