Plasterers." "A plasterer who can earn $138,187 in two days
[December 20 and 21] and that in the depths of winter, need not
be poor." Carpets cost $350,000, most of the Brussels and
Axminster going to the New Metropolitan Hotel just opened by
Tweed's son.

The Ring's hold upon the legislature was through bribery, not
through partizan adhesion. Tweed himself confessed that he gave
one man in Albany $600,000 for buying votes to pass his charter;
and Samuel J. Tilden estimated the total cost for this purpose at
over one million dollars. Tweed said he bought five Republican
senators for $40,000 apiece. The vote on the charter was 30 to 2
in the Senate, 116 to 5 in the Assembly. Similar sums were spent
in Albany in securing corporate favors. The Viaduct Railway Bill
is an example. This bill empowered a company, practically owned
by the Ring, to build a railway on or above any street in the
city. It provided that the city should subscribe for $5,000,000
of the stock; and it exempted the company from taxation.
Collateral bills were introduced enabling the company to widen
and grade any streets, the favorite "job" of a Tammany grafter.
Fortunately for the city, exposure came before this monstrous
scheme could be put in motion.

Newspapers in the city were heavily subsidized. Newspapers in
Albany were paid munificently for printing. One of the Albany
papers received $207,900 for one year's work which was worth less
than $10,000. Half a dozen reporters of the leading dailies were
put on the city payroll at from $2000 to $2500 a year for
"services."