University of Virginia Library

"OUR REPORTER."

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8. CHAPTER VIII.
THE MILES O'REILLY CAUCUS. AN INTRODUCTION AFTER
THE MANNER OF THE “WORLD.”

If on the proper day of the proper month, several
hundred years before the commencement of the
Christian era, the chief editor of the Athens Herald
had sent out one of his reporters of an afternoon,
with orders to bring back an exact account of the
Eleusinian Mysteries—to reveal any of which to the

uninitiated incurred the penalty of death—the feelings
of that reporter might not have been of the
most festive character. We fancy him securing his
stylus and tablets next to his manly breast, taking
an affectionate farewell of the wife who weeps and
the children who cling to him; then, wrapping
around him his reportorial toga and drawing tighter
the strings of his sandals, so that he may be prepared,
if need be, to make the best time ever witnessed
in the Olympic games. Finally we see him
drop on one knee, raise his eyes to the white porch
of his home, breathe a hasty invocation to the Gods
of the Acropolis, then pull down his ivy wreath
over his eyes, and dash off madly towards the scene
of the mystic and sacred ceremonials.

HOW OUR REPORTER ENTERED THE CAUCUS ROOM.

Human nature, even in the reportorial form, is
much the same now as it was three thousand years
ago; and as the Athenian reporter, in toga and
sandals, would have felt while endeavoring to gain
admission as a “dead-head” to the Eleusinian rites,
so felt your reporter, in stove-pipe hat and Wellingtons,
while attempting to gain entrance to the initial
caucus of the new political organization, known as

the “Joint Stock Consolidated Grand Junction Lobby
League,” with which the name of Private Miles
O'Reilly, Forty-seventh Regiment, New York Volunteers,
has been recently connected. What would
have been his fate if compelled to remain outside in
the immense and indescribable jam of humanity
which awaited the regular opening of the doors, it is
not for him to say. Ribs have only a certain
strength, and the crushing in of the breast-bone
upon the spine is not good treatment for consumptive
patients. Fortunately, however, he found a
“next friend” (such things are useful and plentiful
in politics), who took him round to a private entrance
in rear of the caucus room, where Messrs.
Dick Connolly and Sal. Skinner were on duty as
janitors. These gentlemen he at once recognized
by their regalia as promising knights of the “Most
illustrious D. B. Order;” and on giving them the
pass-word and grip of an “arch-past” he was at
once allowed to enter the mystic chamber, fifteen or
twenty minutes in advance of its being thrown open
to the rush of the regular caucus representatives.

THE CORPUS DELICTI IN COURT—MODEL OF THE CITY
OF NEW YORK.

The room selected for the caucus, in the St. Nicholas
Hotel, was one of great size, oblong in form,
—its rear windows very appropriately commanding
a fine view of Mercer street. Towards this end
there was a large stage, about three feet high, and
covered with green baize, which ran across the
room; and on this stage there was an exact model
of the city of New York—all its streets laid out, all
its church spires visible; every house, store and
shanty having its counterpart in miniature, and
many of its public parks and squares still showing
traces of having been used as encampments. Thousands
of beautiful models of sailing vessels and
steamers lay moored around the piers. On this gentle
slope stands Murray Hill. There is the City
Hall. The Park, with all its winding roads, woody
ravines, glassy lakelets, magnificent bridges, breezy
hills and odorous garden patches, lies exposed to
view. Here, at Fort Washington, the primeval
rock pushes up one shoulder through the trimly
shaven grass in rear of James Gordon Bennett's
house. This is the highest point of Manhattan

[ILLUSTRATION]

THE CAUCUS.--Page 120.

[Description: 564EAF. Illustration Page. Image of soldier surrounded by a group of six men who appear to be congratulating him.]

Island. There are palaces all along the North river.
Very splendid, too, is that portion of the city north
of Fourteenth street, and west of Third avenue.
That black open space on Fifth avenue is where the
Colored Orphan Asylum lately stood. You see
similar black spaces in Third avenue and elsewhere.
These are the vestigia nigra of our late anti-draft,
anti-negro riot. But of all the pretty things in the
model, Broadway is the prettiest and most picturesque.
Its architecture so various, its idiosyncrasies
so peculiar! Here the new style is for ever jostling
out or dwarfing into insignificance the old. There
are banners on every roof. This, verily, is a great
city, and great should be the men who rule it. This
city is certainly worth subjugation and spoliation.
Are there not “patriots” enough in it to successfully
essay the task?

POLITICAL ASPECTS OF THE MODEL, SHOWING WHERE
THE POWER LIES.

In looking at this model, so exact in all its details,
an irregularity of proportion becomes apparent, and
in this irregularity is its political significance. The
shanties in Mackerelville are as large or larger than
many fine mansions in the best avenues. Small

groggeries, in this model, are two or three times the
size of vast public institutions—such as school-houses
or churches, in whose shade they nestle. The City
Hall towers up on high, as though its cupola were in
the clouds, while its base spreads out to a bulk
which threatens soon to reach from river to river,
and to absorb half the island. Such political buildings
as Tammany Hall, Mozart Hall, the Police
Headquarters, the Republican Headquarters, the
“Pewter Mug,” the “Ivy Green,” the Comptroller's
office and other municipal offices, and all the tenement
houses throughout the city, are built in harmony
with the proportions of the exaggerated City
Hall, and out of all harmony with their actual neighbors.
On looking closer it may be seen that a complete
network of powerful threads and wires connects
together in bonds of telegraphic sympathy and
accord all buildings modelled in this larger proportion.
The nearer it is examined the stronger and
more complex will appear the system of wire-work
which radiates from the City Hall in all directions.
There are wires, powerful and numerous, and
each dripping with corrupt gold, leading to the
site of every contract famous in municipal history.
There are wires to the Battery enlargement;
wires to every one of the city railroads now being
built; wires to every ferry franchise; wires to every
pier and dock; wires to the Russian and all other
banquets; hundreds of wires to Washington market,
and hundreds upon hundreds yet quivering with
electric life and connecting the Fort Gansevoort
market-site with the sources of authority. From
every street and engine-house, from every road and
avenue, from every grant and privilege, from every
police precinct and from certain of the courts and
other offices, a network of tributary wires runs back
to the City Hall, and is from thence re-distributed
to the Tammany, Mozart, and Republican Headquarters.
A cable, very fine in itself, but made of
four thicker and seventeen thinner strands, connects
this whole complex mechanism with the State Capitol
at Albany—an exact and striking model of which
was placed upon a pedestal some few feet behind
the model of the City, just as the Capitol itself looks
down from its lofty eminence when viewed from the
foot of State street. This cable thus forms, as it
were, the rein or guiding strap with which the master
charioteers at Albany disport themselves while
driving the “city team.” The clock in the cupola of
the City Hall, we should add, had a musical box
attached to its machinery, which, as time slipped on,
poured forth such popular airs as “That's the way
the money goes,” and “Come, brothers, join the
mystic ring,” in one continuous melody.

ONE OF THE MODEL-MAKERS ADMIRES HIS OWN WORK.

While your reporter was examining this model, a
deep, gruff voice said, just close to him; “Curious,
isn't it?” and turning sharply round he found himself
face to face with a great burly figure of the live
oak type, clad in solemn black. He was an elderly
man, of rough and shaggy appearance, with masses
of bushy grey hair, heavy and shaggy grey eyebrows;
dark, piercing grey eyes, a heavy and curling
beard running around his lower jaw; brown
complexion, a short, thick, aggressive nose, and
cheeks rather inclined to look dropsical. In the
lines of his strong, coarse mouth there lurked infinite
force and cunning, and his face, as a whole, could be
extremely expressive, or as stolid and meaningless as
though cut in timber. “Very curious, isn't it?” he
repeated, with that tender interest which a workman
of high order feels in examining some masterpiece of
ingenuity which has had his own best efforts. “I
quite pride myself on that model,” he added.

“Three-fourths of its present machinery I invented
and put up with my own hands.”

GRAND ENTRANCE OF THE DELEGATIONS—BLUE LIGHTS
BURNING.

Just at this moment the main doors leading into
the hall were thrown open, and in poured such a
tide of humanity as is seldom witnessed in one
assemblage. First came a select delegation from
Tammany Hall, headed by several illustrious corporators
in the Broadway and other city railroads,
while its rear was brought up by Messrs. Peter
Griese, Martin J. Kopp, J. Joseph Donelly, John H.
Doty, E. S. Williams, and other well known public
characters of that order. Next came a select Mozart
delegation—very select, indeed—consisting of the
Duke of Bloomingdale, the whole Tobacco Family,
three judicial candidates, seventeen candidates for
the Assembly, four candidates for the Senate, eight
candidates for Aldermen and twenty-four candidates
for the Board of Councilmen. After these
came the Republican delegation, led by the burly
and graceful forms of the West Washington market,
Fort Gansevoort, Ferry franchise and Marine transportation
Operators, the rear being brought up and

kept in order by the batons of three prominent gentlemen
from Police Headquarters. These were the
only bodies that entered the caucus room with any
show of organization; but behind them poured in
any imaginable quantity of “roughs” and expectants,
fellows with gun contracts and fellows without;
Belgian and Russ pavement contractors, jobbers and
lobbyists, and numerous representatives of that semi-legal
class who only use the bar as an excuse for corruption.
There were emigrant runners, policy-shop
keepers and their backers, baggage smashers, pocketbook
droppers, and all the other classes powerful in
politics; while mixed up with all these were some
few dozen of our very best citizens, who evidently
came there prompted by a public-spirited curiosity
to have one good look at the kind of rulers under
whose control this fair City has passed. Just as this
assemblage was pouring in, several large blue lights
which had been placed all round the model of the
devoted city were set on fire, and as they illuminated
the faces of the entering crowd with their
ghastly glare, the effect was equal to any thing in the
best “bandit pictures” of Salvator Rosa.

LAW AND ORDER VICTORIOUS—THE CHAIR IS FILLED.

While everything was still in confusion, the leading
men of the three regular delegations made obeisance
to the rough and shaggy old man who claimed
to have made three-fourths of the model. They
hailed him as “King of the Lobby,” and moved
that, as a matter of right and to protect his own and
their interests, he should take the chair. They assured
him they had “all the sinew” necessary to put
through a “Fifth of August,” or any other scheme
they saw fit. To this the shaggy man grunted a
hoarse assent, shuffled into a large arm chair, which
was placed just between the models of the Albany
State House and the city of New York, then seized
his mallet and commenced rapping vigorously while
calling “Order, order,” in stentorian tones. To this
the assemblage, now pretty well seated, replied by
cries of “Law and order forever,” “We have Law
and the profits on our side,” etc.

SPEECH OF THE CHAIRMAN—THE PROGRAMME STATED.

The Chairman was a man of business—a strictly
commercial man—and would go to business at once.
He announced that the first caucus of the “Miles

O'Reilly Joint Stock Consolidated Grand Junction
Lobby League” was now in session, its object being
to form a political company which, “taking as its
base of operations all property, real and personal, on
Manhattan Island, should make arrangements for its
absorption at the rate of twenty-five per cent. per
annum amongst the members of said Lobby League.”
There were other clauses providing for the formation
of “inside rings,” to cheat each other, whenever the
main design against all present property-holders
should have been thoroughly carried out. (Loud
applause.) The Chairman had now to call their
attention to a grave matter. All knew that Governor
Seymour had vetoed a bill last winter. (Painful
groans.) For that offence against the interests of
certain leaders he should never be forgiven. (Loud
cheers.) The day of vengeance was almost within
their grasp; and he had now to denounce Horatio
Seymour as a traitor to the principles and candidates
of the democratic party. (Loud applause.) He had
documents to prove that Governor Seymour had subscribed
no less than sixteen thousand dollars to the
funds of the Republican party this very year. (Loud
cheers.) The Governor had retained in power the
Police Commissioners, and they had just levied an
assessment of sixteen thousand dollars upon the men
and officers of their force, with which to defeat the
democratic party. (Here there were some symptoms
of a row.) The Chairman cared little, personally,
which party succeeded. He had belonged to all
parties—and had made money out of all. But as
they owed Governor Seymour a grudge, bitter and
lasting, for his veto of the Broadway Railroad Bill,
he thought all the Governor's “friends” should circulate
this story as widely as they could. (Applause,
and cries of “We will, we will,” etc.)

SPEECH OF HIS SERENE HIGHNESS THE DUKE OF BLOOMINGDALE.

The Duke of Bloomingdale here rose, and in his
most Henry Clayish manner, pulled forward the
peaks of his shirt-collar, then stuck his right hand
into the breast of his buttoned surtout, and, extending
his left hand oratorically, thus commenced:—
He announced to the assembled wisdom that he and
his associates, Mr. Peter Griese of Tammany, one
of the grantees of the Broadway Railroad, and the
Republican representative from West Washington
market, had held an election in their own minds,
taken the votes of all present on all the questions

that would arise during the evening, and were prepared,
in conjunction with their worthy Chairman,
to carry out all the details of the meeting on the
basis of popular representation thus secured. (Loud
cries of “Hi, hi,” “Bully for you,” etc.) He would
advert for a moment to the declaration of their
worthy Chairman that this was a business meeting,
and should be conducted on strictly commercial
principles. (“Hear, hear.”) The preponderance of
stock in the “Joint Stock Consolidated Grand Junction
Lobby League” had already passed into the
hands of the Chairman, the two friends he had just
named—representing the Tammany and Republican
“machines”—and into his own, representing the
Mozart interest. (Dead silence and blank faces
among the audience.) He must ask his “friends,”,
as Governor Seymour would say, to have confidence
in him. Confidence was one of the softest, tenderest,
and most useful sentiments of the human heart.
(“Hear, hear.”) Without confidence between man
and wife there would be jealousy and wretchedness.
Without confidence between partners there would be
all kinds of trouble. (“Hear, hear,” and laughter.)
Without confidence, said Punch, there could be no
enjoyment of sausages. He needed confidence, and
asked all his friends to place their interests in his
hands. Indeed, by the arrangements already perfected,
they were so placed already, and any who
did not like it could do otherwise. (Blanker and
blanker faces amongst the crowd.) He would say,
however, on commercial principles, that some nominations
for December were yet in his hands. (“Hear,
hear.”) And about these he would be happy to see
any gentlemen who were aspirants at his private
office. (Faces growing blank again.) He would
now introduce to them his friend, Mr. Peter Griese,
who would explain to their satisfaction so much of
the scheme of the new “Joint Stock Consolidated
Grand Junction Lobby League” as he might think
it fit for them to know. (Loud cheers.)

SPEECH OF THE HON. PETER GRIESE, BROADWAY CORPORATOR.

Mr. Griese was of opinion that men have their
affinities as well as metals. He had once been separated
from his friend, the last speaker. That friend
once had power, and he had none. There was,
therefore, between them no basis for a fair and
equitable division of interests. Finally the speaker
obtained some power, no matter how. (“Hear,

hear.”) A division of interests was then agreed
upon, and the moment this was accomplished, they
rushed into each other's arms like long-lost brothers.
(Loud applause.) They felt that they were truly
congenial souls. (Deep sensation, during which the
noble Duke used his pocket-handkerchief quite
freely, either to wipe his eyes or hide his laughter.)
Mr. Griese said that all had heard of the “Tammany
machine,” the “Mozart machine,” and the
“Republican machine.” But they had now before
them, in that beautiful model of their city—all its
political interests bound together by the ligatures of
a common interest, and all its “placers” and “pockets”
so brilliantly and appropriately illumined by
the mellow radiance of a blue light—in this model,
he said, they had the true secret, the cabalistic mystery,
the philosopher's stone, so to speak, of all the
“machines” put together! This was the magic
machine which turned everything that it touched
into gold. This it was which had power to seize
even the judiciary by the throat and squeeze gold
out of its decisions. Nothing was good but gold;
power was the key to gold, and had no other value.
The model before them was one to which he had
contributed many wires, and the full worth of its
every wire he knew. With the kind aid of the
Police Commissioners, the present leaders, he
thought, could hold their grip. (Loud applause.)
All knew how far it was from his nature to seek
personal aggrandizement in politics. (“Hear, hear.”)
All knew, or should know—and he was prepared to
expel any man who did not—the thoroughly unselfish
and generous structure of his heart. (Loud
cheers.) But while he could not, would not, and
never did, wish anything for himself, he had
“friends,” in whose behalf he was ready to demand
that everybody else should make every sacrifice.
Men, he continued, like those friends of his youth
whose names, like his own, were inserted in the
Broadway Railroad Bill. Men, it is true, unknown
to fame, unknown even to the Directory; but none
the less near and dear to him. Men who might be
“myths,” and mere swindling ghosts or simulacra
of Corporators to those vagabond Hessians of the
press who were arrayed against all the little generosities
of legislation by which millions of the public
treasure were annually given away; but who were
precious to him as the apple of his own eye, and for
whom he was ready, he again repeated, to demand
that everything else should be sacrificed. (Loud
applause.) He wished them all to know that the
opposition to their schemes amounted to nothing.
The insurrectionary, national, or loyal men of the
city Democracy had no organization, no “machine”
that was worth anything. For the people he cared
nothing. In his lexicon, “the masses” were always
written “them asses.” (Laughter and applause.)
As to the pretence made that certain Democrats
were opposed to corruption, to lobby intrigues, to
shares in fraudulent contracts, and so forth, this
was all “poppycock.” He judged men by himself.
That was the only standard of measure they had to
go by; and he knew, after much self-study, that no
men living were actuated by pure, patriotic, or disinterested
motives. These terms were words, mere
words and nothing more. He himself had once
joined in raising the cry: “Honest men against
cheats.” By this he had convinced the cheats that
it would be cheaper to “let him in” than to keep
him out—and that was all he wanted. His own experience
told him that there were no honest men in
public life—no honest motives. These things he
knew, and would believe nothing to the contrary.
(Loud applause.)

AN INTERRUPTION AND A KICK OUT.

Mr. James O'Reilly, of the Sixteenth Ward, had
heard with delight, as he always did, the words of
the last speaker. But in one particular he thought
that gentleman wrong. The national Democracy,
led by such men as John McKeon, John Kelly,
Brady, Van Buren, and Richard O'Gorman, could
neither be sneered nor pooh-poohed out of existence.
The impression that their organization was
not a strong one, he regretted to be obliged to say,
was wrong. They had the bone and sinew of the
party, as well as nearly all its respectability and
talent. Men like Red-Headed Tom Ferris, one of
the gamest boys that lived; Ben Ray, Sheriff
Lynch, Mat Gooderson, Isaiah Rynders, and James
Irving, were not to be despised. He was sure—

Mr. Jake Sharp hereupon rose, and furiously demanded
the instant expulsion of Mr. James O'Reilly,
which had been already carried unanimously—the
Duke of Bloomingdale, the senior representative of
West Washington market, and Mr. P. Griese voting
in the affirmative, and the chairman thereupon declaring
it to be the ascertained will of the whole
meeting. (Loud applause.) The Chairman would

add that if any one could say that he had seen any
other man look approbation while Mr. J. O'Reilly was
speaking, the person who had dared so to look should
also be expelled. (Dead silence.)

JIMMY NESBITT'S SONG.

Mr. Nesbitt here jumped up on one of the benches,
and said he had a song so pat to James O'Reilly's
case, that with the permission of the chair and those
present, he'd be glad to give it to them. This proposal
was hailed with deafening shouts—for Jimmy
Nesbitt is a good fellow and a popular favorite; and,
when quiet was restored, thus Jimmy sang, and with
immense effect, the following verses, which the chairman
announced to be by Private Miles O'Reilly,
Forty-seventh regiment New York Volunteers, who
only remained away in deference to the fact that,
belonging as yet to the army—his discharge not
having arrived, though hourly expected—he could
not take part in a political meeting:—

A REPUBLICAN MACHINE-VIEW OF THE MACHINE.

The senior Republican representative of West
Washington market now wished to call the attention
of the Chair and of all present to the very beautiful
and accurate model of the city of New York, which
had been thoughtfully laid before them, just as coroners

expose a dead body to the jury before proceeding
with their inquest. The model on the stage was
a political model of the great city in which they
lived and were prospering. (“Hear, hear.”) An
examination of its proportions would show them
why and how they prospered, and the importance of
keeping all the existing machines in control. In
this model, the shanties of Mackerelville, they would
observe, were as large as the finest mansions between
Highbridge and the Battery. This was because they
held as many votes. A single tenement house in the
“Dead Rabbit” district of the Sixth ward counted
more votes than one whole side of Madison square.
(Loud cheers.) The humbler classes, he was happy
to say, had never been taught their own interests in
public matters. They cared nothing about taxation,
believing that their landlords had to pay it. The
rich cared little either, knowing that all they paid
would come out of the pockets of their tenants, and
with interest. Tax Mr. Wm. B. Astor an extra ten
thousand dollars a year, and he will only add it to
his rents. All taxation is paid in the last resort by
the very poorest. Overtax the merchant, and he
meets it by dismissing some of his clerks and making
the others work harder and later. Overtax the manufacturer,
and he reduces the wages of his operatives.
Everywhere the burden is shifted from
shoulder to shoulder until you come down at last to
the very humblest strata, and on them perforce it
rests. (Loud cheers.) And this, fortunately for the
politicians, has never been explained to the poor.
When their rents are raised, they curse their landlords;
when their wages are reduced, they curse
their employers: and it never seems to occur to
them—and here he thought was the richest part of
the joke—that their own votes last year, and the
year before, and the year before that again, were at
the bottom of all their sufferings. (Loud laughter,
mingled with applause.)

ANOTHER INTERRUPTION — MR. KERRIGAN WISHES TO
“OPEN A LITTLE GAME.”

Here there was a slight interruption, caused by a
proposal from the Hon. J. C. Kerrigan that they
should now “open a little game” for the judgeships,
civil and police, which were to be disposed of in December.
Mr. Kerrigan would either toss coppers,
draw straws or play poker with any gentleman present
for any one of the offices in question. As there
were many candidates for these offices in the room,

he thought that quite a handsome “pool” could be
made up, if they were all ready and would check in.

The Chair called Mr. Kerrigan to order. The representative
from West Washington market had the
floor at present, and until he vacated it the proposition
of the gentleman from the Sixth could not be
entertained. When his Gansevoort friend was
through, Mr. Kerrigan's proposition should receive
all the attention to which it was entitled; but he believed
that the Duke of Bloomingdale intended to
dispose of such nominations as fell to him on behalf
of Mozart Hall in a more business-like manner, and
on more strictly commercial principles. So far as
the Tammany nominations went, a raffle or game of
poker might be in order.

FOUR SENATORS AND SEVENTEEN ASSEMBLYMEN WANTED.

The member from West Washington and Fort
Gansevort then resumed:—In such company it was
not necessary to dwell upon the very complex system
of “strings” and “wires” by which the whole city
was dominated from the City Hall. (Hear, hear.)
They all understood it. They were all growing rich
by it, and would yet grow richer. (Loud applause.)
He would call their attention, however, to the masterstroke

of the whole machine. The cable of four
thicker and seventeen thinner strands, connecting
the network of the City Government with Albany,
was typical of the part played in the construction
and management of this mechanism by the majority
of Senatorial and Assembly representatives who had
been sent from Manhattan Island to Albany during
the last half dozen years. (Cheers.) He would not
name them, but would let “expressive silence muse
their praise.” (Cheers and laughter.) He hoped this
year that they might be enabled to send up the river
—he did not mean to Sing Sing, but to Albany—four
Senators and seventeen Assemblymen of the best
possible stripe. It only needed the election of the
Lobby League Candidates for Senate and Assembly
to fully enable them to carry out the proposition of
the distinguished soldier, Private Miles O'Reilly, on
whose call they were assembled. He thought that
these candidates were only next in importance to
Judges of the right stripe, and on these they were
determined.

A BUSH WITH A BIRD IN IT TALKED ABOUT.

Here a rumor reached the hall that Private Miles
O'Reilly was down stairs, and would be up in a few

minutes, carrying a holly bush in his hand, and in
the bush a mocking bird from South Carolina. This
announcement created wild and uproarious applause,
with cries of “Let Miles speak next,” “Let the boy
tell his own story,” “Three cheers for the `Bird in
the Bush,”'[1] and so forth.

CONTROLLING VIEWS PUT FORTH.

Mr. John H. Doty believed he had some control
in this concern, and he would like to see any one dare
to interrupt him. He had the power, and would use
it. He was no sentimentalist, but had a heart. All
knew the sacrifices he had made for certain “next
friends” who should be nameless. They were men
who were—like the corporators in the Broadway
Railroad—unknown to fame, unknown even to the
Directory. But he was their “friend,” and was always
ready to do his utmost in their favor. Thanks to
special legislation by former Republican Legislatures
in behalf of one of their own pets, he held control
over the machines of all parties, and would hold it
for several years. All the boasted wire arrangements
of the model were very fine; but did they not
see that every wire out of the many thousands traversing
the city and running to its “placers,” had in the

final stage before fruition to pass under his control?
He did not care to expose at once how absolute was
the power which special legislation had placed in
his hands. As the occasion rose, he would use the
power; and before another year every public man
and every newspaper[2] in the city should either bow
to his dictation or be crushed. He was not a refined
man and he never minced matters. It was important
to him that Judges of the right stripe, four Senators
of the right stripe, two Supervisors of the right
stripe, seventeen Assemblymen of the right stripe, a
Mayor of the right stripe, eight Aldermen of the
right stripe, twenty-four Councilmen of the right
stripe, and all the Police and Civil Justices of the
right stripe should be elected, and he was decidedly
in favor of the “Joint Stock Consolidated Lobby
League.” (Loud Cheers.) He thought Private
O'Reilly's proposition for an absorption by the politicians
of all the property of the city, real and personal,
in four years, a most excellent one; but it was
not original, as he could prove. He and some few
friends had been working on the same idea for fifteen
or twenty years. He favored the proposal made by
the bard of Morris Island, that the stockholders in
the political company should at the right moment
commence cheating each other; and finally he would
propose, and was ready to expel every one who objected,
that certain “next friends” whom he would
name at the right time, should be made the recipients
of the final “consolidation of interests” which
was embraced in Private O'Reilly's very statesman-like
and equitable plan.

M'KEON'S DEMOCRACY ON THE WAR PATH—CHILLED GLASS
AND HOT WATER—KICKED CURS AND BITING MASTIFFS.

Mr. John Kelly, who was one of the few dozen
respectables who had come in to look at this curious
gathering, had a few words to say. He knew he had
friends enough in the crowd to protect him. The
last speaker, he confessed, talked too dictatorially to
suit his democratic nerves. That the position which
Mr. Doty held was a goblet of immense dimensions
he would not deny. It had been enlarged and
enlarged by special legation, until there was no
knowing how much it did or could contain. Probably,
however, it held more power than any one man
could quaff without danger of losing his balance.
Such goblets fortunately were of chilled glass. Ten
drops of scalding truth would shiver them into

atoms. Men who kept cur dogs at their heels used
their feet freely. Some day they would kick a mastiff,
and then be taught the difference. He was
happy to say that some friends of his, who were large
stockholders in the “Consolidated Stage Company,”
had at length got a majority of the stock of that concern,
and were about to sue for the turning over to
the company of all shares in City Railroad Bills
granted by former legislatures to individuals who
represented themselves to be the agents and attorneys
of that company. (Suppressed cheers.) Powerful
as Mr. Doty and his friends might eventually
become when they had all their own Judges on the
bench, stronger combinations had been broken, and
would be again. (Suppressed but increasing applause.)
They did not yet own all the judiciary;
and there was still upon the bench—[The remainder
of the speech was drowned in hisses, cheers, and
much confusion.]

PETER IN A PECK OF TROUBLE—HE BECOMES RUMBUNCTIOUS.

Mr. Griese was filled with disgust and loathing as
he contemplated the speckled and miserable vulture
who had just been addressing them. Such atrocious

sentiments were insurrectionary. He moved
that all present who were not adherents of the dominant
dynasty, and who could either read or write,
should be expelled. (Loud cheers.) It should be
his peculiar privilege, he claimed, to do all the
reading and writing of the whole concern. He
insisted that both the dividends voted by the Company,
to which the last speaker had the impudence to
refer, were legitimately expended; and that all he had
received from the Legislature was no more than fair
compensation for his time and labor. The widows
and orphans who held stock in that Company should
have looked out for themselves, as he had done.
He had been their agent just up to the passage of
the different bills; but his agency ceased immediately
preceding the passage, and his name or that of
his dummy, in each bill, represented only his private
interest.

MR. SHARP DOES NOT DESPISE THE DAY OF SMALL THINGS.

Mr. Sharp was in favor of having peace in the
family, almost at any price. If they quarrelled
among themselves their enemies, the proverb said,
might come by their own. He thought they need
not grasp everything at once. If they could gain

one Judge a year, it would not be doing badly.
Some Judges could not make the decisions they
might want, but would be willing to acquiesce
made by their bolder associates. This suited him
well enough, and he thought should suit others. He
had been in the business more than twenty years,
and never saw things, with good management, looking
so prosperous as now. His friends should not
urge matters too far. They should be reasonable in
their demands, and divide fair. One Judge a year
would do him. [Applause, and cries of “Be sure
you get it.”]

REFORM MOVEMENTS “ALL A FARCE.”

Mr. Alderman Farley was not afraid of public opinion.
They had seen “reform movements” before,
and knew how they resulted. Always heretofore,
they had put men better suited to their purposes into
power. “Reform movements” drew to them two
classes amongst politicians—the men turned out of
existing “machines” as not worth their pay and
rations. This was one class. The other class was
that of well-meaning but imbecile noodles, who
meant to do strictly right, but knew not enough to
prevent their being dragged this way and that by

adroit schemers.—If a “reform movement” should
fall into the hands of men upright, experienced and
active —then, indeed, there would be danger. But
this, he believed, could never happen. The men
they might really fear were too noble to engage in
the business.

MR. GEO. WILKES TALKS OF A VIGILANCE COMMITTEE.

Mr. Wilkes wished the Alderman not to be too
sure of that. The so-called “reform movements,”
which had resulted in impotence, were bogus reform
movements, in which the people took no interest.
They were the mere result of intrigues or caucusings
amongst “soreheads” of the class which the
Alderman had so well described. But he (Mr. Geo.
Wilkes) had been present at one popular “reform
movement” in which the people were interested, and
he could assure them it was a terribly earnest thing.
He referred to the grand reform association, known
as the San Francisco Vigilance Committee. (Deep
sensation, and much uneasiness, many moving towards
the door.) He saw they had heard of it. It
was an association, which had violated all law, in
order to obtain substantial justice, after every other
means had failed. (Sensation increasing.) Should

such a “reform movement” as that ever break out
or be organized in the city of New York, he would
advise nine-tenths of the present assemblage to be
out of town while the reformers were on the war
path.

CLOSING SPEECH BY THE CHAIR.

The sensation made by this speech can more easily
be imagined than described. Cheers, hootings, applause,
yells and screams broke out in one mingled
uproar. The representatives of the three “regular
machines” whispered eagerly with the Chairman for
a few moments, and then disappeared. The Chairman
himself declared hurriedly that the caucus
stood adjourned until further notice. Its proceedings
had been satisfactory and harmonious to a degree
never before witnessed. As he understood
matters, all present had agreed to place their interests
in the hands of the three regular Tammany,
Mozart and Republican representatives, who had
just departed with their immediate friends; while,
as for himself, he would take care of himself,
and hoped they might all be as successful. The
“blue lights,” he would remind them, were burning
low, and he called upon such members of

the police as might be present to see that the very
valuable and curious model of their new “machine,”
containing in its proportions, and the net-work of its
wires and strings, all the secrets of the “Joint Stock
Consolidated Grand Junction Lobby League,” should
suffer no injury. He would now say good night.

CONCLUSION OF THE MILES O'REILLY CAUCUS.

No sooner had the burly figure of the Chairman
quitted the stage than scores of profane feet leaped
upon it, and hundreds of curious eyes examined for
the first time that “machine,” upon which only the
most deeply initiated should ever be permitted to
gaze. Among the crowd of amazed spectators, who
had attended the caucus as “outsiders” and from a
desire to see the “ruling classes of the city in council
assembled,” your reporter noticed scores of our
really great and prominent men, whose names are
familiar as household words in connexion with every
enterprise which has lent grandeur, wealth, or dignity
to the Empire City. They now gazed for the
first time upon “the machine;” first saw exposed
the system of trickery and fraud by which the treasury
is depleted and the chevaliers of politics enriched.
It was a sight to move deep thought in the

breast of every reflective and intelligent man, whose
destinies are cast in with the fortunes of Manhattan
Island. Is that machine to dominate for ever? Shall
the programme of the managing leaders be carried
out? Is there no way by which, in one united effort,
the sceptre of this political Moloch can be broken?
Evidently the cable linking the city mechanism to
Albany should be sundered at any cost. Evidently
the Judges most obnoxious to the managing leaders
of the “machine” are those who should be elected.
But to do all this will require some sacrifices. It may
take time. The machine, as depicted in the model,
is the work of many years. It may take a year, it
may take more, to break it. Are there enough good
men and true in the city of New York to make
one effort to this end? If there be not, then let the
machines run on until all the purposes of the leading
spirits of this caucus have been fully and triumphantly
accomplished! Men, who will do nothing to
save themselves, are not worth saving. Many who
sat down to read this expected a farce, and they have
found a sermon. The subject is too serious to be
trifled with; for—