It seems to me, that a successful and faithful administration of the government of our city may be accomplished by constantly bearing in mind that we are the trustees and agents of our fellow-citizens, holding their funds in sacred trust, to be expended for their benefit; that we should, at all times, be prepared to render an honest account to them touching the manner of its expenditure; and that the affairs of the city should be conducted, as far as possible, upon the same principles as a good business man manages his private concerns. I cannot rid myself of the idea that this city government, in its relation to the taxpayers, is a business establishment, and that it is put in our hands to be conducted on business principles. I believe in an open and sturdy partisanship, which secures the legitimate advantages of party supremacy; but parties were made for the people, and I am unwilling, knowingly, to give my assent to measures purely partisan, which will sacrifice or endanger their interests. We go forth not merely to gain a partisan advantage, but pledged to give to those who trust us the utmost benefits of a pure and honest administration of national affairs. GROVER CLEVELAND. LIFE OF GROVER CLEVELAND. CHAPTER I. EARLY LIFE-LAWYER-SHERIFF. THE Clevelands are descended from an English family, and have been for more than two centuries in America. They seem to have first settled in Connecticut, and have been hitherto best known by their zeal and activity in religious matters. Dr. Aaron Cleveland, the grandfather of Grover Cleveland's grandfather, was an Episcopal minister in Philadelphia and a friend of Benjamin Franklin, at whose house he died in 1757. Franklin was at that time editor of the Pennsylvania Gazette, and noticed the death of his friend in the following words: "On Thursday last, after a lingering illness, died here the Rev. Mr. Cleveland, lately appointed to the mission at Newcastle by the Society for Propagating the Gospel. As he was a gentleman of a humane and pious disposition, indefatigable in his ministry, easy and affable in his conversation, open and sincere in his friendship, and above every species of meanness and dissimulation, his death is greatly lamented by all who knew him as a loss to the public, a loss to the Church of Christ in general, and in particular to that congregation who had proposed to themselves so much satisfaction from his late appointment among them, agreeable to their own request." He left a little son, who was born in East Haddam, Connecticut, in 1744, and who shortly after the death of his father returned to Connecticut, and lived the greater part of his life at Norwich. He led an active life, and somewhat distinguished himself by his opposition to slavery. He was a member of the Connecticut Legislature for Norwich, and introduced a bill for the abolition of slavery in his State. He was also a minister, but a Congregationalist, instead of Episcopal; as such he lived for a time in Vermont, but finally returned to Connecticut, and died in New Haven in 1815. This was Grover Cleveland's great-grandfather. His first son, Charles, was born in 1772, in Norwich, and became a city missionary in Boston, where he lived to be nearly one hundred years old, and was widely known as "Father Cleveland." His youngest child, a daughter, married Dr. Samuel H. Coxe, a distinguished clergyman, of New York city, whose son, Arthur Cleveland Coxe, is Episcopal Bishop of Western New York. He had eleven other children, of whom we are most concerned with the second son, William Cleveland, who was Grover Cleveland's grandfather. He was a silversmith, and lived the greater part of his life at Beacon Hill, on the outskirts of Norwich. He was a deacon of the Congregational Church for twentyfive years. He married Margaret Falley. He died at Black Rock, near Buffalo, New York, in 1837. His second son was Richard Falley Cleveland, born at Norwich, 1804, who was the father of Grover Cleveland. In his younger days he was a factory boy together with his cousin William E. Dodge, who afterwards came to New York, and became the head of a great and wealthy business house, and was well and widely known as a philanthropist. Richard Falley Cleveland managed to prepare himself for college, and entered Yale in 1820, and was graduated with honor in 1824, in a class of sixty-eight. From college he went to Baltimore and found employment as a tutor. Here he became acquainted with Miss Anne Neale, the daughter of a wealthy law-book publisher and merchant, of Irish birth. After a year in Baltimore he went to Princeton Theological Seminary, where he studied theology and became a Presbyterian clergyman. In 1829 he returned to Baltimore to marry Anne Neale. I believe that a scientific investigation of the facts would show that marriages between per |