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not the worst, in the world. In 1901 the School Department had seven brick and sixty-four wooden buildings and rented twenty-seven more. At present many of these are in a very unsanitary condition and it may be necessary to close some of them at once. It is planned to build twenty-seven new school houses with the borrowed funds. The so-called sewer systems, covering but a part of the city, is a patchwork beginning nowhere and leading nowhere in particular. The contemplated system involves the construction of one hundred and twenty miles of new sewers connected with two intercepting sewers emptying into the Bay at a distance from the shore such as will render the city's waste harmless. But few of the streets are well paved. At present there are two jails, neither of which is good, making the administration both inefficient and expensive. They are to be replaced by one modern institution. The Public Library, the largest west of the Missouri River, is poorly housed in the City Hall. The city now has a park area of some 1,400 acres. The contemplated purchases will add greatly to this and will make possible the creation of parks readily accessible to those living in the older and more crowded sections of the city.

By incurring this debt of more than seventeen and three-quarters millions, San Francisco plans to provide herself with the ordinary public conveniences of a progressive city. Though the Charter declares it to be the purpose of the city to municipalize all the public utilities, at present she owns none. She is one of the few large cities of the United States still dependent upon a private corporation for her water supply. Possibly a municipal system will be established in the not distant future. If this is done it will add greatly to the city's debt.

Boston.-Percentage of Voters.8 The daily papers are filled with outcries against corruption in our great cities, whole columns being given over to the description of vice "which stalks abroad at noonday" until we are convinced that whatever there is of disrepute in the world must be within the cities. Magazines and publications of various sorts ascribe this state of affairs to a lack of civic patriotism and a loss of civic pride. Whatever this may mean certain it is that there is a most surprising indifference exhibited on the part of the voters measured by the number of ballots cast in the city elections of Boston. At the Boston municipal election of December 15, 1903, the actual vote was but 57.70 per cent. of the possible vote, the highest percentage of votes 69.91 being cast for the Mayor, the lowest 51.69 for Aldermen. Of the registered voters only 72.66 per cent. voted. The percentage of registered voters who voted at the municipal elections for five years preceding is as follows:

1899 79.94

1900 70.80

1901 79.94

1902 60.03

1903 72.66

The percentage of the actual to the possible vote for the same period:

1899 69.10

1900 61.45

1901 65.31

1902 52.70

Communication of Ward Wright Pierson, University of Pennsylvania.

1903 57.70

This means that considerably less than two-thirds of the voters of Boston had sufficient interest in municipal affairs to spend the time to go to the polls.

Wisconsin and Milwaukee.-The Liquor Question. The Wisconsin statutes provide that "each town board, village board and common council" may license any proper person to sell liquor, the amount of the payment for such license (subject to the power of the local electors to increase the same within certain limits) to be $100.00 in towns containing no city or village within their boundaries, provided there be a population of five hundred or more. In all cities, villages and "other towns" the license shall be $200.00, subject to the same local power to increase it. No such license shall be granted to the owner or keeper of a house of prostitution. The electors of cities, villages and towns may hold special elections at a specified time to fix the amount of saloon licenses, provided no other question is submitted to the electors at such election. In towns, cities and villages where the license is generally fixed by statute at $100.00, it may be increased by said electors to either $250.00 or $400.00; and in localities where the general statute license is $200.00, it may be increased to either $350.00 or $500.00. The license has never been raised above the statutory amount in Milwaukee.

Before receiving his license every applicant is required to file a bond to the State in the sum of $500.00 with proper sureties and approval, conditioned that the applicant shall keep an orderly house, prevent gambling, refuse to sell liquor to minors or intoxicated persons, and that he shall pay all damages provided for in Section 1650. Said section grants specific right of action to any person, suffering in property or means of support by reason of the sale of liquor to minors or intoxicated persons. Any unlicensed saloonkeeper who sells liquor to such persons is guilty of a misdemeanor, and punishable on conviction by a fine of not less than $50.00 nor more than $100.00 with costs; or by imprisonment for not less than three nor more than six months. A subsequent conviction involves both fine and imprisonment. In case any person, by reason of excessive drinking, wastes or lessens his estate, licensed liquor dealers may be forbidden, by his wife or specified officials or both, to sell liquor to such person for the space of one year.

There is a penalty of not less than $5.00 nor more than $50.00 for selling liquors to minors, and upon a written complaint, duly filed, by any resident of any town, village or city, that any licensed person therein keeps a disorderly house, permits gambling or sells liquor to minors without the written order of the parents or guardians of such minors, or sells liquor to intoxicated persons or habitual drunkards, the proper board may, upon a hearing, revoke the license. Section 1565a of the Statutes provides that " Whenever a number of the qualified electors of any town, village or city, equal to or more than 10 per centum of the number of votes cast therein for governor at the last general election, shall present to the clerk thereof a petition in writing, signed by them, praying that the electors thereof may have submitted to them the question, whether or not any person shall be licensed to deal or traffic in liquor, such clerk shall forthwith

Communication of John A. Butler, Esq., Milwaukee, Wis.

make an order providing that such question shall be so submitted on the first Tuesday of April next succeeding the date of such order."

This brief resumé of the State laws of Wisconsin gives a fair and accurate idea of their spirit. The degree of their enforcement naturally depends upon local public opinion. That they are not abused in any excessive degree is indicated by the absence of conspicuous public discussion in the newspapers or otherwise, and the general prosperity and good order which characterizes the State.

The City Charter of Milwaukee, the largest city of the State, with a population of 326,000, gives the Common Council authority to regulate all places where liquors are sold, and to regulate and grade the amount to be paid for licenses, in proportion to the amount dealt in or vended; to prescribe the duration of such licenses; and to restrain the sale of liquor by anyone not duly licensed by the Common Council, provided the amount charged for any license be not less than the minimum, nor more than the maximum required by the State laws. No license shall be transferrable, or be granted for less than six months. There are no specific hours for closing saloons in Milwaukee, but not more than a half dozen saloons are open all night. Saloons are open all day Sunday. All saloonkeepers are required to give bonds as required by Section 1549 of the Statutes. Minors are undoubtedly admitted to saloons, but they are not visited by them to a noticeable extent, and there is probably no American city of the same size which, on the whole, is so free from drunkenness and immorality as Milwaukee. A drunken man is rarely seen on the streets, and public safety is unusually great, owing to an admirable police force on a Civil Service basis, and to the orderly character of the population. The present city administration is, unfortunately, favorable to a "wide-open town," and the Common Council has granted some licenses against the energetic protests of the Chief of Police. There are a few saloonkeepers in the Council, fewer than formerly, when a half dozen or more played an unsavory role in politics; but, speaking generally, the "saloon in politics" is less conspicuous in Milwaukee than elsewhere. The best way to eliminate it, in my opinion, would be to require the election of aldermen at large, instead of from wards, enforce a high license, establish a proportion between the number of saloons and the population and give the power to grant or revoke licenses to the executive head of the city government rather than a Council Committee.

Colorado Springs.—The Liquor Question. 10 The founders of Colorado Springs, desiring to make it in some sense a model city, provided at the beginning for the exclusion of liquor saloons. To this day, every warranty deed for the transference of property contains a clause which stipulates "that intoxicating liquors shall never be manufactured, sold or otherwise disposed of, as a beverage, in any place of public resort in or upon the premises hereby granted, or any part thereof; and it is herein and hereby expressly reserved. . that in case any of

the above conditions concerning intoxicating liquors are broken by said

10 Contributed by T. D. A. Cockerell, Esq.

then this deed shali become null and void, and all right, title and interest of, in and to the premises hereby conveyed shall revert," etc.

Although ordinary saloons are effectually excluded by the above provisions, it is not found that the liquor traffic is altogether abolished. The drug stores are licensed to sell liquor in quantities of not less than one quart, not to be consumed on the premises. As might be expected, they do not always keep the law, and as a matter of fact several of them have continually and flagrantly violated it. The city officials have been lax in this matter, and during the present year the clergy and others have felt it their duty to organize an antisaloon league and take active measures to bring the culprits to book. As a result, several druggists have been tried and convicted, and the practices complained of have almost or quite ceased. The time for the removal of licenses was an opportune one for raising the whole question of the sale of liquor in the city, and enough pressure was brought to bear on the City Council to prevent the granting of new licenses to certain druggists who have been proved in the courts to have grossly violated the law. It is not supposed, however, that a permanent victory has been won; on the contrary, it is certain that things will return to their former condition whenever the interest created through the efforts of a comparatively small band of reformers shall have died out. The greatest obstacle in the way of those who stand for decency is the apathy of the nominally decent elements in the community.

Unfortunately, the drug stores are not the only offenders. Clubs, high and low, retail liquor to their members, and it is extremely difficult to reach them by any process of law. It is understood that the suppression of the drug store traffic has led to an increase in the number of clubs, one or more of which have an initiation fee of only twenty-five cents!

All things considered, there can be no doubt that Colorado Springs is greatly benefited by its liquor ordinances; but on the other hand continual vigilance is required to prevent their being rendered meaningless by evasions of the law. District of Columbia.-Report of the Commissioners." Of the large number of activities covered in the Annual Report of the Commissioners of the District of Columbia, 1903, three are of particular interest-Finance, Education and Health.

Finances. The report shows the total expenditure for the year, exclusive of those for the water department and expenditures on account of special and trust funds were $9,088,554.67. This amount embraced $9,051,980.09 appropriated for the fiscal year 1903 and prior years, and $36,754.58 appropriated for the fiscal year 1904. During the year the indebtedness of the District for advances from the United States Treasury was reduced from $1,759,238.34 to $1,653,517.51. The total indebtedness June 30, 1903, was $14,877,147.69.

The Commissioners repeat their recommendation that the Secretary of the Treasury be authorized to make advances from the United States funds to enable the District to meet its share of the cost of the extraordinary municipal improvements-filtration plant, sewage disposal system, the District Building "Communication of Ward Wright Pierson, University of Pennsylvania.

of which the District of Columbia is required to pay half the cost-the advances to be repaid by the District in installments with interest.

Education. The public schools of the District were never before so well housed and equipped. The total number of pupils enrolled for the year was 48,745, an increase of 0.64 per cent.; of these 32,987 were white and 15,758 were colored; 1,371 teachers were employed of whom 925 were white and 446 colored.

Death Rate.-During the calendar year 1902 the lowest death rate, 19.99 per thousand, for ten years with one exception (1897-19.79) was reached. The average for the decade was 21.22; for whites, 17.29; for colored persons, 29.13. The most potent factor in the high death rate of colored persons is the mortality of children under one year representing the death of between 400 and 450 out of every 1,000 colored children born.

Drainage. During the year 16 miles of sewers were constructed and eleven miles of new water mains laid. 1,448 additional buildings were connected with the public water system, making the present number 49,929. 255 new meters were installed, the present number being 1,748.

Pennsylvania.-Report of the Executive Committee of the Civil Service Reforu Association. The increased efficiency of the individual in the classified service of the United States, leads at once to the conclusion that the application of the principles of the merit system in the selection of clerks and other employees in all the municipalities and the State at large, would produce a far better force than is at present secured under the spoils system. With this in view the Civil Service Reform Association of Pennsylvania has set itself the task of educating public opinion to a degree that the establishment of the merit system will be demanded of the Legislature in no uncertain way.

Although the City Charter of Philadelphia provides that the appointment of "all officers, clerks and employees" with certain exceptions shall be made in pursuance of "rules and regulations" providing for the ascertainment of the comparative fitness of all applicants for appointment or promotion by a systematic, open and competitive examination of such applicants, hitherto the public has believed that no candidate-no matter how high his mark could secure an appointment unless he possessed great political influence. But through the efforts of the Executive Committee of the Association the veil which shrouded the administration of the Civil Service Bureau during the recent city administration has been lifted in a measure and representatives of the Association admitted to the municipal civil service examinations.

While much of the Twenty-third Annual Report is given over to a discussion of cases, it shows clearly the difficulties to be overcome and presents a method of correcting existing faults. The Committee of the Association on Legislation has prepared a draft of an "Act to Regulate and Improve the Civil Service of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania." The proposed bill provides for the appointment of a State Commissioner and the establishment of the "Competi

12 Communication of Ward Wright Pierson, University of Pennsylvania.

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