The conspiring contractors were led by Andrew J. Garvey, Ingersoll & Co. and Keyser & Co. At first, 25 per cent. of the spoils went to Tweed, 20 to Connolly and 10 to Sweeny. When the rate was subsequently increased, others were permitted to share in the harvest, and Watson, the County Auditor; Woodward, the clerk of the Board of Supervisors, and the recognized go-betweens for the “ring” members, received 2½ per cent. Five per cent. was reserved for “expenses”--in other words, the sums necessary to bribe the requisite members of the Legislature. The division of the spoils was a matter of daily occurrence when Tweed was in town, and took place in the Supervisors’ room in the County Court House. After Watson’s warrants had been cashed, Garvey would carry Tweed’s share of the plunder to the “Boss” at the office of Street Commissioner George W. McLean. On one such visit Garvey found McLean present. In trying to hand the parcel secretly to Tweed, it fell on the floor. Tweed quickly covered it with his foot, and later, with apparent carelessness, picked it up and threw it into a drawer. The too-ingenious Garvey was thereafter instructed to “do business” with Woodward.[13] Tweed soon reached a position of general control in the State Legislature. But it cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars. Often he had to pay for what he wanted quite as heavily as did the corporations who maintained lobbies there. “It was impossible to do anything there without paying for it,” were his own words; “money had to be raised for the passing of bills.”[14] A well-known lobbyist of the time stated that for a favorable report on a certain bill before the Senate $5,000 apiece was paid to four members of the committee having it in charge. On the passage of the bill a further $5,000 apiece, with contingent expenses, was to be paid. In another instance, when but one vote was needed to pass a bill, three Republicans put their figures up to $25,000 each. One of them, it is needless to say, was secured. A band of about thirty Republicans and Democrats, shortly afterwards becoming known as the “Black Horse Cavalry,” organized themselves under the leadership of an energetic lobbyist, with a mutual pledge to vote as directed.[15] Naturally their action exercised a strong “bull” influence on the market for votes; and the sums paid by Tweed and other “promoters” grew to an enormous aggregate.