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partment of our government, but from several. These are not isolated cases, but are only average examples of the way EVERY DEPARTMENT Of government is conducted. Our government costs at least FOUR hundred per cent., and probably TEN, more than there is any need of its costing, and yet we, the voters, with the power in our hands to remedy these monstrous abuses, either ignorantly or else wickedly tolerate them! And all this the fruits of blind adherence to PARTY! Men can obtain office only by heavy outlays of money in the form of BRIBES; first, to the people in procuring votes, and secondly, to the disbursers of these offices, and then they make these offices pay principal and interest, and fortunes besides. Why are men so crazy after office? These facts answer. They are desperate in their efforts to obtain the LOAVES and FISHES disclosed in these facts. What else CAN it be?

We dislike long articles, yet must push this subject into our STATE governments; for we must rouse our readers to ACTION. We must reach the POLLS, and correct these abuses by means of this great birth-right and constituent element of freemen.

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The Pennsylvania debt, so oppressive to the producers of that rich and powerful State, was incurred by just such wanton and wicked waste as those already pointed out. I do not assert this by guess, for I have it directly FROM THE LIPS of those who thus spent the funds. They unblushingly confessed, or rather BOASTED to me, personally, of their exploits. Readers know that I have traveled all over the country, and am No PARTY man, and hence have access to these facts and personal narratives, one of which is as follows:

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One of the canal commissioners, whom we will christen Mr. C., did a great deal toward giving an ex-governor of Pennsylvania, whom we will call Governor- his ovewhelming majority. Mr. C. told me How he did it. He made it a custom to let out all contracts, so as to throw great profits into the contractors' hands. Yet, along with them went the full understanding that said contractors should cast their votes, and procure all the votes they could raise, either from their laborers, or by all the influences they could bring to bear, as this commissioner should direct. He had been commissioner several years, and by these fat contracts had brought a heavy vote in favor of Governor understanding that the governor should continue him in that office, because C. wished thereby to place HIMSELF in the gubernatorial chair. But Governor gave out all the commissioners' berths before he came to C. On hearing of this, C. went, in great wrath, to another leading politician of that State, threatening, "I have made Governor and I can and will unmake him." This politician, whom we will call Mr. P., knew C.'s power, and that he could and would overthrow their party, unless he had a commissioner's berth, and accordingly took post horses and rode, with all speed, 150 miles, without stopping, except to change horses, to lay C.'s claims and

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threats before the governor. He arrived in the evening, took the gov ernor into a private room, and held him by the button till daylight, determined to reinstate C. in the commissioner's berth; for C., Shylock-like, would accept nothing short, nothing else. "But," said the governor, "these offices are all given out,* so that I CANNOT serve C. If I recall that of either of the others, a like storm of wrath and party threats will be raised in another quarter," etc. P. plead the ruin of the party as the sure consequence of refusal, and insisted; and being a virtual though secret controller of the State politics, they together cooked up a new Circuit Court, and induced one of the commissioners to accept a judgeship-for which he was not at all qualified-in lieu of his commissioner's berth, which was accordingly given to C., so that C.'s wrath was thus converted into praise. Now C. told me that he wanted that commissioner's berth BECAUSE it gave him the disbursement of large sums of money, which enabled him to PURCHASE VOTES by means of fat contracts, in order that he might thereby, at some future time, secure his own election as governor! for these contractors were pledged to vote his ticket, not only for the time being, but ALWAYS afterward, when C. might require. Those who doubt this story, and, of course, question my veracity, are asked, "How came Pennsylvania's enormous debt? Whence that extra judgeship created by an ex-governor? How came her public works to be so wretchedly mismanaged and unproductive? Especially, whence that extra judgeship, which made some noise in the public prints? Is not this story in perfect harmony with facts previously cited, and with the entire tenor of the governmental administration of all our States, and of our nation? It is hard of belief, yet disbelief is harder. political gambling, what became of her funds?

But for such

Citizens of Michigan, have no similar corruptions disgraced and crippled your young State? Is Pennsylvania alone?

New York, what says the report of the committee appointed to investigate your canal expenditures, just submitted to our Legislature? Some of its results are thus summed up:

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They commenced their investigation upon the GENESEE VALLEY CANAL. They state that Sanford A. Hooper was appointed superintendent of that canal in the spring of 1842, and continued until he resigned on the 13th of March, 1845; and that during all this time Orrin H. Reynolds was his clerk; that when Hooper resigned, Reynolds was appointed to fill his place, and Hooper became Reynold's foreman. That soon after, Hooper was appointed superintendent, and as early as July, 1842, he and Reynolds entered upon the practice of a regular system of peculation, by the use of false and forged vouchers; that this system was extensively and almost generally practiced by them until the removal of Reynolds, by the canal Board, in July, 1845; that their practice was to go along the canal the first of every month, pay the men, obtain their signatures to the printed form of receipts, with the time and amount left blank, and receive the check-rolls of the foremen; then return to their office; fill up

*This narrative I had from P.'s own lips.

the receipts with such amounts as they pleased, and make new check-rolls to correspond. These blank receipts, in several instances, taken for twenty-five cents, were filled up for more dollars! In other instances, to check-rolls previously sworn to, were interlined and added a list of names and days, and the amount increased accordingly. Forged receipts for materials of nearly every description were presented and paid; in one instance for 10,000 feet of lumber for a dock at Mount Morris, and this, after the commissioner had directed it to be constructed of lumber, then on hand, belonging to the State, and while the engineer at Mount Morris was selling for $3 and $33, like lumber, for which the year before the commissioner had paid contractors from $18 to $28 per thousand.

"But these frauds of the superintendent, as compared with those committed in the construction of that canal, are hardly worth noticing.

"The committee state that in 1835, F. C. MILLS, as engineer under the direction of the canal commissioners, made a minute survey of the Genesee Valley Canal and Dansville side-cut, and estimated the cost at $1,890,614 12— including $43,845 22 for reservoirs on the summit level. The amount already expended on this canal, exclusive of damages to contractors, &c., is about $3,885,000! The estimate, by the engineers, in 1842, of the cost of completing this canal, was $1,843,303; making an aggregate sum of $5,728,303. A large portion of this difference between the estimate by Mills, and the actual cost of this canal, the committee attribute to the unwise and unskillful management, and in some instances, fraudulent connection of the engineer corps with many of the contractors.

"Another equally inexcusable mistake was made by the engineers in estimating, on many of the sections, so small a quantity of quick-sand, cemented clay and gravel. The consequence was, that a proposition, including exorbitant prices, for materials of which so little had been estimated, seldom lessened the prospects of getting the contract. The contract prices for ordinary excavation were from nine to twelve cents, and for quick-sand, but little more expensive, from seventy cents to seven dollars per yard. Unfortunately, if not unjustly for the State, favorite contractors were paid for large quantities of quick-sand, and cemented clay and gravel, at these enormous prices.

"The first case of fraud examined by the committee was in the letting of Rock Section 58. They cite the testimony of the assistant engineer and others, showing that after the proposals had been opened and examined, the resident engineer altered the one put in by his former partner, increasing the amount several thousand dollars, and awarded him the contract; that this contractor was then pecuniarily irresponsible, and that the section, at the prices in the proposal before it was altered according to the tables of previous measurement, would amount to about $90,000; by the altered proposition and contract prices, to $94,000. That soon after the contract was made, the resident engineer altered his tables of measurement, increasing the amount of the contract to $107,000, and subsequently, as the work progressed, he changed the classification of the material excavated, and, as returned to him by the assistant engineer in the immediate charge of the work, from quarried stone to rock excavation at the highest price-thus, in another way, falsely and fraudulently increasing the amount paid to this favorite contractor. The amount paid on this contract, to this contractor, up to the time of the suspension, was $122,000. The estimated cost, by the engineer, of completing this contract, is $12,000making the actual cost of this section $134,000-about $45,000 more than the amount of the proposition as put in by the contractor himself.

"The next case stated in the report is of a different character. The resident engineer directed the contractor for section 71, to cut a ditch across a bend of the Genesee river, with the view of changing the bed of the river. The ditch was cut from six to ten feet in width, which, by diverting the water from the river into the ditch, washed out a new channel, nearly half a mile in length, across the bend, for which the engineer allowed him for excavating a

channel from 72 to 100 feet in width, from six to ten feet in depth, amounting to 51,673 yards, of which 10,774 yards were allowed as clay, cement, and gravel, and 1,132 yards, as quick-sand, at a dollar a yard.

"The contractor on the Portage Aqueduct was allowed by the engineer, and paid for excavating 636 yards of quick-sand, at $5 25 per yard, amounting to $3,339, where, it appears from the testimony, none existed.

"The tow-path through the tunnel at Portage, of about 1700 feet, was to have been a table of rock left for the purpose, according to the plan and contract; and after it had been so left until the excavation of the tunnel had been nearly completed, the engineer permitted the contractor to excavate the tow-path also, at an expense to the State of $7,420, for no other reason that the committee could discover, than the fact that the contract price was $4 per yard for excavating this tunnel, and the cost to the contractor, as stated by himself and engineer, was less than 65 cents per yard.

* * *

"This pile had been measured by three engineers together, at 233 yards, and paid for by the State at $2 90 per yard. By the measurement of the present engineer, in the presence of the committee, and sworn to by him, there is less than 100 yards of this pile, for which the State had paid for 233 yards.

"At the same quarry, 15 or 20 stacks of chimneys to laborer's shanties, composed of rubble and loose stones picked up-eight or ten yards in each—were measured by the engineers and paid for by the State!

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The aqueduct across the Genesee river was abandoned by the commissioners after the contract was fet, and they and the contractor submitted to the chief engineer to determine the amount to be paid to the contractor for damages, without any evidence; and he awarded $10,000, which was paid. The committee express the opinion, that the professional character of this engineer would hardly now justify this loose mode of paying out the public money."

Behold the accumulating force and the converging tenor of these facts. Even many of our town and county affairs evince similar corruptions. Nor are they all more than a mere iota—a musketo's bite-compared with those vampires which are fattening upon every vein of the public treasury. And we, simpleton voters and payers, either know it not, or, knowing, tolerate! Yet these public profligates are not, after all, so much more reprehensible than we VOTERS. Good enough for us, if we are such dummies as not to know any better. How long shall we allow ourselves to be thus cheated? As long as we vote PARTY tickets! Till we turn REPUBLICANS instead of party tools!

Let me not be accused of favoring or censuring either of the dominant parties, because both are about equally guilty. This "spoils " policy— spoiling whom? us, the CITIZENS, to be sure-is equally the creed and practice of BOTH parties, and of all office-seekers. They impudently CLAIM these spoils, as the reward or booty of victory! Mark this point. I denounce these public robberies less than that outrageous political PRINCIPLE, "to the victorious party belong the spoils and perquisites of office." This usage is the fatal error, the rotten gangrene of our glorious institutions. Politicians wrangle and scramble, and lie and bribe, in order to command these offices, and thus filch their government, that is, their fellow-citizens. Instead of loving this, incomparably the best government on earth, and doing all in their power for its promotion, they rob their own

mother, and are reveling on her heart's blood! Oh, my country, how art thou abused, and by thine own children! Nor can we expect our institutions to survive if these outrages continue to be tolerated. They contain the fatal elements of dissolution, and, unless corrected, will inev itably effect our ruin: not these paltry sums themselves, but that CORRUPTION which they reward. Fellow-citizens, our nation must be JUST, or be overthrown. Such wickedness, by a law of things, will as surely effect our national destruction, as punishment follows transgression. Arise, my countrymen! Awake, every voter, and arrest this torrent of abuse by appeals to the BALLOT BOX, before it sweeps our beloved institutions in the yawning gulf of oblivion!

Our next article on this subject, will present a REMEDY for these evils. Excuse the length of this article. May it impel you to the POLLS, and guide your votes by JUSTICE.

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OUR last article on this subject analyzed the walk of our driving, determined, energetic men, who move rapidly, but easily. We designed to have followed immediately with the mental characteristics which accompany a slow, heavy, trudging walk, as contrasted with a brisk, easy walk; but other matters have been allowed precedence till now.

See you that thick-set, short-legged waddler, yonder? He takes up his feet as though they were heavy, and puts them down as if he were weary. It takes much exertion to carry him a little way. See, too, how many of his motions are false-are to his walk what blasted kernels are to grain. They retard, rather than further, his progress. He makes more ado and labors harder than that easy-motioned man who has just passed him, but drags along, notwithstanding. You also see that he rolls somewhat from side to side, instead of moving in a straight line. Nor has he much SPRING, as they call it, or elasticity, in his motions; but, instead, a certain heaviness, or leaden deadness, which increases his efforts while it impedes his progress. His joints, too, do not work freely and limberly, but seem to require oiling. Nor does he seem to have enough of them, but manifests a certain stiffness and rigidity in all his motions. What of the mentality of such?

It is of a piece with their walk and motion. Their mental motions are as heavy as their physical. Their minds, like their bodies, are stiffjointed. They neither perceive quickly nor feel acutely; but are rather dull of comprehension, and lack clearness of thought and pointedness of

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