They were useful sometimes, he learned, and many of them served as go-betweens in matters where business must touch politics.

He learned also how breweries and "traction" companies and banks and other institutions fought one another for the political control of the city.

The newspapers, he discovered, had lost their ancient political influence, especially with the knowing, who looked upon them with a skeptical humor, believing the journals either to be retained partisans, like lawyers, or else striving to forward the personal ambitions of their owners.

The control of the city lay not with them, but was usually obtained by giving the hordes of negroes gin-money, and by other largesses.

The revenues of the people were then distributed as fairly as possible among a great number of men who had assisted the winning side.