[1] The statement was made at a reform meeting in City Hall Park on April 11, 1844, that from 1841 to 1844 not less than 11,000 foreigners had been naturalized at $1 a head, though the legal fee was $5. The Judges, the speaker said on the authority of Judge Vanderpoel, signed their names to the papers without asking questions.
[2] This was the first election in the city occupying only one day. Before 1840 three days were used. The vote stood: Varian, 21,243; J. Phillips Phoenix (Whig), 19,622; scattering, 36; total, 40,901.
[3] The Whigs had formed committees in imitation of the Tammany organization.
[4] Election of 1841: Robert H. Morris (Tammany), 18,605; J. Phillips Phoenix (Whig), 18,206; Samuel F. B. Morse, 77; scattering, 45; total, 36,93.
[5] Election of 1842; Morris, 20,633; Phoenix, 18,755; total, 39,388.
[6] Documents of the Board of Aldermen, 1839, No. 29. The Weekly Herald, February 15, 1840, stated that official documents showed, for the previous ten months, a total of nineteen riots, twenty-three murders and nearly 150 fires, the latter involving a loss of about $7,000,000.
[7] See Documents of the Board of Aldermen, Vol. VIII, No. 35, and No. 41, 1843-44, for extended accounts.
[8] Mayor Morris’s Message, July, 1842.
[9] Documents of the Board of Aldermen, Vol. VIII, No. 22.
[10] Ibid., 1842-43, No. 5.