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.
Our objection is not so much to the amount "in cash" stated to have been "taken," because the report admits that it has not been expended for individual or selfish purposes, but in the maintenance and working of schools and other beneficent institutions. We wish, however, that the "New York City Council of Political Reform" had used the means at its command to give an accurate and _complete_ statement, and we think it would have been wiser to do so, inasmuch as, while professedly carrying on the purpose proclaimed in its motto on page 1 of the report in question, to "CHERISH, PROTECT, AND PRESERVE THE FREE COMMON SCHOOLS," it has seen fit so unmistakably to attack the "single sect." Certainly, we object to the manner in which the "sect" is charged to have acquired its money, although having used it so wisely. This "single sect," comprising as it does more than two hundred millions (or two-thirds) of the Christian population of the world, rather objects to the term "sect" as applied. And if the author will take the trouble to consult the other Webster--not Daniel, whom we have already quoted--but him of the more venerable baptismal name, he will learn, very likely, however, not for the first time, that the term "sect" means "a denomination which dissents from an established church." And Catholics are certainly not aware that they are "dissenters" in the hitherto recognized sense of the word among polemical writers. Whether his application of the term is malicious or simply the result of ignorance, makes little difference; it suited _him_, and is of no particular importance just now to us.