[12] This speech was reprinted in the New York _Herald_, October 28, 1863. The _Herald_ was known as Wood’s special organ. [13] In a remarkable report handed down in 1862 by a select committee of the Board of Aldermen, the admission was made that the “primary elections are notoriously and proverbially the scenes of the most disgraceful fraud, chicanery and violence. They are without legal restraint or regulation, nor can such restraint or regulation be imposed upon them. Peaceable and orderly citizens, almost without exception, refuse to attend these meetings.” _Documents of the Board of Aldermen_, 1862, Vol. XXIX, No. 7. [14] The reformers of the city had unsuccessfully sought to incorporate in the charter of 1853, a clause requiring a two-thirds vote to overcome a veto. [15] _Documents of the Board of Aldermen_, 1865, part 1, No. 1. [16] _Senate Documents_, 1865, Vol. II, No. 38, pp. 75-76. [17] _Ibid._, pp. 166-70, etc. [18] _Ibid._, pp. 252-56. [19] City Inspector’s Report for 1863. The wretched condition of the city about this time caused the Legislature to establish the Metropolitan Board of Health, to have jurisdiction over the counties of New York, Kings, Westchester and Richmond and certain other territory. This board’s first report declared that the hygienic conditions of the city were disgusting and horrible; that epidemics were frequent, and that one-third of the deaths occurring in New York and Brooklyn were due to zymotic diseases. See _Report of Metropolitan Board of Health_, 1866, p. 133. [20] _Senate Documents_, 1865, No. 38. [21] Loew was several times a Sachem, holding that rank as late as 1886. [22] See Judgment Roll (1867) in the Superior Court docket and Exhibit A, forming part of the bill of particulars. [23] He was defeated by Reuben E. Fenton. [24] From 1847 to 1860, 2,671,745 immigrants landed at the Port of New York. _Documents of the Board of Aldermen_, 1861, Vol. XXVIII, No. 5. In 1855 the native voters in New York City had numbered 46,173, and the aliens, 42,704. CHAPTER XXIII THE TWEED “RING” 1867-1870 The Tweed “Ring” was, in a measure, the outgrowth of the act of 1857 creating the Board of Supervisors. The Whigs, and their successors, the Republicans, had up to that year held the legislative power of the State for the greater part of ten years, during which their chief concern had been the devising of means for keeping down the Democratic majority in New York City. Their legislation was directed to the transferring of as much as they could of the government of the city to State officials, a change generally welcomed by the honest part of the citizenship, on account of the continuous misgovernment inflicted by city officials.