For instance, I received visits at one time from a Catholic priest, and at another time from a Methodist clergyman, who had parishioners who wished to enter the police force, but who did not believe they could get in save by the payment of money or through political pressure.  The priest was running a temperance lyceum in connection with his church, and he wished to know if there would be a chance for some of the young men who belonged to that lyceum.  The Methodist clergyman came from a little patch of old native America which by a recent extension had been taken within the limits of the huge, polyglot, pleasure-loving city.  His was a small church, most of the members being shipwrights, mechanics, and sailormen from the local coasters.  In each case I assured my visitor that we wanted on the force men of the exact type which he said he could furnish.  I also told him that I was as anxious as he was to find out if there was any improper work being done in connection with the examinations, and that I would like him to get four or five of his men to take the examinations without letting me know their names.  Then, whether the men failed or succeeded, he and I would take their papers and follow them through every stage so that we could tell at once whether they had been either improperly favored or improperly discriminated against.  This was accordingly done, and in each case my visitor turned up a few weeks later, his face wreathed in smiles, to say that his candidates had passed and that everything was evidently all straight.  During my two years as President of the Commission I think I appointed a dozen or fifteen members of that little Methodist congregation, and certainly twice that number of men from the temperance lyceum of the Catholic church in question.  They were all men of the very type I most wished to see on the force—­men of strong physique and resolute temper, sober, self-respecting, self-reliant, with a strong wish to improve themselves.

Occasionally I would myself pick out a man and tell him to take the examination.  Thus one evening I went down to speak in the Bowery at the Young Men’s Institute, a branch of the Young Men’s Christian Association, at the request of Mr. Cleveland H. Dodge.  While there he told me he wished to show me a young Jew who had recently, by an exhibition of marked pluck and bodily prowess, saved some women and children from a burning building.  The young Jew, whose name was Otto Raphael, was brought up to see me; a powerful fellow, with a good-humored, intelligent face.  I asked him about his education, and told him to try the examination.  He did, passed, was appointed, and made an admirable officer; and he and all his family, wherever they may dwell, have been close friends of mine ever since.  Otto Raphael was a genuine East Sider.  He and I were both “straight New York,” to use the vernacular of our native city.  To show our community of feeling and our grasp of the facts of life, I may mention