A GREAT PUBLIC CHARACTER. 95 



would have been easy to advance private ends and sinister 

 projects ; under these circumstances, I inquire, as I have a 

 right to inquire for in the recent contest insinuations 

 have been cast against my integrity in this long manage 

 ment of your affairs, whatever errors have been committed 

 and doubtless there have been many have you found in 

 me anything selfish, anything personal, anything mercenary 1 ? 

 In the simple language of an ancient seer, I say, Behold, 

 here I am ; witness against me. Whom have I defrauded ? 

 Whom have I oppressed ? At whose hands have I received 

 any bribe ? 



&quot; Six years ago, when I had the honour first to address 

 the City Council, in anticipation of the event which has now 

 occurred, the following expressions were used : In admin 

 istering the police, in executing the laws, in protecting the 

 rights and promoting the prosperity of the city, its first 

 officer will be necessarily beset and assailed by individual 

 interests, by rival projects, by personal influences, by party 

 passions. The more firm and inflexible he is in maintaining 

 the rights and in pursuing the interests of the city, the 

 greater is the probability of his becoming obnoxious to the 

 censure of all whom he causes to be prosecuted or punished, 

 of all whose passions he thwarts, of all whose interests he 

 opposes. 



&quot; The day and the event have come. I retire as in that 

 first address I told my fellow-citizens, If, in conformity 

 with the experience of other republics, faithful exertions 

 should be followed by loss of favour and confidence, I 

 should retire * rejoicing, not, indeed, with a public and 

 patriotic, but with a private and individual joy ; for I 

 shall retire with a consciousness weighed against which all 

 human suffrages are but as the light dust of the balance.&quot; 



Of his mayoralty we have another anecdote quite Roman 

 in colour. He was in the habit of riding early in the 

 morning through the various streets that he might look into 

 everything with his own eyes. He was once arrested on a 

 malicious charge of violating the city ordinance against fast 

 driving. He might have resisted, but he appeared in court 



