and the whole police system, which should be a matter of science, becomes a farce, a theatre for party politics, or a receptacle for old political hacks or active politicians.

Again, we would call attention to the fact that, although loud and general complaints are made by the city officials against this commission, yet no particular instance is pointed out wherein this board has been guilty of reckless or extravagant expenditure, or of spending money or incurring obligations in excess of the amount appropriated for its use; upon the whole, we think no candid person can fail to be aware of the general efficiency with which this department of the public service is now managed.

THE BOARD OF HEALTH.

For many years the friends of sanitary reform labored with untiring zeal to establish in this city a sanitary bureau, such as the interests of the people and the prosperity of our city demanded. Success finally crowned these efforts, and we have to-day a Board of Health composed of men of preeminent professional and business ability.

The prosecution of City Inspector Boole, the publication of our sanitary report upon the condition of the city, and the agitation of the questions connected therewith, were but the first of a series of acts that culminated in the overthrow of the corrupt City Inspector's Department and its two score of incompetent health wardens, and in the establishment for our city of a Health Board which is everywhere acknowledged to be a model among the similar institutions in the world.

We do not consider it necessary that we should stop to recount the blessings that this board has conferred upon us all, the lives it has saved, the pestilence it has fought and conquered at our doors, and the marks of general confidence that our people feel in its fidelity to its mission. We are too near the time when we looked to its efficient action to protect ourselves and those we hold most dear from the horrors of a threatening pestilence, to need to be told, save by the beatings of our grateful hearts, that the Board of Health has already earned, not only our respect and admiration, but also the thanks of all of us for keeping from our hearthstones the footstep of Death. While gaunt Pestilence stalked through other cities less

blessed with proper health regulations, and gathered a rich harvest of victims, he was here boldly met by our Health Board, fought at our threshold, followed step by step, night and day, by ceaseless vigilance, and finally, instead of becoming a conqueror, has been conquered.

Ever since New York has been a city, the people had an opportunity of electing first-class men to inaugurate just as good a sanitary bureau as we have now-if they could have done it, why was it not done, and hundreds of thousands of valuable lives saved? The answer is very simple.

Mr. Boole and his health wardens, and their predecessors, held the votes necessary to perpetuate their power, and that power was perpetuated.

The expense of this board in 1866 for the city of New York was $102,587.93.

The expense of the City Inspector's Department in 1865 (having charge of the same subject matter), was $204.813.12, as follows:

Salaries City Inspector's Department,
Contingencies,..

Rent City Inspector's Department, .

...

$144,116 48

Stationery,

Cleaning offices,.

Salaries Com'rs of Health, &c., Board of Health,....

45,011 41

9,000 00

2,981 13

3,704 10

$204,813 12

16,273 27

$221,068 39

Making a total expense of $221,086.39, against $102,587.93 spent by the Board of Health. If it be said that the City Inspector's Department also had charge of cleaning the streets, it can be replied, that under this department the street cleaning cost over one million of dollars per annum, and the streets were not cleaned, whereas now, under the commission system, it costs but $500,000, and the streets are cleaned.

THE PAID FIRE DEPARTMENT.

With the paid fire department, as a systern, no one can justly find fault for there can be no more propriety in having a volunteer fire department than a volunteer police force. It was very long indeed before the people of this community would abandon the old department for the new. They felt reluctant to abandon a system which, in its day, had done good service, and because, also, a portion of them were intimidated by the hue and cry raised by the politicians who feared the loss of power if the volunteer system, which had become thoroughly corrupt, was broken up. But like institutions outliving their day, like other landmarks of previous generations, the volunteer fire department was swept away, and a system inaugurated equal to the advanced position of our age. It seems extraordinary that the greatest commercial metropolis of this continent, with its vast interests, its wealth, its population, its spirit of progress in the arts and sciences, its intelligence, its use in other respects of the forces of nature to control the forces of nature, should have been the last of the great cities of the world to realize that, in a vast community of persons where individuals of the worst and lowest classes congregate to prey upon the lives and property of others, where there is not only a great amount of good, but an equal, if not greater, amount of evil, affairs which concern the common interest of all must be made a matter of business, and not left to the voluntary and spasmodic efforts of unofficial individuals.

The insurance companies who insure one thousand millions of property in the metropolitan district, owned in every part of the State, as we understand, have taken steps to sustain this commission, and would on no account recommend a return to the old system, or to a system by which the mayor of the city would have the power to appoint the Commissioners.

It was proved by witnesses before the State Senate, that the Volunteer Department cost, directly and indirectly, over a million of dollars per annum.

Thousands of young men in this department were ruined yearly, and their suffering wives, mothers and sisters prayed for the abolition of a department in which their husbands, sons and brothers met with so great temptations.

Of the amount expended for this department in 1866, some $600,000 was for the pay of the force. The force now numbers about 600 men. Under the old system the number was about 3,700.

The Metropolitan Department has already turned over to the city authorities engine houses, &c., worth at least $150,000.

If there be any extravagance or fraud or improper expenditure in this department, let its opponents call public attention to the fact. Under the present Commissioners, the public have every guaranty that the management of this department will give entire satisfaction as regards economy, honesty and efficiency.

THE EXCISE BOARD.

This board, so unpopular with the liquor dealers and criminal classes, and so popular and dearly cherished by every good citizen, is composed of the same able men who compose the Board of Health. The excise law last year brought about one million of dollars into the treasury of this city, and the same amount this year, upon the sound principle that those who, by their occupation and habits, add so largely to the burdens of taxation, must themselves bear their full proportion of that tax. The necessity of an excise law has always been admitted. Is not the only complaint against this board, that it has fearlessly, fully and efficiently enforced the law? Under the old system, less than $20,000 per year was col lected from excise. Admitting, for the sake of the argument, that the Commissioners have the control of the expenditure of large sums of money, no complaints have as yet been made of their spending this money improperly, which is the main point; unless some specific complaint can be substantiated in this respect, the present system should not be departed from, unless the city or local athorities show that they can do better in the expenditure of the money.

To show with what economy the Common Council and the Board of Supervisors husband the money and other property under their control, we refer to the following instances:

THE COMMON COUNCIL.

On the 14th day of June, 1866, a resolution was rushed through both branches, giving away, in fact, to the Harlem Railroad Company, the whole of One Hundred and Twenty-fifth street. It was [CON. No. 126.]

3

pushed through with such indecent haste (passing both boards the same day), that Mayor Hoffman, in his veto, if not in form, yet in substance, strongly rebuked the Common Council for the extraordinary rapidity with which it was ready to sacrifice the best interests of our people. Of course no public notice was given, for those who had the management of the little affair wished to keep as quiet as possible.

A resolution passed the Common Council directing the Street Commissioner to make a contract for twenty years for lighting our streets with coal gas. Mayor Hoffman vetoed this scheme, but it was only effectually stopped by an injunction; had the Common Council been able to deliver our people, bound hand and foot, to the gas monopolies, we should have been saddled with the sum of ten millions of dollars per year for very poor light. v

The Common Council, in violation of the city charter, leased to the Sisters of Mercy about three-quarters of a block of ground between Fourth and Lexington avenues, in the neighborhood of Eighty-third street, for the term of ninety-nine years, at the nominal rent of one dollar per annum.

This is only a specimen of how the Common Council deals with its trust property, with property pledged to the creditors of the city. It gives it away for ninety-nine years, whereas the charter prohibits. leases for a longer term than ten years. And similar grants have been made to other charities.

The matter of the Corporation Manual shows how the Common Council spend the public money. In the early part of 1866 they passed a resolution directing the clerk to prepare and cause to be published ten thousand copies of this volume. The mayor vetoed this resolution, because he thought, first, that there was no propriety in publishing ten thousand copies, and secondly, because there was no limitation upon the expenditure to be made.

The bills for this Manual in 1865 amounted to $53,672.30.

The mayor stated in his veto that, upon inquiry made of responsible publishers, he had ascertained that ten thousand copies could be prepared for $30,000.