document of naturalization was framed, which he regarded as his most valuable piece of furniture, and cordially invited his friends and the incredulous to call and behold its graceful decoration of his parlor. The gallant Alderman John H. Briggs, (the Putnam of the Americans, who braved and defied all the thieves, and murderers, and demons of hell in the Matsell campaign,) called to see Dick’s valuable gem of furniture, but he could not find it on the wall, nor elsewhere. We then called, and Dick’s wife told us it was locked in a trunk, and her husband had the key. Others called, with similar success. On his election as County Clerk, Dick and Draper got a law enacted at Albany, giving the County Clerk $50,000 fees, which was just so much stolen from the people, whom the Municipal, State and National robbers will not let live, but strive to rob them of their last crumb, and drive them into the winter air. Public plunder is devoted to greasing the political wheels, and burnishing, and twitching the mysterious wires, through which the honest laborer is burdened with taxes, that mangle his back like the last feather of the expiring camel. Connolly, Busteed, Doane, Wetmore, Nathan, Nelson, Draper, and Weed, got the Record Commissioners appointed, through which $550,000 have been squandered for printing the useless County Clerk and Register’s Records, which is the boldest robbery of modern times. We never could induce Greeley, Bryant, Webb’s Secretary, the Halls, and others, to breathe a word against this Dev-lin-ish plunder. And Flagg, himself, through his old printing friends, Bowne & Hasbrouck, and others, is involved in this record robbery up to his chin, who never uttered a syllable against it, until we goaded him through our crimson dissection in the Daily Times, and even then he only damned it with Iago praise. Since July last, Flagg has paid more than $300,000 for Record printing, for which, old as he is, he should be consigned to a sunless dungeon, and rot there, with spiders only for his nurses and mourners. Last summer Flagg told us there never was a more wicked band of robbers than the Record Commissioners, and yet he paid them from July to December the prodigious sum of over $300,000, and had paid them more than $200,000. And Flagg paid this enormous sum without a murmur, and has no possible facility to place the infamy on the scapegoat Smith, who seems to roam at large unmolested by Flagg, who yet fears Smith’s disclosures of his delinquency and superannuation. Flagg sputters a little in his reports, for show, against him, but he is not chasing Smith very hotly in the Courts, nor dare he, as we have good reason to believe. Through the Alms House, Navy Yard, County Clerks’ Office, Record Commissioners, metropolitan and suburban lots, and other plundering sources, Connolly has amassed a fortune of nearly a million of dollars, and now has the audacity to proclaim himself a candidate for Comptroller, at which the honorable citizens of New York should rise and paralyse his infamous effrontery. Not content with indolence all his days,—with robbing the laborer and mechanic, and merchant, and widow, and orphan, for whom he professes such boundless love, through his spurious and mercenary democracy,—with corrupting the ballot box, and packing juries, to imprison and hang us according to his caprice and public or private interest,—with the election of Mayors and other municipal and even State and National officers, through his fraudulent canvass of votes as County Clerk,—and with his awful perjury in connection with his alienage, he now appears with his stolen money bags, and proclaims himself a candidate for Comptroller, for which he should be lashed, and scourged, and probed to his marrow bones, through the streets of New York, beneath the glare of the meridian sun, and the gaze and withering scorn of every honorable and industrious citizen, whom he has robbed, through intolerable taxation. Connolly has not voted since we exposed his perjured alienage in 1855, when he strove to bribe us to shield him from the odium arising from his alienage. A public thief, and perjurer, and alien, this man or devil announces himself for Comptroller of this mighty metropolis, with a prospect of nomination and election, unless his throat is cut by George H. Purser, a deeper and more dangerous public villain than Connolly. Purser has robbed this city for a quarter of a century, and is also an unnaturalised alien, and we have positive evidence of the fact, and he knows it. His corrupt lobby operations in the Common Council and at Albany would make a large volume. And both Connolly and Purser are nauseous scabs of the Democratic party, and grossly pollute the glorious principles of Jefferson and Jackson. And now, where, in the name of God, are the people, or is there no spirit and integrity, and patriotism, and courage, to resist the infernal public thieves of this vandal age? Should the people slumber when a gang of robbers, and devils, and assassins, and fiends of rapine, are thundering at the gates of the commercial emporium, and even at the very doors and firesides of our sacred domestic castles, and daily and hourly rob our coffers, and ravish our daughters, and cut our throats, in open day, and through their hellish robbery, and taxation, drive the mechanic and laborer, and their dear little ones, to hunger, and rags, and madness, and crime, and to the dungeon, or scaffold, or suicide? Where is the concert of action of Boston and Providence, and throughout New England? And where are the pomatum villains of our aristocratic avenues, in this solemn hour? They are in league with your Greeleys, and Bryants, and Webbs, and Wetmores, and Drapers, and Connollys, and Pursers, and Devlins, and Smiths, and Erbens, devising schemes to plunder the people here, at Albany and Washington, for gilded means to support themselves in idleness and extravagance, and to carry the elections against the gallant Southrons, whose throats they would cut from ear to ear, and deluge this whole land with human blood, ere they would toil a solitary day like the honest laborer or mechanic, or surrender a farthing of their ungodly plunder, or breathe a syllable in favor of the eternal glory of the Union of Washington.

c6

Stephen H. Branch’s Alligator.

NEW YORK, SATURDAY, MAY 15, 1858.

The Mayor and Charley.

Charley—That you have wronged me doth appear in this: You have condemned and noted the devil for taking bribes of the office holders and contractors, wherein my letters praying on his side, because I knew the man, were slighted off.

Mayor—You knew better than to pray for the devil.

Charley—I can get no fat meat nor oyster stews, if every devil is condemned.

Mayor—Let mo tell you, Charley, that you, yourself, should be condemned for itching to sell your offices and contracts for gold to a gang of devils.

Charley—I got the itch! You know that you are great Peter’s son, or, by golly, you would not say so twice.

Mayor—The name of Itch or Scratch honor this corruption, and by the Eternal, if Hickory dont hide his head at the Hermitage.

Charley—Hickory!

Mayor—Remember November,—the hides of November, O remember. Did not great Fernando bleed for me and Peter and Edward’s sake? Who touched his carcase, and did stab, and not for me and Peter and young Edward? What! Shall they who struck the foremost man of all this city, but for supporting robbers,—shall we now use our fingers, save to grab the Mayor’s and all the Executive Departments? By all the bellonas and doughnuts of the world, I’d rather be a hog and grow as fat as Matsell, than to be a cadaverous crow, and live on vultures, and the shadows of the moon.