Tin-types taken in the streets of New York

by Lemuel Ely Quigg

All bedecked with light and all ablaze with color, the Cooper Union was fast filling up with the friends of Reform. So enormous had the crowds in Astor Place become that, although the hour was early, Colonel Sneekins had wisely concluded to wait no longer, but at once to let them in. They poured through the wide doorways in abundant streams, while Colonel Sneekins led the superb brass band of the 7th Regiment, done up in startling uniforms and carrying along with it a tremendous battery of horns and drums, to its place in the gallery.

Colonel Machiavelli Sneekins sustained an important relation to the Reform movement, and at this Grand Rally of Non-Partisan Citizens in the Interest of Reform, he had, with great propriety, selected himself to be Master of Ceremonies. Colonel Sneekins was a non-partisan citizen. He looked upon partisanship as the curse of the Republic, and in his more enthusiastic moments had declared that if he could have his way about it, any man so hopelessly dead to the nobler impulses of the human heart as to confess himself a partisan should be declared guilty of a felony and confined for a proper period of years at hard labor. What the country called for, according to Colonel Sneekins, was Reform. The first step in bringing about the triumph of Reform was to put all the offices in the hands of Reformers. If the public wished to intoxicate its eyes with the spectacle of the kind of men who would then administer the Government, it had but to look upon him. He was a Reformer. As a Reformer he was in possession of a lucrative municipal office, wherein he was mightily prospering, and which for the honor and glory of Reform he was willing to retain.

Colonel Sneekins was the leading spirit of this citizens' movement. He had prepared the call of the meeting. He had obtained the 1500 signatures now appended to it, representing estimable business men who, in observing that useful maxim of trade, "We strive to please," esteemed it one of their functions to sign all the petitions that came along. Colonel Sneekins had hired the hall and the band; had made up from the City Directory a formidable list of Vice-Presidents and Secretaries; had secured the orators, and finally had arranged for the attendance of a sufficient audience. In perfecting these details he had had the valuable assistance of other distinguished Reformers and non-partisan citizens. Editor Hacker, of The New York Daily Sting, had boomed the movement with great zeal and effectiveness. General Divvy, the ex-Governor of South Carolina, who had grown wealthy reforming that State and had thereafter naturally come to be regarded as an authority on all matters connected with reform, had written an earnest letter commending the rally as one of the most important steps that had ever been taken in the direction of pure and frugal government. The Rev. Dr. Lillipad Froth, from his pulpit in the Memorial Church of the Sacred Vanities, had taken occasion to say that great results to the community might be expected from the success of this patriotic enterprise, and ex-Congressman Van Shyster, being interviewed by a reporter of The Sting, after expressing his unqualified opinion that all political parties were utterly corrupt and abandoned, whereof his opportunity of judging had certainly been excellent, since he had suffered numerous defeats as the candidate of each of them successively, emphatically declared that he saw no hope for the city except in the cause this meeting was called to foster.

No definite purpose had been expressed in the published call as to what should be done at the Rally, but Colonel Sneekins's plans were fully matured. The Hon. Doyle O'Meagher, the Boss of Tammany Hall, had promised that his organization should indorse for the office of Mayor the nominee presented by the Reformers. As to the identity of their candidate there was but one mind among the Reformers. Who should he be but that champion of Reform, the Hon. Perfidius Ruse? Mr. Ruse was not an experiment. He had already served as the City's Chief Magistrate, and had filled many remunerative offices with Reformers. Being of a modest and retiring disposition, he was now holding aloof from the honors sought to be thrust upon him. He had begged his friends to take some new candidate, he had pleaded his well-known dislike of office and the pressing demands of his private affairs. But, nevertheless, zealous as he was in the Reform cause, he had consented to furnish a delegation of 500 citizens from his morocco factories in Hoboken to swell the Grand Rally in the Cooper Union, and had given his friend, Colonel Sneekins, an ample check wherewith to procure portraits and pamphlets presenting to the public the features and the services of the Hon. Perfidius Ruse. It was Colonel Sneekins's intention totally to disregard Mr. Ruse's plea for rest from official cares, and as he now from behind the wings contemplated the great crowd that was surging into the Cooper Union, he rubbed his hands and gleamed his teeth with such intensity of emotion that the Rev. Dr. Lillipad Froth, who was standing near by, felt his flesh a-creeping.

It was certainly an extraordinary crowd. It had assembled almost in an instant. Scarcely had the policemen taken their places at the doors of the Cooper Union when a bulky, variegated young man stepped up to one of them.

"Hello!" he said.

"Hello, Meejor," responded the officer.

"When'll yer open de door?"

"Air ye wantin' t' git in, Meejor?"

"Doncher know I got a gang to-night?"