In the "N. Stettiner Zeitung" we find the following letter of a former Chicagoan:

"I have read your invitation to send contributions for aid to the fire victims in Chicago, but, even though I have been for over five years an inhabitant of that unfortunate city, I will not heed it. And though I well know that I owe nobody an explanation for this omission, I still believe I should give you the following information in the interest of the collections that, it seems, you plan to send to the Mayor of the city. You are, of course, acquainted with the corruption of the city administration in New York, the perennial topic of the newspapers - well, quite the same situation exists in Chicago, a city which, as an enormously wealthy commercial center has naturally a colossal municipal budget. As you know, all the administrative officials are elective, but the elections are strongly reminiscent of those of ancient Rome, that is to say, he who throws to the mob the biggest feasts, and provides it with the most liquor and beer, gets the richest offices, like the Majoralty, the City and County Clerkships etc.

As the money you are collecting will flow into the hands of these men who were elected by the Irish mob - that part of it that will not directly go into 2their own pockets will, for the sake of the next election, be distributed primarily among the Irish voting cattle, while the Germans who, on the whole, do not permit themselves to be used as "voting cattle", will be left holding the bag. The only thing to do, is to send the money to the German Consul in Chicago, Mr. H. Claussenius, the co-organizer of the collections for our wounded during the French War".

The above letter certainly proves once more that the German is nothing so much as an eternal carper; also that somebody can have lived in Chicago for five years without knowing what went on around him. The assertion that the Irish mob elects the officials of Chicago is so far off, that one almost begins to doubt the five-year-long stay in Chicago of the writer. It is well-known that it is not the Irish but the Germans who furnish the largest number of votes next to the Americans, and who determine with rare exceptions (as, for example, in 1869) the character of the city administration. In any case the author of the letter should have waited with his forward calumniations till after the election of November 7. He would then have come to a very different 3judgement. Even before November 7 his judgement was not justified, because long before that day the administration of the aid fund had been put into the hands of the General Relief Association, against whom nobody can raise any objection. But to condemn without ascertaining the facts, unfortunately, is the habit of so many of our countrymen who are suffering from superficiality in every respect. The letter-writer of the Stettiner Zeitung spoke the sentence without any further ado, though he obviously had not been any more in Chicago at the time of the fire, and though he could not have known anything of the happenings in Chicago after the fire....