Tweed’s brief but dazzling career--for he was indeed a hero clad in Hell-fire--is said by President Andrews to have cost the City of New York 160,000,000 dols. The fine levied by Germany on the City of Paris after the War of 1870-1 was only one-fourth that amount. Fraud may be more costly than War. The total direct property loss occasioned by the great fire at Chicago in 1871, when three square miles of buildings were burned down, and 98,500 persons rendered homeless, was only 30,000,000 dols. above the plunder of Tweed and his gang. Thus Fraud can be almost as ruinous as Fire. [Illustration: MR. TILDEN.] Tweed was a fellow, if not of infinite jest like poor Yorick, at least of infinite insolent humour. In 1871 he boasted that he had amassed a fortune of 20,000,000 dols. Nor did he in the least scruple to avow the means by which he acquired it. President Andrews, of Brown University, in telling the history of the last quarter century, says, “He used gleefully to show his friends the safe where he kept money for bribing legislators, finding those of the Tammany-Republican stripe easiest game. Of the contractor who was decorating his country place at Greenwich he inquired, pointing to a statue, ‘Who the hell is that?’ ‘That is Mercury, the god of merchants and thieves,’ was the reply. ‘That’s bully,’ said Tweed; ‘put him over the front door.’” Tweed was to the last popular with the masses of the people. Even when the whole town was ringing with proofs of his guilt, he stood as candidate for the Senate of New York State, and was elected. He had distributed in the poorer districts some £10,000 worth of coal and flour, and one of his champions brought down the house by declaring that “Tweed’s heart has always been in the right place, and, even if he is a thief, there is more blood in his little finger and more marrow in his big toe than the men who are abusing him have in their whole bodies.” This man, with this excessive development of marrow in his big toe, was ultimately run down by Mr. Tilden and the Committee of Seventy. Connolly, the Comptroller, weakened and made terms with his opponents by appointing Mr. Green as Deputy-Comptroller. Mr. Green had little difficulty in laying hands upon all that was necessary in order to secure the prosecution and conviction of Tweed. Tweed’s two infamous judges were driven from the bench, and he himself was clapped into gaol. He made his escape, and sought refuge in Spain. He was, however, delivered up to the American authorities, and reconducted to prison, where he died. To the last Tweed retained possession of much of his ill-gotten wealth. An offer which was made to surrender the residue of his millions in return for his liberty was rejected.