The editor of this paper believed in selling liquor on Sunday, and felt that it was an outrage to forbid it.

But he also felt that corruption and blackmail made too big a price to pay for the partial non-enforcement of the law.
He made in his paper a statement, the correctness of which was never questioned, which offers a startling commentary on New York politics of that period.

In this statement he recited the fact that the system of blackmail had been brought to such a state of perfection, and had become so oppressive to the liquor dealers themselves, that they communicated at length on the subject with Governor Hill (the State Democratic boss) and then with Mr.Croker (the city Democratic boss).

Finally the matter was formally taken up by a committee of the Central Association of Liquor Dealers in an interview they held with Mr.Martin, my Tammany predecessor as President of the police force.

In matter-of-course way the editor's statement continues: "An agreement was made between the leaders of Tammany Hall and the liquor dealers according to which the monthly blackmail paid to the force should be discontinued in return for political support." Not only did the big bosses, State and local, treat this agreement, and the corruption to which it was due, as normal and proper, but they never even took the trouble to deny what had been done when it was made public.