University of Virginia Library

“BIG THINGS AROUND—HUSH! HUSH!”

Speech is silver, but silence is golden, says an
old German proverb, which appears to have been
adopted as their rule of action by the vast swarm
of experienced and eager Lobbyists who are now
here attempting to push through those two greatest
swindles of the day—the Broadway and Cross-town
Railroads. For the reporters of our various
papers who are stationed here on duty to come
out openly in favor of these measures, might lead
to inquiries and involve said reporters in trouble
with their respective editors—the editors, very
likely, not being able to “see things in that particular
light.” A judicious silence, therefore, is the
best aid the Lobby can hope for; and for the last
few weeks the universal whisper of “Hush!
hush!” has only been interrupted by, or rather
mingled with, the crisp rustle of passing greenbacks.
“Oh breathe not their names, let them
sleep in the shade,” have been the words of command

from Major-General Jake Sharp's City-railroad
Headquarters at the Delevan; and for evidence
that he has been in the main obeyed with
military promptness and fidelity, you may consult
the “Albany Letters” of the past three weeks in
all the New York daily and weekly journals—
the Tribune, of course, excepted.

THE CURTAIN GOING UP—GRAND PROGRAMME OF
PERFORMANCES.

This silence your correspondent, to his own
financial prejudice and the public good, now proposes
to break in a very decided manner—pulling
up the curtain before the actors are all fully posed
in their parts, and showing the whole details of
pulleys, wires, trap-doors, dissolving views, and
other machinery, which are already prepared for
the Senatorial production upon next Tuesday,
“with all the modern improvements,” of the
great Broadway and Cross-town dramas. The
entire strength of both the Broadway and Cross-town
companies will be exhibited in this letter—
each actor being assigned to a part in which experience
has made him perfect, and the whole being
under the direct stage-management of that veteran
supervisor of such arrangements who is known in
the circles of the initiated as the “Old Man,” but
otherwise and more properly our “Lord Thurlow

Weed.” There will be the “clear-grit Broadwegian
and Cross-town Senators” coming up smiling
for the first round, with Messrs. Law, Sharp, Kerr,
Brennan, Develin, and Sweeney acting as their
bottle-holders in a corner of “the ring;” while a
delegation of “Central Railroad Senators” will
also appear to assist them, these latter having their
heads plastered and bandaged in all directions,
their noses swollen to an unusual size, and their
eyes in mourning—proud though unhappy mementoes
of their recent campaign for “unlimited
fares” under the “Old Man's “leadership.”[1]

PROPOSED BROADWAY, CROSS-TOWN, AND CENTRAL
RAILROAD COMBINATION.

Next Tuesday is the day set apart by the Senate
for the final consideration of the Broadway and
Cross-town measures—it being quite likely, however,
that a vote of further postponement may be
carried on that day by a junction of the Broadway,
Cross-town, and Central forces, in order to
give the engineers of each concern more time for
arranging the particulars of a bargain, which,
carrying one measure, is to carry all three—the

thirteen “clear grit” Broadway and Cross-town
Senators being willing to go solid for the increase
of fare on the Central Railroad, if the “Central
fellows” can and will reciprocate the obligation by
giving them enough votes to carry through their
pet iniquities. The plot, you see, is a mighty
pretty one if it will only work; but that it can't
be made work, and certainly “won't wash,” is the
opinion of the longest and oldest heads in this
vicinity—Dean Richmond being opposed to any
such coalition, and swearing that, even if successful
this year, it would raise such a storm next
year against the “Central” that the very charter
of the Company would be in danger. Behind all
these petty intriguers, too, stands the shadowy
figure of Governor Fenton, “grand, gloomy, and
peculiar”—a mantle of mysterious silence wrapped
around his thoughts, in his eyes a curious
twinkle of amusement and curiosity, and in his
red right hand a concealed weapon, which Jake
Sharp now declares, with many epithets, he
“believes to be a veto.”

HOW THE PREY IS PORTIONED OUT—“THE
PARTIES IN INTEREST.”

And now first to talk of the forces, resources,
grantees, and Lobby-agents of the Broadway project.
The proposed grant—never mind the
names printed in it—is divided as follows: For
George Law, because he has power to enforce his
claim, two-twelfths; for Matthew T. Brennan and
Peter B. Sweeney, on behalf of the corrupt
Democracy, three-twelfths; for Jacob Sharp and
John Kerr, in consideration of their advancing
the sinews of war, three-twelfths; for the Weed
interest, as the natural political owners of the
Legislature, three-twelfths; and three-twelfths to
be held in reserve for the coalition of which Senator
Demas Strong is the representative—Senator
Strong being the present Treasurer of the Belt
City Railroad, for the passage of which he
“worked hard and did good service;” and this
Belt-road being the chief power and interest now
pressing the passage of the Cross-town Railroad
bill—a bill against which, therefore, we may of
course expect Senator Strong to fight with every
energy of his nature! This, however, is anticipating;
and now let us return to our Broadway

“muttons”—who will soon, we predict, be as
dead as any muttons ever sent down to New
York over the Harlem or Erie lines.

SUPPLY OF THE SINEWS OF WAR—GOLDEN CORDIAL
FOR LEGISLATORS, AND WATER FOR THE
STOCK.

Such being the men to be benefited by the bill,
we find that the “sinews of war” for the campaign
have been furnished by the Seventh Avenue or
Parallel Railroad—this being the line which
would be most seriously injured by the laying
down of a rival railroad in Broadway, and which,
therefore, wishes to protect itself by obtaining a
share of the grant. Of this Seventh Avenue
Iine, Jacob Sharp and John Kerr are now the two
controlling proprietors; and, as an illustration of
what these kind of people mean when they complain
that a six-cent fare does not pay them any
return upon their investment—we may briefly
mention as follows: The Seventh Avenue Road
runs from Fifty-seventh street to the Astor House,
a distance of about four miles; and its probable
total cost of construction, with buildings, livestock,
and rolling-stock, may have amounted, at
the extreme outside, to half a million dollars. It
is, nevertheless, declared to have a capital of
$2,000,000, with a bonded debt of $1,400,000—

about $200,000 of this debt in extra bonds having
been put out in Wall street not many months ago,
and the proceeds of said extra bonds being now
believed to be up here in Albany and employed
in furnishing the fuel to get up steam for the passage
of this Broadway measure—Mr. Jake Sharp
in person being the grand almoner and lord-bountiful
of this legislative charity!

THE GRANTEES AND THEIR DUMMIES—JACOB
DOING A BIG BUSINESS.

The names used as grantees in the bill, are, of
course, of no account; or of little more account
than the “Peter Griese” and “J. Joseph Donnelly”
of a former Broadway scheme; or the
“John H. Doty” to whom your City Comptroller
sold for $101 the City bonds for which Mr.
Andrew Mills, of the Dry Dock Savings Bank, had
offered him $105.[2] In most of our City Railroad
grants, the names of the grantees cannot even be
found in the directory; but, in the present one,

the two last-named of these unknown gentlemen
are supposed to be the representatives of the
“Old Man;” while Messrs. Jacob Sharp and John
Kerr have each placed the name of a son-in-law
in the proposed measure. George Law has used,
to protect his own three-twelfths, the names of one
gentleman who is connected with his bank, and
another gentleman who is the brother-in-law of
his lawyer; while two other names are used as
the representative “dummies” of the Brennan-Sweeney
interest. “Live-Oak George,” by the
way, don't want the bill to pass at all, and has
not been up here this year, despite all efforts to
bring him; but he feels that if it does pass, it
would never do for him, with his other heavy
City Railroad interests, to be “out in the cold.”
He says he already has in stock of this kind all
the money that he can beneficially manage—
owning the Eighth and Ninth Avenue Railroads
altogether, and some small shares in the Sixth and
Seventh Avenue lines. He formerly owned a
great part of the Avenue D. and Fourteenth street
line; but this road—one of the most profitable in
the city—has since been sold out by all the original
grantees to their associate, Mr. Jacob Sharp,
who is also sole proprietor of the railroad running
from the Dry Dock, foot of East Eleventh
street, to its terminus in front of Barnum's Museum—a
road of brief route, large travel, very
light expenses, and enormous profits. In fact, if
George Law don't look out, the vigorous Jacob
will soon be the king of our City Railroads.
As to the politicians, they only seek these grants
to sell them again for whatever they will fetch;
but Sharp is an excellent business man, and in
more senses than one “a man of unbounded stomach,”
who is quite likely to absorb all weaker
rivals.

ROLL-CALL OF HONOR—NAMES OF THE “CLEAR-GRIT
BROADWEGIANS.”

We now come to the “clear-grit Broadway
Senators”—the men who have proved their fidelity
to this particular bill in many a desperate
vote, and who may be relied upon, with perfect
confidence, to go straight for this or any other
similar measure in which “their friends” shall
have been properly protected—by “friends”
meaning those political combinations of outside
operators who have been the carbuncle ornaments
and jewels of our State Legislature during the
last half-score of years. Of these there are thirteen
considered “certain”—a fourteenth, probably;
but, as this fourteenth man has not yet gone

too far to retract, we suppress his name for the
present, hoping that he may, even at the eleventh
hour,
prevent the necessity of our placing his name
before the public in the same roll-call of honor
with that to which his more advanced associates
have already condemned their reputations. These
thirteen “clear-grit Broadwegians” are named as
follows: Senators Demas Strong and Henry C.
Murphy of Kings county; Christian B. Woodruff,
Thomas C. Fields, and Luke F. Cozans of New
York; George Beach of Greene county; Orson
M. Allaben of Delaware; Palmer E. Havens of
Essex; Cheney Ames of Oswego; Frederick
Julian of Chenango; Stephen K. Williams of
Wayne; Stephen T. Hayt of Steuben; and
Wilkes Angell of Alleghany—this last-named
Senator being Chairman of the Committee having
special charge of reporting these Broadway, Cross-town,
and all similar measures.

ALLEGED HERMAPHRODITE SENATORS, WHO ARE
NO HERMAPHRODITES AT ALL.

Having given the Senators who are claimed and
pretty well known to be “certain for the Broadway
measure,” we give next the list of those gentlemen
who are insulted by the confident assertions of
the Lobby that they “can be fetched whenever
wanted,” and that “whenever their votes can pass
the Broadway and Cross-town bills,” such votes will
be forthcoming. These are Ira Shafer of Albany;
James M. Humphrey of Erie; and Robert Christie
of Richmond, Democrats; and Ezra Cornell
of Tompkins, and George G. Munger of Monroe,
Unionists. It is even added that an attempt is
being made upon the political virtue of the
honored Senator, George H. Andrews of Otsego—
the “Old Man,” a veteran in this species of seduction,
having been “horse-shedding” him to this
end ever since the Broadway iniquity of the present
session was conceived in sin and brought forth
under the obstetrics of iniquity. Such gentlemen
as these, however—with perhaps one possible
exception—are not the kind of men to “contaminate

their fingers with base bribes,” nor will they
give to any Lobby agent, in their case, the pride
of boasting—

Senator Christie has said publicly that “no man
can live in New York and vote for the Broadway
railroad: it taints everything it touches;” adding,
that although he is “what is called a Central
Railroad man,” yet he cannot afford to help the
Central at any such price as this. It is the same
with Senators Munger, Humphrey, and Cornell—
all gentlemen who value their own characters—
Senator Ira Shafer being probably the only one
of those claimed as “doubtful,” whose devotion
to the Central might possibly be so great as to
carry him over to cast a Broadway vote. Whenever
any amount of “horse-shedding” shall have
drawn Senators Andrews, Munger, Cornell, and
Christie into this business, then their friends will
confess that there are several new things under
the sun.

HOBBS HITS THE NAIL ON THE HEAD EVERY
POP. HE TALKS LIKE A BIRD—LIKE TWO
BIRDS.

The matter standing thus in the main body of
the Senate, let us see how it stands in the Committee
having more especial charge of the matter,
and which consists of Senators Beach, Williams,
Woodruff, Angel, and Hobbs. Upon last year's
Committee, Senator Angel, although Chairman,
was pushed “out into the cold,” and that nice
little job, “the Harlem Corner,” went through
without him. This year, however, he has fought
his way in again, and is now in full accord and
partnership with his Broadwegian brothers, Beach,
Williams, and Woodruff. This leaves Senator
Hobbs, of Franklin—a very upright and able
gentleman—alone in his glory to fight the “ring”
—a position so irksome that he was about applying
to be relieved, but was induced to remain,
possibly by the consideration that—

Hobbs, therefore, stays in the Committee and
fights his corner like a hero, perfectly regardless

of cutting against the grain of his “ring” associates,
and notwithstanding the fact that the presiding
officer of the Senate—Lieutenant-Governor
William G. Alvord—is one of the heaviest
stockholders in the Belt Railroad, which he so
powerfully helped to “put through” while in the
Assembly. Hobbs pleads that his associates all
went against the Harlem-Broadway bill last year,
although ten times a fairer measurer in its provisions
than the present one, so far as regards the
public. Also that any such grant should be given
to a regularly constituted corporation, having a
certain limited capital and recognised stockholders
—men who would be responsible legally; and
who would both arrange to compensate property-holders
along the line for injuries done, as also to
withdraw all stages from the route, giving to the
proprietors of these vehicles full and just compensation.
He points out that the present bill does
not contain one single provision for the benefit or
protection of the public, being another mere naked
“gridiron grant” to a body of irresponsible individuals—not
one of whom would retain any interest
in the gift ten days after it had been made by
the Legislature. Suppose the old Broadway Railroad
bill had passed, and a person wished to commence
an action against those two illustrious
grantees—“Peter Griese” and “J. Joseph Donnelly,”
for damages! It is practically no better
in the present bill, as the names in the grant will
not be those of the actual proprietors. If the
members of the Legislature desire to vote Messrs.
Law, Brennan, Sweeney, Kerr, Sharp, and the
“Old Man,” from one to two hundred thousand
dollars each, let the vote be a clean and open one,
and let the dotation be made out of the public
treasury; but let them not add to the outrage of
such a gift by utterly ruining the noblest street on
the American Continent. The Seventh Avenue
road has “watered up” its stock to $2,000,000,
with a bonded debt of $1,400,000. How much
“water” would the Broadway stock be likely to
absorb, if granted to these parties? And how much
would be its bonded debt in two years from the
end of this session? Individuals can't be sued in
such a connexion; corporations can. Individuals
can issue as much stock as they please; corporations
can be limited. If this Broadway iniquity
is to go through at all, let it be consigned to the
care of a corporation, with a limited capital, and
with legal responsibility assured.

NEW YORK, WITH TWELVE STITCHES IN HER
SIDE, AND HER BACKBONE TRAVERSED BY THE
TERTIAN AGUE.

Thus—only much better—argues Senator
Hobbs; but he talks to ears as deaf as if they
were already stuffed with a rustling paper, the
color of which we need not specify; and all of his
arguments applying to the Broadway road, are of
equal, or even far stronger, applicability to the
intended “Cross-town Railroad.” This latter
project has for its pecuniary backer and banker
the present Belt City Railroad, of which Senator
Strong is Treasurer, and Lieut.-Gov. Alvord one
of the original stockholders. This Cross-town
scheme should really be called the Darning-Needle
Railroad, being intended to give your
city a “stitch in the side” every ten blocks or so,
as follows: It is to run across Broadway from the
foot of Courtlandt street, North River, to the foot
of Maiden Lane, East River; then back again,
across Broadway, from the East River to the North,
viâ John street. It is to perform the same feat,
charging across the city through Chambers street,
and returning to the North River, viâ Duane.

Another stitch is to be given you at Ninth street,
with a returning raid through Tenth street and
Christopher. Ditto, repeated from the Hudson to
the East River, through Twenty-Sixth street, with
a reëntering darn from the East River to the Hudson,
through Twenty-Seventh street. There are
two other sets of darns higher up the island, the
exact localities of which I have forgotten—the
whole project, let me add, being literally “one of
the darn'dest” that has ever yet been broached.
The Broadway swindle is to run right down the
backbone of your island, like a fit of the tertian
ague; while this Cross-town abomination is to
keep giving you a punch in the ribs every ten
blocks you walk.

CHIEF OPERATORS OF THE CROSS-TOWN RAILROAD—ENTER
MESSRS. PURSER AND CONOVER
WITH TWO FLIP-FLAPS.

As to the personnel of this Cross-town affair, it
is very numerous and greatly mixed up, being
considered by many even a “bigger thing” than
Broadway itself; for the fare is to be the same as
on all other roads, while the distance traversed
will rarely much exceed one mile. We therefore
find in it the Belt Railroad people, who supply it
with money just as the Seventh Avenue line supplies
the Broadway project; and, as grand hidalgos

of the Belt, we have Senator Strong, Lieut.
Gov. Alvord and John Butler. Also the “Sixth
Ward family,” including “Peter Griese;” and the
“Old Man's family,” including your Corporation
Counsel. Whether Kerr and Sharp are in it, is
not known to your correspondent; but we have
here to add to our original stock of actors in the
Broadway scheme an entirely new and very interesting
body of performers who are known as the
“Tax Office family,” headed by Messrs. George
H. Purser, Tax Commissioner, Assistant Corporation
Counsel, etc.; Dan Conover and Company—
Mr. Conover also carrying in his pocket the bill
organizing the “Manhattan Land Company,”
otherwise known as “the Great Dirt Bill”—a bill
very much of the original Fort-Gansevoort pattern;
but so vast that its prototype beside it would
be but a wart beside Ossa—thus borrowing, and,
we fear, rather injuring, one of Shakspeare's
most passionate metaphors.

QUOTATION OF ONE STANZA—COULDN'T STAND
ANOTHER—FROM OUR “CRAZY POET.”

On next Tuesday these Broadway and Cross-town
monsters are to come up for judgment, being
made the special order of the day; and, as they
have been hideous in their lives—an idea somewhere
used by another writer—in their deaths let
us hope they will not be divided. They are the
Siamese twins of the Lobby, and either both must
live or both perish. There are some verses up
here written by our “Crazy Poet”—the man, you
know, wearing peacock's feathers in his hat and
having his breast all covered with old coins and
gimcracks, who stands on the steps of the capitol
each day scrutinizing the faces of the members as
they pass in or out. They are addressed “To the
Most Honorable the Honest Senators of New
York,” and have evidently reference to the bringing
up of the Broadway and Cross-town Railroad
bills next Tuesday. They commence:

GENERAL GAME OF EAR-WIGGING ALL ROUND—
EVERY HORSE-SHED CROWDED, AND BUTTONHOLES
AT A PREMIUM.

This specimen must content you, as I have not
time to copy the balance; and, besides, I do not
think our “Crazy Poet” correct in believing that
next Tuesday will be the final day. The “clear-grit”
Broadwegians, as I said before, need a little
delay, as they are trying to patch up a treaty of
alliance, offensive and defensive, with the badly-beaten
Central fellows—the Broadwegians offering
to vote for giving the Central two and a half cents
per mile, in return for the support of the following
four gentlemen, which, if secured, would
carry the Broadway and Cross-town bills—they
being thirteen themselves, and the total number
of the Senate thirty-two. They expect by this
proffered bribe to get the votes of Senator Andrew
D. White of Onondaga (Unionist), and Ira
Shafer, Robert Christie, and James M. Humphrey
of Erie (Democrats); but we tell them the thing
can't be done at that, or any other price. It is
quite probable, however, that these last-named
gentlemen may join in voting for a postponement
of the Broadway and Cross-town bills next Tuesday,
in order to give time for further negotiation,
and to see what may or may not be brought about
by the permanent game of poker going on in

Jake Sharp's parlor at the Delevan—a very potent
Lobby agency; together with the various “horse-shedding”
operations which everybody in the
interest of every scheme is now trying upon
every one else who is not.

That we have laws intended to restrain bribery,
and that the lobby-agent's business of corrupting
the very fountains of legislation is a felonious
calling, no one doubts; and yet who ever heard
of a single case of the kind in this State being
brought up for trial? The “strong statutes” are
powerless against the apparently universal demoralization
of this capital; and when we come to
trace back whence all this villany has flowed out
upon us * * *. But that would be an endless
consideration.

GOV. FENTON'S ATTITUDE—WE GO OUR ENTIRE
PILE ON HIS FIDELITY.

This letter has not been a cheerful one. Let
me conclude with something pleasant, to find
which I pass out of the lobby and enter the
Executive Chamber. No matter what takes place
in the Senate or Assembly Chambers, or both, we
have here a power too pure for the foul fingers of
corruption to approach—too high to be influenced
by any of the little mousing schemes which are in
operation to entangle him. Personal honesty, and
his veto of this very bill last session, were the
redeeming features of Governor Seymour's administration;
and the same quality, and a like act,
—should the present bill pass the Senate—will
doubly assure the people of our State that, in
selecting Governor Fenton, they made a choice
most wise in all particulars. He does not wish to
be obliged to use his veto power in this matter,
but hopes and relies that his friends in the Senate
will not allow this poisoned chalice to be presented
to his lips. If they do, he may still “love
them,” but they “will never more be officers of

his.” With them the whole question rests; for
although the bill passes from their House to the
Assembly—in that body there is known to be a
partly political, partly venal majority, only eager
for the spoil—the price of votes being openly
talked of as $500 down for each vote on each of
the two bills—Broadway and Cross-town—and
$2,500 additional on the signing of both bills by
the Governor, being an aggregate of $3,500 all
told. Their thousand dollars each these unfortunate
creatures may earn; but let them be well
assured that, under no possible circumstances, can
the balance promised ever become their due. If
they think $1,000 a fair price for their political
lives, let them accept what is offered, and go down
to the infamy of oblivion with the brand of this
poorly paid iniquity upon their dishonored
brows.[3]

And now, my beloved brethren, this city railroad
sermon will close with one brief extract from
a pure Greek poet—an extract which can be sung
melodiously to that divine Italian air, the “Groves
of Blarney,” and in the singing of which you are
all respectfully requested to join chorus. It reads

as follows, and the rank of its author was that of
private soldier in the armies of the Union; and
his name was—but I happen just now to forget
it: