In other
words, he was acting what over in Brooklyn would be called "an
allegory," and which was intended to expose in a severe and telling
way the Mayor's gross partiality, in the use of his patronage, for
the well-dressed and well-educated members of society--a partiality
which Mr. Morrissey and his party consider not only unfair but
ridiculous. This demonstration, too, was one of the few indications
which have as yet met the public eye of a very real division of the
Democratic party in this city into two sets of politicians, known
familiarly as "Short-Hairs" and "Swallow-Tails"--the former
comprising the rank and file of the voters and the latter "the
property-owners and substantial men," who are endeavoring to make
Tammany an instrument of reform and to manage the city in the
interest of the taxpayers. Mayor Wickham belongs, it is said, to the
latter class, and has given, it seems, in the eyes of the former,
some proofs of a desire to reserve responsible offices for persons
of some pretensions to gentility, and exhibited some disfavor for
the selections of the "workers" in the various wards.
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