At about the same time the State Senate Committee on Cities, headed by J. Sloat Fassett, a Republican, undertook an investigation. Though subjected to the charges of lukewarmness and bargaining, this body, popularly known as the “Fassett Committee,” brought out much valuable information. Part of its testimony has already been referred to. It is impossible even to summarize the vast total embodied in the 3,650 printed pages of its report, but some of the more interesting particulars may be briefly touched upon. Henry S. Ives and George H. Stayner testified that, while prisoners at Ludlow Street Jail, they had paid, for various favors, $10,000 to Warden James P. Keating, then and later a prominent Tammany leader, and that previously they had paid other large amounts to certain Deputy Sheriffs.[4] John F. B. Smyth testified that when Sheriff Grant had appointed him Sheriff’s auctioneer--the most valuable gift at the Sheriff’s disposal--the latter suggested his having as a partner ex-Alderman Kirk (one of the Aldermen of 1884 indicted in connection with the Broadway Surface Railroad franchise),[5] saying that the organization insisted on having “one-half of it [the loot] go to somebody else.” In less than a year the gross proceeds amounted to about $20,000. Of this, $10,000 went to various Deputy Sheriffs, one of whom was Bernard F. Martin, frequently Sachem and another noted Tammany leader.[6] A copious amount of similar testimony was brought out implicating many other Tammany leaders, and showing that the Sheriff’s known income from the office ranged from $60,000 to $75,000 a year.[7] Thomas P. Taylor, a lawyer, swore that one of his clients in 1888 had had a claim of about $4,000 in the Sheriff’s hands, and that William H. Clark, a Sachem and a powerful Tammany leader, the partner of W. Bourke Cockran, and sometime Corporation Counsel, had asked him (Taylor), “what he would give to get it.” Mr. Taylor further testified that he had given nothing, and that he had secured only a few hundred dollars of the amount, after much trouble.[8] Clark denied the charge.[9] Corruption, favoritism and blackmail were charged against all the other departments controlled by Tammany, though in the Police and Excise departments, Republican and Tammany commissioners alike were shown to have winked at the abuses. Gambling houses had to pay at least $25 a week for protection,[10] and revenue was likewise derived from every place or person capable of being blackmailed. The testimony strongly pointed to the probability that as much as $10,000 had been paid to get a certain saloon license, though there was no absolute verification of the statement.