Wood neglected no means of ingratiating himself with the masses. The panic of 1857 suddenly deprived over 30,000 mechanics and laborers in the city of employment. Wood proposed the employment of the idle on public works, and the buying by the city of 50,000 barrels of flour and an equal amount of other provisions to be disposed of to the needy at cost.[17] The Common Council failed to see the value of this plan, but did appropriate a sum for public works in Central Park, the better share of which went to contractors and petty politicians. To win the good will of the Roman Catholics, becoming more and more a power, the Common Council gave over to the Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum a perpetual lease of the entire plot from Fifth to Fourth avenue, Fifty-first to Fifty-second street, at a rental of $1 a year.[18] So resourceful was Wood and so remarkable his political ingenuity that though he and his general committee were driven out by the Tammany Society, he nevertheless brought things about so that the Democratic convention in Tammany Hall, on October 15, renominated him for Mayor, by 75 votes to 12. The Tammany General Committee thereupon openly repudiated him, and the curious complication was presented of a candidate who was the Tammany “regular” nominee, yet opposed by both the society and the general committee. Instantly a determined citizen’s movement to defeat him sprang up. The city taxes had nearly doubled in the three years of Wood’s administration and were now over $8,000,000, of which over $5,000,000 had already been signed away in contracts or spent in advance of collection. Yet the Common Council had recently resolved to spend the exorbitant sum of $5,000,000 on a new City Hall. The Mayor vetoed the resolution only when the most intense public opposition was manifested. A committee of citizens, representative of the Republicans, Democrats and Native Americans, nominated Daniel F. Tiemann, a paint dealer, and a member of Tammany Hall, but who was an Alderman and as Governor of the Almshouse had made a good record. To Wood’s support there concentrated the preponderance of the foreign born, the native rowdies and the usual mass blinded into voting for the “regular” ticket. The gamblers, brothel-keepers, immigrant runners and swindlers of every kind bought and cheated for him in the belief that the reformers would drive them from the city. Wood had taken the precaution to manufacture thousands of voters. From the Wigwam, where the Wood partizans backed up their right to meet with fists, drummers-up were sent to bring in prospective citizens. Upon promising faithfully to vote the Tammany ticket, a card, valued at fifty cents, was furnished gratuitously to each. It was addressed to a Judge who owed his election to Tammany, and read: “Common Pleas: “Please naturalize the bearer. “N. Seagrist, chairman.”[19] From 3,000 to 4,000 voters, it was estimated, were turned out by this process.