THE village is pervaded by an air of decency, and seems the ideal place to retire after a life of honest graft.

Plunkitt became wealthy by practicing what he called "honest graft" in politics.

Such "proprietary activity," as this dog-wagging by the trading tail is euphemized, is legal but dishonorable - the banking equivalent of "honest graft" in politics.

Others have been of the lowgrade sort that in a more tolerant era were labeled "honest graft": no show jobs and political influence peddling.

Tweed also reaped a fortune in what one Tammany philosopher later called "honest graft."

George Washington Plunkitt, grand sachem of Tammany Hall, distinguished between honest and dishonest graft.

But that's honest graft.

There's an honest graft, and I'm an example of how it works.

Well, that's honest graft and I'm lookin' for it every day in the year.

That one ain't done a day's honest graft in her life.