The ostensible and praiseworthy purpose of the pamphlet in question is to expose the frauds upon the city treasury perpetrated by the late "Tammany Ring," which, in the person of the "boss thief of the world," is now on trial, in a sort, before the courts, charged with robbery, theft, and perjury, but the real purpose, the iniquitous and damnable purpose, is intimated in the following words of the report upon "Sectarian Appropriations, etc.": "Over $2,273,231 taken from the treasury in 1869, 1870, 1871. One sect gets in cash $1,915,456 92; besides public land, $3,500,000. Total to a single sect, $5,415,456 92." And further (on page 10 of the same report): "Nearly $2,000,000 of the money raised by taxes abstracted from the public treasury of the city and county of New York in the last three years alone for sectarian uses. A single sect gets $1,396,388 51, besides a large slice of the city's real estate."
This "sect" means the Catholic Americans of the city of New York, in numbers somewhere about 500,000, or nearly half the population of the city; of whom we are told elsewhere in this same report (page 4) that, "as a sect," it has during the last three years, by an alliance with the Tammany Ring drawn (taken, abstracted) from the public treasury, in cash, for the support of its convents, churches, cathedrals, church schools, and asylums, the enormous sum of $1,396,388 51.
It is hardly worth while for our present purpose to verify or to contradict this total or the particulars of it, for the errors into which the report or its author has perhaps ignorantly fallen, though not inconsiderable in magnitude, hardly affect our main purpose; and after all, these "inaccuracies" may not, it is hoped, be the result of carelessness solely, but are due in some measure to the fact that many of the "sects," while they parody our practices, appropriate also our names, and so may conveniently be confounded with our Catholic institutions.
We will, however, point out some which may readily be investigated. For instance, on page 10 of the report just mentioned, we find that the "House of Mercy," Bloomingdale, with a $5,000 "abstraction" in 1869, is classed as Roman Catholic, and it happens to be a Protestant institution; the "Sisters of Mercy" also, with an "abstraction" of $457, is Protestant; "German-American School, S. Peter's Church," with its "abstraction" of $1,500, is Protestant; and the "German-American Free School," with its "abstraction" of $14,000 in 1869, $2,496 in 1870, and $1,960 in 1871, is Protestant; and the "German-American School, Nineteenth Ward," with its "abstraction" of $3,150 in 1869 and $2,700 in 1870, is Protestant; and the "Church of Holy Name or S. Matthew," with its "abstraction" of $463 12, is also Protestant; and the "Free German School," with its "abstraction" of $5,000 in 1869, $3,600 in 1870, and $4,480 in 1871, is also Protestant; and the "German Mission Association," with its "abstraction" of $5,000 in 1869, and $10,000 in 1870 and 1871, is also Protestant; besides others, perhaps, improperly classed as Roman Catholic. In some other instances, the sums "abstracted" were simply amounts of assessments improperly laid and subsequently refunded.
And in connection with this suggestion of errors may be noted, also, among the omissions (suppressions, may we not say?) the instance of "The Society for the Reformation of Juvenile Delinquents" which is mentioned (on p. 16 of the report in question) as receiving an "abstraction" of $8,000 in 1870 and nothing in 1871. This is a Protestant institution, and so classed in the Report—to show, we suppose, how small an "abstraction" comparatively it "took." But will the author of the report tell us how large an "abstraction" that society "took" of "public money"? As he has not, and perhaps does not know, we refer him to its annual report, where he will find as follows, viz.:
| 1870. | From State Comptroller, | $40,000 00 |
| From City Comptroller, | 8,000 00 | |
| Board of Education, License, and Theatres, | 22,218 53 | |
| $70,218 53 | ||
| 1871. | State Comptroller, | $40,000 00 |
| Board of Education, | 5,766 91 |
making a pretty total of $70,218 53 for 1870 and $45,766 91 for 1871.
There is also the "New York Juvenile Asylum," a Protestant institution, which does not seem to be mentioned in the report in question, but it will be found that in 1871 it "abstracted"
| From the City Treasury, | $48,049 41 |
| From the Board of Education, | 4,015 83 |
| $52,065 24 |
There are other "omissions"—that of the "abstraction" by the "Children's Aid Society," for instance—but these are enough for the purpose, although it may be added that in 1872 this institution "took" from the city $106,238 90.