With the passage of the “Tweed charter” and the City and County Tax Levy bill[9] of 1870, the stealing expanded to a colossal degree. At a single sitting--on May 5, 1870--the Board of Special Audit made out an order for the payment of $6,312,500 on account in building the new County Court House. Of this sum barely a tenth part was realized by the city.[10] From the 65 per cent. levied on supplies, at the end of 1869, the rate was swelled to 85 per cent. “Jobs” significant of untold millions lurked in every possible form. Great projects of public improvements were exploited to the last dollar that could be drawn from them. A frequent practise of Tweed was to create on paper a fictitious institution, jot down three or four of his friends as officers, put a large amount for that institution in the tax levy and pocket the money. Asylums, hospitals and dispensaries that were never heard of, and never existed except on paper, were put down as beneficiaries of State and city. The thefts were concealed in the main by means of issues of stocks and bonds and the creation of a floating debt, which the Controller never let appear in his statements. A new reform movement appeared during the Summer and Fall of 1870. Republicans, independents and disaffected Democrats combined forces and nominated Thomas A. Ledwith for Mayor. The reform ticket was apparently received with great public approval, and hopes began to be entertained of its success at the polls. Tweed, however, had already secured, by ways known best to himself, assurance of Republican assistance; he had large numbers of Republican officials, Election Inspectors, and the like, in his pay, and therefore knew that he had nothing to fear. Besides this, Tammany was united and enthusiastic. Its candidates, Hall, for Mayor, and Hoffman, for Governor, had seemingly lost none of their popularity with the rank and file. A few days before the election a popular demonstration, perhaps the largest in Tammany’s history, was held in and about the Wigwam. August Belmont presided, and addresses were made by Seymour, Hoffman, Tweed and Fisk (who had now become a Democrat). All the speakers were received with boisterous enthusiasm. Tweed won, Hall receiving 71,037 votes, to 46,392 for Ledwith. But the indications were plain that a reaction against the “ring” had begun, for Hoffman’s vote exceeded that of Hall by 15,631, while Ledwith’s vote exceeded that of Stewart L. Woodford, the Republican candidate for Governor, by nearly 12,000.