The news of its slight plurality was hailed with anything but pleasure at the Wigwam, where the Anti-Monopolists were denounced as political swindlers and adventurers. Instead, however, of making a show of outward fairness, the organization leaders blindly took the course most adapted to fan the flame of opposition to themselves. After the great fire of 1835, which destroyed $20,000,000 worth of property, and the extent of which was due to the refusal of the corrupt Aldermen to give the city a proper water supply, the Common Council agreed to loan $6,000,000 at 5 per cent. interest for the relief of insurance companies and banks which had suffered from the fire.[19] Nothing was said or done for the relief of the poor sufferers whom the Wigwam claimed to have under its especial protection. The Council allowed pawnbrokers 25 per cent. interest and prohibited them from loaning more than $25 on a single pledge.[20] The city institutions were in a melancholy state.[21] Most serious of all on the public mind were the disclosures concerning the Commercial Bank, from which funds were embezzled in the scheme of cornering the stock of the Harlem Railroad. As a step towards this end, Samuel Swartwout and Garrit Gilbert (a sometime Sachem) lobbied for the passage of a bill to increase the capital stock of this road, which in turn, it was thought, would increase the price of all the stock--two Senators agreeing to raise objections temporarily “so as to blind the eyes of the New Yorkers.”[22] The leaders made no effort to stop the granting of charters, or to curtail the monopolist privileges already granted. It was admitted generally that no legislation even remotely affecting the interests of the banks could pass without the consent of those institutions. Tradesmen also had their combinations. But combinations, legal enough when organized by capital, were declared illegal when formed by workingmen. At this time the Supreme Court of the State of New York decided that combinations to raise the wages of any class of laborers amounted to a misdemeanor, on the ground that they were injurious to trade. Later, in June, 1836, twenty tailors were found guilty of conspiracy under that decision and fined by Judge Edwards $1,150 in the aggregate for engaging in a strike for higher wages. The mechanics prepared to hold an indignation meeting and applied for permission to use Tammany Hall. This was refused by the Sachems.[23] In defiance of the Wigwam, the meeting, a gathering of 20,000 persons, was held in the park fronting Tammany Hall. “Are workingmen,” read the address of the committee of this meeting,