recipients of the different amounts."

These and other exposures brought on a number of amendments to
the city charter, surrounding with greater safeguards the sale or
lease of city property and the letting of contracts; and a reform
council was elected. Immediately upon the heels of this reform
movement followed the shameful regime of Fernando Wood, an able,
crafty, unscrupulous politician, who began by announcing himself
a reformer, but who soon became a boss in the most offensive
sense of that term--not, however, in Tammany Hall, for he was
ousted from that organization after his reelection as mayor in
1856. He immediately organized a machine of his own, Mozart Hall.
The intense struggle between the two machines cost the city a
great sum, for the taxpayers were mulcted to pay the bills.

Through the anxious days of the Civil War, when the minds of
thoughtful citizens were occupied with national issues, the tide
of reform ebbed and flowed. A reform candidate was elected mayor
in 1863, but Tammany returned to power two years later by
securing the election and then the reelection of John T. Hoffman.
Hoffman possessed considerable ability and an attractive
personality. His zeal for high office, however, made him easily
amenable to the manipulators. Tammany made him Governor and
planned to name him for President. Behind his popularity, which
was considerable, and screened by the greater excitements of the
war, reconstruction, and the impeachment of Andrew Johnson,
lurked the Ring, whose exposures and confessions were soon to
amaze everyone.

The chief ringster was William M. Tweed, and his name will always