The vote stood: Van Wyck, 253,997; Low, 151,540; Tracy, 101,863; George, 21,693; scattering, 17,464. The Wigwam was beside itself with joy; the victory meant absolute control of the greater city’s annual budget of over $90,000,000, not to speak of the tens of millions more derived from rents, fees, fines, interest, assessments for street improvements, bond sales and premiums, and from those vast and varied sources of contract juggling, selling of legislative “goods,” and all the other avenues, too numerous to enumerate, of which Tammany from early times has availed itself. It also meant the control of an army of employees, now estimated at 60,000. The disreputable classes vociferously celebrated the occasion, assured that the town was once more to be “wide open.” FOOTNOTES [1] _Testimony, Senate Committee on Cities_, 1890, Vol. II, pp. 1708-12. [2] _Testimony, Senate Committee on Cities_, 1890, Vol. I, pp. 707-8. [3] _Ibid._, pp. 745-50, and _Ibid._, Vol. II, p. 1701. [4] _Testimony, Senate Committee on Cities_, 1890, Vol. I, pp. 235-52, and _Ibid._, p. 300. [5] Kirk had been dropped from the Council of Sachems in 1886 owing to the disclosures. [6] _Testimony, Senate Committee on Cities_, 1890, Vol. I, pp. 282-87. Bernard, or “Barney,” Martin and two others had been indicted on the ground of having been bribed, but the indictments were dismissed in March, 1890, on a technicality which allowed the defendants to fall back upon the Statute of Limitations. [7] _Testimony, Senate Committee on Cities_, 1890, Vol. I, p. 344. [8] _Ibid._, pp. 502-11. [9] _Ibid._, p. 513. [10] _Ibid._, Vol. II, p. 1244. [11] _Testimony, Senate Committee on Cities_, Vol. II, p. 1756. [12] _Ibid._, pp. 1757-62. [13] The credit for instituting this prosecution has been variously, and sometimes impudently, claimed. There is no doubt, however, that not only the first, but the most important evidence, was furnished by this committee, whose practical head was William A. Ellis, of the Second Assembly District. [14] _Investigation of the Police Department_, etc., 1894, Vol. V, p. 5734. [15] See _A History of Public Franchises in New York City_, by the author. [16] _Stenographic minutes_, p. 699. [17] _Testimony, Senate Committee on Cities_, 1890, Vol. II, p. 1755. Mr. Sheehan in the statement cited stated that when, in 1894, Mr. Croker sent an order to the district leaders requiring that district assessments amounting to $35,000 should be paid before March 1, the payments were promptly made. [18] Mr. McQuade was associated with Tweed, as a commissioner, in the building of the Harlem Court House. The testimony brought out in the case of Henry A. Smalley _vs._ The Mayor, etc., before Judge Donohue, in the Supreme Court, January 28, 1878, showed that the value of all the material used in the building was $66,386, but that the Finance Department had paid out for this material $268,580.