The war, which so engaged and diverted the popular mind, served as a cover for the continued manipulation of primaries and conventions, and the consummation of huge schemes of public plunder. Wood himself pointed out that from 1850 to 1860 the expenses of the city government had increased from over $3,200,000 to $9,758,000, yet his tenure of office from 1860 to 1862 was characterized by even worse corruption than had flourished so signally in his previous terms. After his installation, in 1860, it was charged that he had sold the office of City Inspector to Samuel Downes, a man of wealth, for $20,000; that Downes had paid $10,000 to certain confederates of Wood, and that he had afterward been cheated out of the office. Another charge, the facts of which were related in a presentment by the Grand Jury, accused Wood of robbing the taxpayers of $420,000. The Common Council had awarded a five-years’ street-cleaning contract to Andrew J. Hackley, at $279,000 a year, notwithstanding the fact that one among other responsible persons had bid $84,000 a year less. Afraid to submit the contract to the ordeal of public opinion, which might give rise to injunctions, the Common Council sped it through both boards on the same night. Waiting in his office until nearly midnight for the express purpose of signing it, the Mayor hastily affixed his signature the moment it reached him. The Grand Jury found that the sum of $40,000 in bribes had been raised and paid for the passage of the contract. It was asserted that the equivalent Wood received for signing the bill was one-fourth the amount of the contract, or $69,750 a year, for five years, free of any other consideration than his signature, the other beneficiaries of the contract supplying all the money needed to protect the fraud. Spurred on by public opinion, the police--when the work was not done in compliance with the contract--had reported to the Controller, who had refused to pay the monthly bills. Then the contractors reduced the pay of their laborers from $1.25 to 95 cents a day in order to make good their payments to Wood.[8] Hiram Ketchum, in November, 1861, publicly accused Wood of promising two men--Woodruff and Hoffman--Mozart Hall nominations for Judgeships, upon which they each paid $5,000 in checks to Wood’s account for “election expenses.” Pocketing the money, Wood then made an agreement with Tammany to unite on two other men--Monell and Barbour--for Judges, on condition that Tammany should not unite with the Republicans against him in the December Mayoralty election. S. B. Chittenden, a citizen of wealth and standing, charged, in Cooper Institute, November 26, 1861, that the signature of the Street Cleaning Commissioner necessary for certain documents could be bought for $2,500, and intimated that Wood was not dissociated from the procedure.