"THE HON. WILLIAM M. TWEED DECLINES THE SUN'S STATUE. CHARACTERISTIC LETTER FROM THE GREAT NEW YORK PHILANTHROPIST. HE THINKS THAT VIRTUE SHOULD BE ITS OWN REWARD. THE MOST REMARKABLE LETTER EVER WRITTEN BY THE NOBLE BENEFACTOR OF THE PEOPLE." Another kind of memorial to his genius for absorbing the people's money was awaiting this philanthropic buccaneer. Vulgar ostentation was the outward badge of these civic burglaries. Tweed moved into a Fifth Avenue mansion and gave his daughter a wedding at which she received $100,000 worth of gifts; her wedding dress was a $5000 creation. At Greenwich he built a country estate where the stables were framed of choice mahogany. Sweeny hobnobbed with Jim Fiske of the Erie, the Tweed of Wall Street, who went about town dressed in loud checks and lived with his harem in his Opera House on Eighth Avenue. Thoughtful citizens saw these things going on and believed the city was being robbed, but they could not prove it. There were two attacking parties, however, who did not wait for proofs--Thomas Nast, the brilliant cartoonist of Harper's Weekly, and the New York Times. The incisive cartoons of Nast appealed to the imaginations of all classes; even Tweed complained that his illiterate following could "look at the damn pictures." The trenchant editorials of Louis L. Jennings in the Times reached a thoughtful circle of readers. In one of these editorials, February 24, 1871, before the exposure, he said: "There is absolutely nothing--nothing in the city--which is beyond the reach of the insatiable gang who have obtained possession of it. They can get a grand jury dismissed at any time, and, as we have seen, the legislature is completely at their disposal." Finally proof did come and, as is usual in such cases, it came from the inside. James O'Brien, an ex-sheriff and the leader in a Democratic "reform movement" calling itself "Young Democracy," secured the appointment of one of his friends as clerk in the controller's office. Transcripts of the accounts were made, and these O'Brien brought to the Times, which began their publication, July 8, 1871. The Ring was in consternation. It offered George Jones, the proprietor of the Times, $5,000,000 for his silence and sent a well-known banker to Nast with an invitation to go to Europe "to study art," with $100,000 for "expenses." "Do you think I could get $200,000?" innocently asked Nast. "I believe from what I have heard in the bank that you might get it." After some reflection, the cartoonist asked: "Don't you think I could get $500,000 to make that trip?" "You can; you can get $500,000 in gold to drop this Ring business and get out of the country." "Well, I don't think I'll do it," laughed the artist. "I made up my mind not long ago to put some of those fellows behind the bars, and I am going to put them there." "Only be careful, Mr. Nast, that you do not first put yourself in a coffin," said the banker as he left.