MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 A MANUAL 
 
 OF THE 
 
 METHODS, UTILITY, AND COST 
 
 OF 
 
 PUBLIC IMPROVEMENTS, 
 
 FOR THE 
 
 MUNICIPAL OFFICER. 
 
 BY 
 
 W. F. GOODHUE, CIVIL ENGINEER, 
 
 Member of the Western Society of Engineers and the 
 Wisconsin Polytechnic Society, 
 
 FIRST 
 
 FIRST THOUSAND. 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 JOHN WILEY & SONS, 
 
 53 EAST TENTH STREET. 
 

 R*c'd UCB EN VI 
 
 MAY 2 5 1990 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1893, 
 
 BY 
 W. F. GOODHUE. 
 
 TPERRIS BROS., 
 ROBRRT DRUtfMOHn, Printers, 
 
 Electrotyper, ^ Pearl gtreet> 
 
 U I and 446 Pearl 8t M New Yor k. 
 
 New YofK 
 
To MY FRIEND 
 *fconorable ffrefcericfc Scbuette, 
 
 A Merchant of Manitowoc, Wis. ; twice successively 
 
 elected to the Mayoralty of that City; 
 an earnest, judicious Advocate of Municipal Improvements, 
 
 which are essential to public prosperity; 
 economical and progressive in the discharge of 
 
 his administrative duties, 
 This work is respectfully dedicated by 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THE writer of this work has avoided to a certain ex- 
 tent the use of technical words and phrases, also math- 
 ematical tables and formulae, because it is intended 
 for the non-professional reader. 
 
 Once in every year throughout our broad land there 
 are chosen, from among the citizens of every city and 
 town, a number of councillors who will sit in the coun- 
 cil chamber and assist the chief magistrate in the 
 government of the municipality which they represent. 
 The members of the council are perhaps familiar with 
 the general plan and scope of the various public im- 
 provements contemplated during their administration, 
 but of the details of the work proposed they are unin- 
 formed. It is in the nature of things that this should 
 be so ; their education and training have been in other 
 work and its rewards. Yet, being men of affairs, they 
 will not hesitate to seek such information regarding 
 any proposed improvements as will enable them to 
 discharge their official duties in a manner that will 
 be commended by their constituents. 
 
 If the contents of this book can assist the prudent, 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 conscientious magistrate or councillor to secure, in a 
 judicious and economical way, those improvements 
 which are essential to the welfare and prosperity of a 
 municipality, the writer will believe that his aim has 
 been good, although the arrow may fall short of the 
 mark. 
 
 W. F. GOODHUE. 
 MILWAUKEE, Wis., October 13, 1892. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Assessment, Methods 79 
 
 Bonds 101 
 
 Bridges 73 
 
 Building Laws and Ordinances 91 
 
 Cleanliness and Health Il6 
 
 Coal, Weight of 85 
 
 Concrete 84 
 
 Cost of Operating Water-works 53 
 
 Cost of Sewers 12 
 
 Culverts 105 
 
 City Hall Plans 108 
 
 Fire Limits 89 
 
 Fire Streams 63 
 
 Franchises 64 
 
 Fire-resisting Construction 97 
 
 Gas Consumption 33 
 
 Grade of Sewers 86 
 
 Hydrant Pressures and Streams 63 
 
 Pipe, Cast-iron : Sizes and Weights 61 
 
 Pump Capacities for Small Cities 59 
 
 Sewerage Systems I 
 
 Sewer Ventilation 15 
 
 Sewers, Cost of 12 
 
 Standpipes : Static Pressures 56 
 
 vii 
 
Vlll CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Street Grades 38 
 
 Street Lighting 35 
 
 Street Lighting, Hours of 37 
 
 Street Railways 18 
 
 Street Sprinkling 23 
 
 Street Surfaces 26 
 
 Substances, Weight of 83 
 
 Walls, Thickness of 93 
 
 Water-pipe, Size and Weights . . 61 
 
 Water-works Systems 43 
 
 Memoranda Paving 70 
 
 Miscellaneous Memoranda 83 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Diagram of Cellar Drainage 6 
 
 Diagram of Standpipe Connection . . 51 
 
 Half Section of Macadamized Street 26 
 
 Part of Floor Section of Bridge 75 
 
 City Hall Plans no, in 
 
 Subsoil Water 119 
 
MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 A SEWERAGE SYSTEM. 
 
 A TOWN or city should have a sewerage system 
 planned for its entire area, having in view at the time 
 the work is done its prospective future population and 
 enlarged area. It does not follow that because a plan 
 is made for the whole city the entire system should 
 be built at once ; on the contrary, a sewerage system 
 is never completed unless a city stops growing. When 
 the main sewers are once built, the street sewers are put 
 in street by street, a certain amount each year is laid, 
 just so much as the property owners on each street 
 may petition for. Consequently the expenditures and 
 growth of the sewer work of a city are almost entirely 
 in the hands of the property owners. In fact, in some 
 of our smaller cities the sewer work done is altogether 
 too much in the hands of the property owner: he not 
 only controls the laying of sewers, but dictates their 
 course, depth, and outfall ; and the result of it all is : there 
 is a sewerage system for every two or three blocks, and 
 
2 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 the banks of lake or stream are perforated with stink- 
 ing outlets of sewers. After such work has once fairly 
 begun in a town or city it is difficult for the council to 
 check it ; indeed it cannot be checked without causing 
 some bitterness of feeling : the property owner resents 
 the interference of the council with what he is pleased 
 to term "the right of property owners to use the 
 street." The only way to remedy this evil of private 
 drain-laying in cities is for the council to immediately 
 adopt the plans of a sewerage system and rigidly ad- 
 here to it in the future construction of sewers. Of course 
 the property owners who have laid private sewers can 
 most always be depended upon to oppose the adop- 
 tion of the sewerage plans ; they have taken care of 
 their own sewage by emptying it upon a neighbor's 
 premises, or at some place contiguous thereto, and 
 decline to be taxed further for the benefit of this neigh- 
 bor or of anybody else. 
 
 Sewers should not be built needlessly large, that is, 
 of too great diameter : the larger the sewer the larger 
 volume of water required to flush it. Besides, a large 
 sewer running only one fourth full, or less, leaves a large 
 space above the flow of sewage for the accumulation of 
 gases, which will prevail unless the sewers are well 
 flushed. 
 
 The sectional area of a sewer is generally rated for 
 comparison, one diameter with another, by squaring 
 the diameter of a pipe ; as, for instance, a pipe 10 inches 
 in diameter is (lOX 10 equals 100) represented by 100 
 square inches; a sewer 6 inches in diameter is (6x6 
 
A SEWERAGE SYSTEM. 3 
 
 equals 36) represented by 36 square inches ; and a rub- 
 ber hose 2| inches in diameter is (2^X2^ equals 6^) 
 represented by 6^ square inches. If you should flush 
 a sewer 10 inches in diameter with a stream of water 
 thrown from an ordinary fire-department hose, you 
 would be using, relatively, 6^ inches of water to flush 
 100 inches of pipe. It is not economical to lay sewer- 
 pipe excessively large, and it is a worse economy to 
 lay water-pipe too small in diameter ; yet this is the 
 order of construction desired in many places, when 
 if they would reverse the conditions, i.e., smaller sew- 
 ers and larger water-pipe, the service would be much 
 better all around. 
 
 Nowadays there are two distinct systems of sewerage 
 in use : one is known as the combined system, the other 
 as the separate system. 
 
 The combined system requires the largest pipe, 
 catch-basins at street corners, and pipe connections 
 with the mains ; also man-holes at street intersections, 
 although man-holes are common to both systems; 
 and it costs to build it about 70 per cent more than the 
 separate system does. 
 
 The combined system is the one generally built in 
 the largest cities ; it receives and disposes of all surface 
 (storm) water which flows in the street gutters and all 
 the sewage from house, factory, and hotel. 
 
 The separate system has smaller pipe, because it 
 receives no water from the street gutters ; it has man- 
 holes at the street intersections and oftener if required, 
 but has no catch basins and receives all the sewage 
 
4 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 from house, factory, and hotel. The actual difference 
 between the two systems is that the former cares for 
 the street water of a city and the latter does not. The 
 use of the flushing tankis common to both systems. 
 Where the combined system is used, the storm-water, 
 falling upon the sidewalks and streets, washes their 
 surfaces and carries a great deal of sediment into the 
 sewers ; where the streets are paved or macadamized, 
 there is not so much sediment taken into the sewers 
 but what the storm- water will carry off and thus pre- 
 vent choking or clogging. In our smaller cities there 
 are few paved streets, and there is too much loose ma- 
 terial upon the street surface, to allow the storm-water 
 to flow into the sewers. The storm-water flowing 
 along the gutters would carry with it not only great 
 quantities of sediment, but straw, leaves, paper, and 
 other refuse which would clog the sewers quite often. 
 
 It is just as well that the sewers of a city do not 
 receive the storm-water of its streets. Looking at it 
 from a sanitary standpoint, it is better that the storm- 
 water be allowed to flush the street surfaces : it is 
 the only cleansing the streets receive. If there are 
 parts of a city where the storm-water collects in a 
 pool for lack of drainage, a drainage-pipe can be laid 
 especially to carry off this water ; there is no necessity 
 of taking it into the sewerage system unless the pool 
 is located quite a remote distance from a possible 
 outfall. 
 
 A majority of the smaller cities in this country have 
 adopted the separate system of sewerage. Its efficiency 
 
A SEWERAGE SYSTEM. 5 
 
 as a system is unquestioned, while its economical con- 
 struction and the rapidity with which it can be built 
 commend it to every city. The smallest pipe laid in 
 a street in the combined system is twelve inches in 
 diameter; in the separate system the smallest pipe laid is 
 eight inches in diameter. In the combined system the 
 increase in pipe diameters is greater, proportionately 
 to the distance laid, than it is with the separate system. 
 The smallest pipe which should be laid in a street, as 
 a sewer, is eight inches in diameter. The usual size 
 of house-drains connecting with street .sewers is six 
 inches in diameter. When establishing a grade of a 
 sewer on a street it is quite important that the street 
 sewer be placed deep enough in the ground to drain 
 all the cellars on the street. To accomplish this thor- 
 oughly, the grade i.e., bottom of the sewer should be 
 from two and one half to three feet below the level of 
 the cellars; the diameter of the main sewer, whether 
 it be large or small, making a difference in this depth 
 of a few inches, more or less. On residence streets, 
 where the cellars are about one half their depth above 
 ground, the sewers need not be laid as deep in the 
 ground as they are on the business streets, where the 
 first floors of buildings are but a slight elevation above 
 the street level. Yet the grades of a sewerage system 
 will arbitrarily govern the depth at which the sewers 
 must be laid ; and if the grades, which also govern the 
 flow of sewage, are to be maintained, to secure a per- 
 fect gravity system, then the sewers must be placed 
 at the depths required, whether it be six or sixteen 
 
MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
A SEWEKAGE SYSTEM. 7 
 
 feet below the surface of the street. The most ex- 
 pensive construction of a sewerage system is the main 
 sewer and outfall, particularly so if the sewer is of 
 brick and quite large in diameter, and the outfall is of 
 stone and placed on an artificially-made foundation. 
 It is for this reason that the length of the main sewer 
 should be reduced as much as possible without danger 
 of impairing the efficiency of the system. 
 
 When a community desires a system of sewerage 
 planned, the disposal of the sewage is the first problem 
 to solve, and in connection with this problem is the 
 consideration of the topography of the area within the 
 limits of the city, which should be carefully studied 
 and mapped by an expert in such matters. There may 
 be one place at which the public may desire the sewage 
 to be emptied, yet the topographical conditions are 
 such as to entail heavy construction expenses to con- 
 centrate the sewage discharge at that point. Some- 
 times the topographical survey will develop a better 
 solution of the problem than was thought of, and less 
 objectionable to the inhabitants than it was expected 
 to find before the survey was made. The disposal of 
 the sewage of a city, which means the location of the 
 sewer outfall, is the most complex question the sanitary 
 engineer has to encounter. Every locality gives him 
 a new study, demands a different treatment, and calls 
 for a wide range of experience. 
 
 The discharge of sewage into a lake, stream, or pond 
 is often done under necessity, and it is to be deplored 
 that it is ever done at all. The community needs the 
 
8 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 sewers; and while it has the means to build as much of 
 the system as will relieve its immediate needs, it has no 
 money to provide a proper and unobjectionable method 
 of sewage disposal. Therefore the system is built and 
 the disposal of the sewage in an unobjectionable man- 
 ner is deferred until some future time, when the accu- 
 mulations at the outfall and vicinity become so intol- 
 erable that the community itself demand the abate- 
 ment of the nuisance. 
 
 The location of a sewage outfall where it will dis- 
 charge into living waters cannot be under any circum- 
 stances a permanent location ; sooner or later all such 
 sewage outfalls will be abated, and each and every city 
 thus contributing to the pollution of our inland waters 
 will be required to cleanse or otherwise purify its sew- 
 age and discharge only clean water into them. Some 
 of the States have already prohibited such pollution, 
 and several inland cities have been compelled to 
 cleanse their sewage within their respective limits. 
 As our cities grow larger and the population becomes 
 more dense within them, the question of sewage pollu- 
 tion and sewage disposal will receive the attention it 
 even now deserves, and the simplicity of its solution 
 will perhaps cause us to wonder why it has not been 
 solved much sooner. 
 
 The map of a sewerage system should show, when 
 completed, the location of all sewers, with the different 
 kinds (whether pipe or brick material) marked plainly 
 thereon ; also the grade of each line of sewer, as well 
 as the size or diameter ; it should also show the loca- 
 
A SEWERAGE SYSTEM. 9 
 
 tion of the outfall or outfalls, man-holes (catch-basins, 
 if the combined system is planned), lantern-holes, and 
 flushing tanks. There should also accompany the 
 map system a profile of the main and intercepting 
 sewers, a detail drawing of outfalls, man-holes, flushing 
 tanks, lantern-holes, respectively, with complete speci- 
 fications for the performance of each and every kind 
 of work required to be done to build the system, or 
 any part of it, in a practical, workmanlike manner. 
 The city or town having such plans made should also 
 obtain, if it does not already possess it, a full and 
 complete draft of a sewerage ordinance, from which 
 an ordinance may be framed and adopted suitable to 
 the requirements of the locality desiring it. The ob- 
 ject of introducing such an ordinance is to regulate 
 the construction and maintenance of public sewers, 
 tapping and using the same ; to provide for flushing, 
 cleansing, and repairs ; and to adopt a method of 
 assessments whereby to raise money in an equitable 
 manner for the payment of sewerage construction, etc. 
 None but licensed drain-layers should be allowed to 
 tap or make connection with the public sewers, and a 
 record should be kept at the city hall of all such con- 
 nections. The city should designate what kind and 
 size of pipe should be used, not only for street sewers, 
 but of all house connections laid between the street 
 sewer and the block lines, and it should also require 
 the use and employment of the best material and 
 workmanship connected with the public sewers and 
 house connections. 
 
10 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 A sewerage system when built must be well built, 
 otherwise it is a menace to public health ; besides, if 
 well built, the expense of repairs are reduced to a min- 
 imum. 
 
 The practice of connecting house-drains with public 
 sewers while under construction should never be 
 allowed. The earth in the trenches will settle and by 
 its great weight break and detach the connections, 
 causing much damage and expensive repairs. The 
 newly-filled trenches should be allowed at least thirty 
 days' time for subsidence ; sixty days' time is even bet- 
 ter. House-drains should have a grade of not less 
 than inch to the foot. Flushing tanks that will con- 
 tain about 200 gallons of water should be located at 
 the upper end of all lines of sewers. There are several 
 flush tanks on the market that are designed to work 
 automatically, and give satisfaction to those using 
 them. 
 
 When building sewers use the best material obtain- 
 able ; the brick used should be well burnt, hard and 
 smoothly formed, well laid with full mortar joint. The 
 sewer-pipe used should be true in form and diameter 
 and uninjured when laid ; the joints well flushed and 
 bedded in the best quality of hydraulic cement-mortar. 
 The house connections should be of the same quality 
 of material, and good workmanship should be the rule 
 in all cases. Sometimes the economically inclined 
 householder will buy culled sewer-pipe whereby to 
 make connection with the street sewer, and expect the 
 drain-layer to use this kind of pipe in his work. A 
 
A SEWERAGE SYSTEM. II 
 
 drain-layer who will knowingly lay such pipe should be 
 fined heavily and also be deprived of his license. 
 
 In some cities the licensing of drain-layers and 
 plumbers is vested solely in the chief executive of the 
 city, permitting this officer to grant licenses and also 
 conferring upon him authority to rescind a license 
 whenever a holder thereof has wilfully violated the law 
 while in the prosecution of his work. Summary exam- 
 ples of this kind are often beneficial to a community. 
 
12 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 COST OF SEWERS AND APPUR- 
 TENANCES. 
 
 THE cost of sewer construction varies much accord- 
 ing to the local conditions. The freight on material is 
 often the cause of a considerable increase of cost above 
 the average price. The character of the earth in which 
 the sewer is laid will sometimes almost double the cost 
 of work. Rock, hard-pan, the prevalence of water in 
 large quantities in the trenches, a loose sandy soil 
 where continuous sheeting and bracing is required all 
 these difficulties which must be overcome are expen- 
 sive factors in the cost of sewer construction. 
 
 Sewer-pipe should be paid for at a stated price per 
 lineal foot for each size of pipe used or laid in the 
 ground. Breakages, cracked and damaged pipe, are 
 generally excluded from the contract and work, and are 
 a matter of settlement between the contractor and 
 dealer; hence it is better and more economical fora 
 municipality to buy its sewer-pipe of the builder when 
 it is laid in the ground than to buy it from a dealer 
 and deliver the best of it to the sewer builder ; other- 
 wise the municipality must make the settlement with 
 the dealer for breakages, etc. Where no troublesome 
 and expensive obstacles are encountered the price for 
 
COST OF SEWERS AND APPURTENANCES. 13 
 
 building sewers of various sizes and kinds with appur- 
 tenances is as follows : 
 
 8-inch sewer-pipe, per lineal foot laid . . $o 50 
 10 " " " " " " " o 60 
 
 ^2 " " " " " " " O 7O 
 
 , - .. (( (( J QQ 
 
 yQ (( (( (( <t (( j 2O 
 
 20 " " " " " " " i o 
 
 -, . <( (( (( <( t( (jQ 
 
 Sections with slants or house connections are in- 
 cluded in the foregoing prices. Catch-basins, man-holes, 
 and flushing tanks are not included, but are extra, as 
 follows : 
 
 Man-holes, complete, $25 to $35, according to depth. 
 
 Catch-basins, complete, $30 to $50, according to 
 depth. 
 
 Flushing tanks (automatic) cost from $50 to $70. 
 
 Brick sewers cost about $1 per vertical foot, per 
 lineal foot laid, measuring the extreme outside diam- 
 eter of the sewer. Thus a brick sewer whose extreme 
 outside diameter is four feet eight inches will cost 
 $4.66 per lineal foot in place. If a concrete or timber 
 foundation must be provided upon which to build the 
 sewer, then this will be an additional cost. 
 
 In all cases the plans and specifications for the sewer 
 construction should be prepared in the best manner, 
 having a single aim to durable and permanent construc- 
 tion, then ask for proposals to build accordingly. If 
 
14 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 the bids when opened are found to be too high for the 
 amount of money provided for the work, it is an easier 
 matter to curtail the amount of work after the bids are 
 opened than it is to dicker with a contractor for better 
 and more expensive work than was asked for by the 
 plans and specifications, when they are found to be 
 deficient in this respect. 
 
THE VENTILATION OF SEWERS. 1 5 
 
 THE VENTILATION OF SEWERS. 
 
 No matter how thoroughly well a sewerage system 
 has been built, there will be at times an accumulation 
 of sewer-gas within the sewers. If the sewers are laid 
 closely to true grades and are well flushed at short in- 
 tervals of time, the accumulation of gases is largely 
 reduced. There are many different methods suggested 
 for ventilating sewers ; none of them, however, are effi- 
 cient, for the reason that the sewer-gas will not rise 
 against the colder air above ground, but will follow 
 warm currents of air within the sewers and branches 
 and escape into such localities as the warm air may lead 
 it. The temperature of most sewers is about 65 to 75 
 degrees (Fahrenheit), and will rarely ever be lower than 
 60 degrees. The tendency of movement of sewer-gas 
 within a system is to the higher altitudes of the system 
 and city in which it is built ; therefore the householder 
 on the hill is more liable to receive gas in his house, 
 unless his pipes are well trapped, than is the house- 
 holder in the valley. 
 
 It is always better to submerge the mouth of an out- 
 fall where it empties into a body of water; by doing so 
 the mouth is sealed against adverse winds, which have 
 a tendency to drive the gases through the sewer-pipe 
 to the higher elevations of a system. 
 
 The man-holes of a sewerage system located on the 
 
1 6 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 sewers at street intersections are supposed to furnish all 
 the ventilation required for a sewerage system, but it is 
 extremely doubtful if any sanitary engineer will claim 
 this to to be an efficient method of ventilation. That 
 they do allow some gas to escape is evident, but not all 
 of it finds egress from the sewer by this means, as resi- 
 dents near man-holes will testify. 
 
 If man-hole covers along an entire street were all 
 removed at the same time, and allowed to remain so 
 for several hours, the escape of gas from that particular 
 sewer would perhaps be greater during the time these 
 covers are off than will ever escape through the small 
 openings made in the covers for that purpose. It 
 would be an unusual sight to see the sewer on a whole 
 street ventilated in this manner. It is a common prac- 
 tice in many cities to trap the pipe connection of a 
 catch-basin with the main sewer by turning the end of 
 the pipe downwards into the catch-basin, so that the 
 outlet is always below the level of water which remains 
 in the bottom of it. The only reason for doing so, 
 " that has been told," is that sewer-gas arising from 
 the catch-basin would offend the noses of casual pedes- 
 trians were it not trapped. The casual pedestrian can 
 run away from it if he chooses to do so ; the house- 
 holder cannot run away from it so easily. The sewer- 
 gas which escapes into free air from man-hole and 
 catch-basin leaves less to penetrate the house ; there- 
 fore it is wiser and more humane to have less regard 
 for peripatetic noses and more for the inmates of the 
 household, by leaving the connection not trapped. 
 
THE VENTILATION OF SEWERS, \*J 
 
 If sewers are carefully laid to grade, " straight and 
 true as a gun-barrel," as is sometimes said of them, so 
 that there is a constant movement of the sewage 
 towards the outfall, there is less liability of offensive 
 odors arising from them than if obstructions within 
 hold the sewage in small pools. The movement of the 
 sewage from the household sink or water-closet to the 
 main outfall of the system should be constant and un- 
 interrupted. 
 
18 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 STREET-CAR LINES. 
 
 WHEN granting a franchise to a company to operate 
 street-car lines in a town or city, care should be taken 
 to define the gauge of the track to be laid. A gauge 
 that is narrower than the wheel gauge of the ordinary 
 wagon or carriage is a nuisance and should not be al- 
 lowed in any city. Four feet eight and one half 
 inches is the usual gauge of all wagons, and this should 
 be the distance between rails of the street railway. 
 
 To determine the question of street occupancy and 
 paving, the right of way allowed to a street-car com- 
 pany should be the extreme width of one car for a 
 single track, and the extreme width of two cars stand- 
 ing side by side, on parallel tracks, where a double 
 track is to be laid. This understanding of the right 
 of way also defines the width of street which should 
 be paved and repaired by the company. Thus the 
 width to be paved at the expense of the company will 
 be approximately a strip eighteen inches wide outside 
 of the rails and the four-foot strip between the rails, 
 where a double track is laid, besides the width between 
 the rails of each track. 
 
 This amount of paving which should be done by the 
 company is but a fair compensation to the property 
 owners on. the street whose frontage the company are 
 
STREET-CAR LINE 
 
 in part using as a means of gain or revenue, at 
 no more than right that the company should relieve 
 the property owners of a fair share in the cost of im- 
 proving and maintaining the streets in a good service- 
 able condition. Besides, the street cars really occupy 
 more of the street than is defined by the laying of one 
 or more tracks, whether the franchise says so or not. 
 Vehicles are required by city ordinance, as defined by 
 the franchise, to abandon the tracks on the approach 
 of a street car, that it may proceed on its way with- 
 out detention, and the signal used by the car-driver 
 to warn vehicles when on the track is sanctioned by 
 the ordinance or franchise ; and if the driver of the 
 vehicle does not heed the signals, he can be fined for 
 not doing so. The driver of the vehicle must move 
 far enough from the track, either one side or the other, 
 to allow the body of the car to pass, thus giving up to 
 the street car a width of at least eight feet of street. 
 
 The street-car company should be required to lay 
 and maintain its tracks to the established grade of the 
 streets ; and when a street is paved or otherwise im- 
 proved, the share of the work to be done by the com- 
 pany should be performed at the same time the city's 
 work is done. 
 
 In some cities the number of street cars used and 
 owned by the company are registered at the city 
 clerk's office and are licensed to operate by the city, 
 the company paying a stipulated sum for each license. 
 These sums vary with different cities : $10 in some 
 cities; $20 and $25 annually in others. In Baltimore, 
 
2O MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 Maryland, the city required the street-car companies 
 to pay one cent from each fare collected to the city. 
 The companies therefore charged a six-cent fare and 
 thus became tax-collectors for the city without any 
 expense to themselves. Had the city restricted the 
 fares to five cents per capita per ride, the result to the 
 street-car companies would have been widely different. 
 
 This is an instance where cities are overreached by 
 exacting terms that are not fully considered, nor all 
 the results carefully ' weighed when the franchise is 
 granted. When a city grants a franchise to a street- 
 car company it should state the exact terms of the 
 franchise so that they cannot be evaded, or leave them 
 out of the franchise altogether. To exact the condi- 
 tion that " car fares shall be but five cents per capita 
 on a certain line " does not insure a five-cent fare to 
 the patrons of that line unless the distance is also stip- 
 ulated which a patron may ride for five cents ; because 
 the street-car company can make two distinct sections 
 of its one line, as has been done. 
 
 In some franchises restrictions have been incorpo- 
 rated which prevent the company from charging addi- 
 tional fare upon a line or lines running to fair or 
 exposition grounds and to certain parks or places on 
 legal holidays, also requiring the street cars to be at 
 the depot to meet incoming trains ; but such restrictions 
 are not usually necessary. The street-car companies in 
 most cities endeavor to take care of all public travel 
 which comes their way in a liberal, commendable man- 
 ner. The most serious complaint against street- car 
 
STREET-CAR LINES. 21 
 
 companies is the overcrowding of the cars, especially 
 in the morning and at night when the people are 
 going to and from their daily work. But the people 
 themselves are largely to blame for this evil ; they will 
 mount an overcrowded car until every foot of space 
 inside and outside is occupied, pay their fare to the 
 conductor, and then do their grumbling. If they 
 would do their grumbling before they paid their fare, 
 some good might come from it. 
 
 Street-car companies operating horse-car lines should 
 be allowed to lay cobblestone pavements between the 
 rails of a track on steep grades. Such a pavement is 
 a merciful provision for the animals hauling the cars. 
 The residents on a street generally object to cobble 
 pavement because of the noise ; but the service the 
 company owes to the public demands it and it should 
 be permitted. A wood pavement on a steep grade is 
 wet and slippery and very severe on the animals hauling 
 the car, and when cars are heavily laden much time is 
 consumed climbing such hills or grades. 
 
 A street railway built with rails laid on longitudinal 
 stringers is not as serviceable a track nor is it as pleas- 
 ant to ride upon as a track laid on cross ties, with string- 
 ers supporting the rails. The cars, after a few weeks of 
 travel over it, take to bobbing up and down like a 
 storm-tossed vessel, which is very disagreeable to the 
 occupants. The track laid on cross ties is, if well bal- 
 lasted and well kept, as pleasant and smooth riding as 
 any steam-railway track. 
 
 With the introduction of electric motor street rail- 
 
22 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 ways, heavier cars have come into use and the rails 
 used are heavier. The girder rail laid by the Cream 
 City Railway Company of Milwaukee weighs 89 pounds 
 per yard. The old horse-car lines used rails varying in 
 weight from 45 to 60 pounds per yard. An economi- 
 cally wearing rail, one that will not kink under heavy 
 loads, should be not less than 60 pounds per yard. 
 
STREET SPRINKLING. 
 
 STREET SPRINKLING. 
 
 EXPERIENCE has proved that the most satisfactory 
 method of sprinkling streets is to place the work en- 
 tirely in the hands of the municipal authorities. When 
 two thirds of the property owners on a street petition 
 the council to have it sprinkled there can be no legal 
 obstacle that will prevent a proper assessment of the 
 abutting property on that street to provide the neces- 
 sary means to pay for the sprinkling. When such work 
 is done by the property owners it is seldom well or 
 satisfactorily done. Some owners will not subscribe 
 for the work, and their frontage is therefore not 
 sprinkled ; the gaps thus left are a positive nuisance to 
 those who do pay for the sprinkling, because they do 
 not receive the protection from dust which they pay 
 for. The whole block or street should be sprinkled, 
 if sprinkled at all. If a street-car line traverses a 
 street, the car company should pay for one third the 
 sprinkling. 
 
 In some cities the cost of sprinkling is paid entirely 
 by the city from a general fund ; in others the cost is 
 paid by assessments made against the abutting prop- 
 erty, the city itself bearing no share of it whatever. 
 Sometimes a city will assess the abutting property from 
 two to three cents per lineal foot of frontage and pay 
 
24 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 the balance from a general fund. There is much differ- 
 ence in the cost of street sprinkling as paid by different 
 cities and towns; it is not readily understood why one 
 city should pay twice as much per mile for street sprink- 
 ling as another, when both have a water-works system 
 and the scarcity of water does not enter into the con- 
 ditions in either case; nor is it apparent even why one 
 city should pay $200 per mile more than another, yet 
 statistics on street sprinkling show such differences. 
 
 It is claimed that an assessment of five cents per 
 lineal foot of frontage, or ten cents per lineal foot of 
 street, will pay for the cost of sprinkling the widest 
 street. This rate of assessment equals $528 per mile of 
 street and is from $100 to $250 less per mile than is 
 paid by our largest cities. 
 
 At St. Louis, Missouri, the cost for eight months' 
 sprinkling per mile of street is about $700. The city 
 furnishes the water free of cost to the parties doing the 
 sprinkling. At Rochester, New York, the cost is about 
 $781 per mile of street. 
 
 At Racine, Wisconsin, the water company charge the 
 party doing the sprinkling at the rate of one and one 
 fourth cents per lineal foot of street sprinkled ; to this 
 must be added cost of sprinkling. Some cities pay 
 $100 per month, for a season or six or seven months, 
 per mile of street, and the water furnished free by the 
 city. Water companies supplying cities with water 
 have stated rates for street sprinkling incorporated into 
 the franchise when granted ; these rates vary from three 
 to five cents per lineal foot of frontage, and some have 
 
STREET SPRINKLING. 2$ 
 
 a rate as high as five cents per square foot of street 
 area. These prices are for the water alone ; the labor 
 of sprinkling is additional. 
 
 Contracts for sprinkling require the streets to be 
 sprinkled three times daily, excepting Sundays, on 
 which day the streets are to be sprinkled once and before 
 9 o'clock A.M. In some cities no street sprinkling on 
 Sundays is required. 
 
 The carts are generally required to cover not less 
 than two miles per day, each, on a street having an 
 average width of thirty-six feet between curbs. On 
 level streets, or rather streets that have comparatively 
 light grades, carts can do much better than this. The 
 spread of the sprinkler is eighteen feet, and a cart con- 
 tains not less than 600 gallons of water. All water- 
 carts should have wheel-tires not less than three inches 
 wide, for they have heavy loads. 
 
 It has been estimated that a cart can cover from five 
 to six miles per day (single spread) of ten hours. The 
 distance which can be covered by a water-cart in one 
 day depends somewhat upon the facility for supplying 
 it with water. 
 
 A city owning its water-works can make cheaper con- 
 tracts for sprinkling than if it purchases the water from 
 a company, but it does not follow that the cost of sup- 
 plying the water is less for a city than for a water com- 
 pany. Few cities operate a plant as cheaply as the 
 water companies do; the reasons therefor are obvious. 
 
26 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 THE STREET SURFACE PAVEMENTS 
 AND IMPLEMENTS. 
 
 WHEN it is contemplated to have a street paved 
 and the improvement is to be paid for by assessments 
 made against the abutting property, as is the usual 
 custom, a map drawn to some large and convenient 
 scale should be made, showing and including all the 
 property which may be affected by the improvement. 
 If a street-car line traverses the street, the area which 
 the street-car company must pave, or pay for paving, 
 should be laid off on the map, then the frontage of 
 each piece of property located upon each side of the 
 street should be defined. The street-car area can be 
 washed in one color, all the property owned by indi- 
 viduals in another color, and the city's share of the 
 work defined with a third different color. Then com- 
 pute areas by square yards and note the number of 
 yards and fractions thereof upon each individual tract, 
 respectively. 
 
 A map thus prepared is not only a satisfactory 
 exhibit to the property owners who are pecuniarily 
 interested in the work, but it otherwise serves many 
 purposes and interests ; the council, the assessors, the 
 engineer in charge, and the contractor who performs 
 the work, all have a correct and reliable guide which 
 
THE STREET SURFACE. I ' ^V 
 
 V < 
 
 will enable them to carry on the entire improvement 
 and make compensation therefor in an intelligent and 
 satisfactory manner. 
 
 To go into the details of street paving would be 
 intruding upon specifications for such work, and there 
 are different specifications for different pavements and 
 localities. The intention of this work is to describe 
 the essential features of municipal improvements, 
 omitting those details which would not only be inap- 
 plicable here, but would make the work cumbersome. 
 
 Every community must decide for itself what sort 
 of paving material it will adopt for its streets. Often 
 the local quarries will settle the question, or the stone 
 they can buy at a distance and transport at low or 
 reasonably low freight rates. In Illinois, stone and 
 brick are chiefly used for pavements. In Wisconsin 
 cedar and tamarack blocks, granite and limestones are 
 used. No paving brick are made in Northwest north 
 of the northern line of Illinois. Few of the limestones 
 make good pavements, because of their brittleness. 
 Granite fashioned into the shape of the " Belgian 
 block " is used on the main thoroughfares of most 
 large cities and makes a good wearing, durable pave- 
 ment, but is almost as noisy as the old cobblestone 
 pavement. Not all stones that are hard make good 
 paving material, nor should many of the softer stones 
 be rejected because they are not hard. Many of the 
 gritty, softer stones will wear evenly and smoothly and 
 are not as prolific of noise as the harder and more 
 brittle stones are. 
 
28 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 The asphaltum pavement is the ideal pavement, and 
 its adoption is increasing largely every year. The aver- 
 age property owner does not favor it, because of its 
 expensiveness. 
 
 Wood pavements in their best condition are simply 
 makeshifts. They are not durable, do not wear 
 smoothly, are not cleanly, and in a few years they be- 
 come so rotten that they are a menace to the health 
 of the inhabitants residing on the street where such 
 pavement is laid. A wood pavement that is well 
 sprinkled during the summer months is as prolific of 
 mosquitoes as are the cedar woods in the wilds of 
 northern Wisconsin. 
 
 Brick pavements seem to have many advocates in 
 their favor in our smaller cities and a much less number 
 in our larger cities. Excepting in some few localities 
 it is comparatively a new paving material and is no- 
 tably increasing in favor every year. It is not as 
 " noisy" as a stone pavement, it is less dusty than is a 
 macadamized roadway, and it is not so utterly dis- 
 agreeable in so many ways as is a wood pavement. 
 The most serious objection raised against the brick 
 pavement is the difficulty in securing a uniform hard- 
 ness of brick. Whether or not this objection can be 
 remedied remains to be seen. The price per square 
 yard, laid, for brick pavement seems to hold a half-way 
 place between the cost of stone and wood pavements. 
 
 For residence streets in a city and suburban high- 
 ways the Telford-McAdam pavement, laid as this pave- 
 ment should be laid, is a very desirable and a popular 
 
THE STREET SURFACE. 
 
 
 
 a 
 
 
 I 
 
 1 
 
3 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 road covering or pavement. But broken stone has 
 been so long used in many communities solely to fill a 
 bad mud-hole or quagmire in a highway that its 
 efficiency and value as a good road covering are unde- 
 servedly in low repute. 
 
 The road roller is a necessary implement for good 
 work either on pavements or highways. The roller 
 should be made to weigh about three tons, with facili- 
 ties for increasing the weight to five or six tons, by 
 loading it with some heavy material. 
 
 A good serviceable rock-crusher is also a desirable 
 implement for a municipality to own for the work of 
 road or street making. A crusher that will crush 
 about 40 cubic yards of stone per day, with a carrier 
 attachment for taking the stone from the crusher to 
 the wagons, costs complete about $1000. A portable 
 engine to run the crusher can be purchased or rented. 
 The cost per cubic yard for crushing stone is quoted 
 at from 25 to 50 cents. The writer crushed during 
 one season nearly 7000 cubic yards of black gneiss 
 at a cost of 19 cents per cubic yard delivered to the 
 wagons. This price included a small royalty paid to 
 the owner of the quarry for the stone used. It is far 
 cheaper to set up the crusher in the quarry than it is 
 to haul the stone to the crusher, as is sometimes done. 
 A valuable auxiliary of the stone-crusher is the revolv- 
 ing screen which separates the stone into three differ- 
 ent sizes. The screen is about 10 feet long and 3 feet 
 diameter and is made to revolve about twenty times 
 per minute. The screen is divided lengthwise into 
 
THE STREET SURFACE. 3 1 
 
 three sizes of mesh : the smallest is \ inch, the next 
 large is ij inches, and the largest is 3 inches. Un- 
 doubtedly the day is soon coming when every enter- 
 prising, well-administered city and town of the smaller 
 class will be equipped with the road-roller, the stone- 
 crusher, and revolving screen, and carriage travel 
 within and about these municipalities will be a pleasure 
 and not a dread to the inhabitants thereof. 
 
 Regarding the cost of pavements per square yard, it 
 varies with the locality where the work is done. Un- 
 less the town or city is located in a region where cedar 
 grows, or good paving stone can be quarried, or paving 
 brick is made, the cost of transportation will alone 
 make a marked difference in the price. Limestone 
 pavements have been laid in the Northwest for $1.40, 
 $1.60, and $2 per square yard ; granite pavements 
 for $2.45 and $2.80 per square yard ; cedar block 
 pavement at 90 cents to $1.25 per square yard; 
 McAdamizing from 70 cents to $1.20 per square yard. 
 Stone curb, 4 inches thickness, 50 to 70 cents per 
 lineal foot, set in place. When pavements are laid on 
 a concrete base this cost is additional. 
 
 The price for brick pavement, double thickness of 
 brick laid, varies from $1.50 to $2.40 per square yard. 
 
 There is no pavement better than a first-class 
 asphaltum pavement ; it combines all the essentials of 
 a good pavement and, with the exception of being 
 quite slippery for horses, it has none of the objections 
 which other pavements possess. The price per square 
 yard laid is from $3 to $3.50. 
 
32 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 We are told that lumber is getting more scarce every 
 year and consequently dearer in price. It will be 
 better for all municipalities when lumber becomes too 
 expensive to use for sidewalk and pavement material. 
 It is uncleanly and unhealthful, and the sooner it is 
 banished from streets and sidewalks the better. Ac- 
 cording to vital statistics, the third in rank of healthful 
 cities of the world is Baltimore, Maryland, and this 
 city has neither wood pavements nor sidewalks. 
 
GAS CONSUMPTION. 33 
 
 GAS CONSUMPTION. 
 
 IT is authoritatively stated that the street lamps in 
 cities consume about four cubic feet of gas per hour, 
 and an ordinary single-jet house burner will consume 
 from 6 to 8 cubic feet of gas per hour. Haswell says : 
 " Internal lights require four cubic feet and external 
 lights require five cubic feet per hour." Gas-tips are 
 sold by dealers which are alleged to burn a specified 
 number of cubic feet per hour and are rated as " three- 
 foot burners" or " four-foot burners." This is an 
 empirical rating which rarely ever will withstand an 
 actual test. The consumption of gas per hour which 
 these burners will consume is generally a great deal 
 more than the rating signifies. The actual quantity of 
 gas a tip will consume per hour, regardless of its rat- 
 ing, can only be determined by a test made with the 
 tip itself ; and the test will not always be a true rating 
 for another tip of the same size and manufacture. 
 
 The amount of gas which any tip or burner will 
 consume in one hour also depends upon the pressure 
 and the specific gravity of the gas furnished. The fol- 
 lowing testimony by an expert on this subject is quite 
 important. 
 
 The superintendent of the lighting of streets and 
 public buildings by gas in the city of New York says 
 
34 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 that it is not essential nor customary that the tips 
 used in burners within the different street lamps should 
 be of any particular kind, mark, or of any uniform size ; 
 that the quantity of gas to be furnished for street 
 lamps is not determined by the size or kind of tips 
 used in the burners, or by the number of the marks 
 or rings thereon, but by the actual number of feet of 
 gas per hour passing through the burners in the lamps 
 at the place where the same is located. That the 
 amount of gas consumed by any burner depends not 
 only on the kind and size used thereon, but also on the 
 pressure at the particular place where the street lamp 
 is stationed, and also on the kind and specific gravity 
 of the gas furnished. 
 
STREET LIGHTING. 35 
 
 STREET LIGHTING. 
 
 UNQUESTIONABLY the best modern illuminant for 
 streets is the electric arc light, each lamp being not less 
 than 2OOO-candle power. Many object to it solely on 
 account of its brilliancy, yet that is its chief value 
 as a street light. When the arc light is enclosed in 
 an opaque glass globe its extreme brightness is so 
 modified that the glare is less blinding to the eye. 
 Sometimes these lights are hung extremely high, any- 
 where from 60 to 100 feet elevation above the street. 
 To obtain the best illuminating effect they should 
 never be hung more than twenty-five feet above the 
 ground ; then the reflection from the buildings on the 
 street gives additional light. When the lamps are 
 hung very high, higher than the buildings, their light 
 falls upon the roofs, and the street surface receives 
 all the shadows. Where the foliage of shade trees 
 is very heavy and spreading, as it often is on residence 
 streets, it will be found that the lights will give better 
 results if hung at an elevation of about eighteen or 
 twenty feet than if hung higher. 
 
 The incandescent system is not suitable for street 
 lighting ; it is not powerful enough, and not much bet- 
 
$6 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 ter than the gas lamp, especially where the foliage of 
 trees is heavy and spreading. To give as good an 
 illuminating effect as the gas lamp will upon the street 
 surface it must be hung quite low lower than is re- 
 quired for the arc system. 
 
 To know that a company is furnishing electric lights 
 of the required candle power, the city should employ 
 an expert to make tests from time to time, and the 
 company notified of delinquencies in this respect. 
 Where such tests are not made there is a tendency to- 
 wards diminution of the strength of the lights which is 
 sometimes quite apparent. 
 
 The annual cost of electric lighting varies with the 
 conditions required. Where the lights are required 
 to burn from sunset to daybreak they cost each (arc 
 system) from $100 to $125 per year, according to the 
 number installed. W T here they burn from sunset to 
 midnight they cost each from $70 to $80 per year, de- 
 pending upon the number installed. A plant having 
 200 lights can afford a lower rate than one having only 
 80 or 100 lights installed. 
 
 The incandescent is cheaper than the arc light, but 
 more lamps are required for the same street area. 
 
STREET LIGHTING. 
 
 37 
 
 Yearly Table for Street Lighting ; showing the Number 
 
 of Hours from Sunset to 1 2 o'clock Midnight, for 
 
 each Month in the Year. 
 
 Month. 
 
 Total per Month. 
 
 Average per Night. 
 
 
 136 h 
 145 
 150 
 161 
 162 
 
 175 
 189 
 188 
 
 202 
 2IO 
 225 
 230 
 
 -s. 55 m 
 52 
 38 
 16 
 
 47 
 24 
 06 
 59 
 41 
 35 
 16 
 
 25 
 
 n. 
 
 4h 
 4 
 4 
 5 
 5 
 5 
 6 
 6 
 6 
 7 
 7 
 7 
 
 rs. 34 m 
 42 
 5i 
 
 12 
 
 25 
 
 51 
 06 
 
 45 
 32 
 n 
 
 29 
 
 38 
 
 in. 
 
 July 
 
 May 
 
 
 A pril 
 
 September 
 
 March 
 
 February . 
 
 October 
 
 
 
 
 
 This table may be used for either gas or electric lighting. 
 
38 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 STREET GRADES. 
 
 PERHAPS there is no other municipal improvement 
 that will raise a longer and louder blast of indig- 
 nation from property owners than the grading of a 
 street. When such a job is under way the alderman 
 who began it most generally wishes before the work is 
 finished that either himself or that particular street 
 had never existed ; while the vocabulary of names 
 having reference to imbeciles and other persons with 
 little or no minds is exhausted, and poured upon the 
 head of the city engineer. To the average property 
 owner a street consists of an area of land embracing the 
 frontage of his own property. He does not care par- 
 ticularly for any other portion of the street, as long as 
 he is permitted to make good drainage on his own 
 front and allow the water to pass on for some other 
 property owner, located on lower ground, to care for. 
 
 The principal cause of the trouble which arises from 
 grading a street in most towns and cities is that the 
 blocks have been built upon and sidewalks laid about 
 them ever since the settlement of the country, without 
 street grades and drainage having been previously 
 provided or established. Perhaps a few grades have 
 been established in the business part of the city, but 
 
T ^ 
 
 STREET GRADES. 39 
 
 t 
 the larger area has been built up without them, every 
 
 property owner erecting his building according to 
 his own inclinations. Trees have been planted and 
 have thrived handsomely, located not only on the curb 
 line, but outside as well as inside of it.- For years the 
 streets have been under the care of successive street 
 commissioners who have scraped, ditched, guttered, 
 and graded them to suit the notions of many property 
 owners. When the time comes for the improvement 
 of the streets, to secure good drainage so that there 
 will be no excessive concentration of storm-water at 
 any particular place ; when water-works, sewerage, 
 paving and macadam are introduced ; when street 
 grades are established and profiles of surfaces and 
 grades are made and placed on file in the city hall it 
 is about this time that the air becomes turbulent whh 
 muttered imprecations and threatened suits at law 
 against the city for damage to property, and at the 
 next municipal election a strong cabal is formed to de- 
 feat the re-election of the offending alderman, and a 
 successor to the city engineer is sought for one who 
 will ignore the established grades and respect the old- 
 time condition of things. 
 
 A street is graded for several reasons. One reason 
 is to make good drainage and take care of the flowing 
 water without its damaging any private property. The 
 grading of a street in most instances means a more 
 rapid concentration of storm-water as a result. In 
 many cases streets are graded not only to place 
 them in a better condition for travel during wet sea- 
 
4O MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 sons, but to reduce grades and thereby facilitate traffic 
 upon them. And there is an aesthetic reason which is 
 appreciated by every one, for we all admire a hand- 
 some street. When a street is graded and all the 
 considerations are judiciously carried out, the property 
 located thereon is not damaged, on the contrary it is 
 very much improved and the assessments for the work 
 are in the nature of benefits, as they should be. 
 
 Where buildings have been erected years before the 
 street grades were established and the later grading 
 of the street puts them above or below grade, there 
 is no alternative for the owners but to conform to 
 the new order of things ; and if they deem this a 
 hardship and an expensive matter, there is visible 
 evidence existing for a jury to see and decide how 
 much compensation they are entitled to because of 
 the change of street surface. 
 
 The stranger visiting a city for the first time does 
 not always remember the handsome buildings it may 
 have ; but if its streets are execrable he never forgets 
 them, and if the streets are handsomely improved he 
 will ever after speak of that city in a praiseworthy 
 manner. 
 
 The sidewalks on a business street should be fifteen 
 feet wide ; if the street is sixty feet wide this will leave 
 a roadway for vehicles thirty feet wide. When the 
 business streets are but sixty feet wide two street-car 
 tracks should not be allowed upon them if there is 
 nothing to prevent a return track being laid upon 
 another parallel street, If two tracks upon one street 
 
STREET GRADES. 41 
 
 are a necessity, then the width of sidewalks should be 
 reduced to twelve feet. 
 
 On residence streets the sidewalks can be held to the 
 width of fifteen feet without detriment to roadway 
 travel. The footway proper can be made seven feet 
 wide, leaving eight feet width for a grass-plat and the 
 curb ; this width and arrangement is not only an orna- 
 ment to the street, but reduces the paved area of the 
 roadway. 
 
 The cities of our Northern States require deeper gut- 
 ters than those of the Middle and Southern States, 
 because the snow and ice in winter compact upon the 
 street surfaces to a depth of six or more inches, and 
 when a thaw comes the flowing slush will flood the 
 sidewalks if the curbstones are set too low. In this case 
 the surface elevation of the curb should be six inches 
 above the crown of the street, and when paved the grade 
 of the gutter should be eight inches below the crown 
 of the street ; this gives a depth of gutter at the curb- 
 stone of fourteen inches. Ordinarily the surface ele- 
 vation is the same as the centre of the street. 
 
 For a macadam roadway thirty-four feet wide the 
 crown of the street should be fifteen inches higher 
 than the gutter. 
 
 On comparatively level streets the intersections 
 should be made level. Where the grades are quite 
 steep, crossing streets which are level (or nearly so), 
 the down-hill side of the intersection should be made 
 from eight to twelve inches lower than the up-hill 
 side ; otherwise there will be a bad pitch on the cross 
 
42 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 street from the lower crossing. Change or break the 
 grades of streets at the intersections where possible to 
 do so. Where this is done the streets present a much 
 better appearance than if grades are changed midway 
 between streets. Require all property owners on a 
 street to make water and sewer connections before the 
 work of paving begins, and thus save the pavement 
 from future destruction; otherwise it will be cut up 
 continually to make these connections, and none will 
 regret such work more than the property owners on 
 the street. 
 
A WATER-WORKS SYSTEM. 43 
 
 A WATER-WORKS SYSTEM. 
 
 THE advantages of a well-built and efficient system 
 of water-works to any community are obvious ; its 
 chief requisite being a plentiful supply of good, whole- 
 some water at all times and for all reasonable purposes. 
 
 The water supplied should be, if obtainable, free from 
 objectionable and mineral matter ; not too hard, that 
 is, not impregnated with lime or its constituents to 
 that degree which renders it unfit for steam, laundry, 
 and many manufacturing purposes. If a water supply 
 is thus rendered unfit for all general uses, its sale to 
 consumers is just that much limited and the income 
 from the sale of water is thereby curtailed. Often- 
 times a citizen of a town or city will say, when the 
 question of building a system of water-works is dis- 
 cussed, " Oh, we only want a small system to supply 
 us with water for cooking and drinking." That citizen 
 has to learn that the sale of water for such purposes 
 only will not pay the cost of operating a plant, and the 
 deficiency of income to meet operating expenses must 
 come from a general tax levy. The works should be 
 built upon the broad plan of supplying water in 
 quantity and quality desirable and suitable for all 
 general purposes a truly commercial water with the 
 intention of selling every gallon possible. Of course 
 
44 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 not all sections of the country are favored with water 
 of this kind and excellence, and the best water obtain- 
 able in one section would be rejected with disdain by 
 a community of a more favored section. 
 
 There are some sections of the country where the 
 artesian wells supply an abundance of the best quality 
 of water good for all purposes, and there are other 
 sections where artesian wells are not only a very un- 
 reliable source of supply, but the water from them is 
 very objectionable for any use but the extinguishment 
 of fires provided that enough of it can be had when 
 wanted for this purpose. As a rule the artesian well 
 as a source of supply is out of the question when con- 
 sidering a sufficient supply for a town or city of any 
 considerable size or population. 
 
 An artesian well that will discharge 100 gallons per 
 minute is a rarity; many of them discharge only 18 
 to 30 gallons per minute. A discharge of 100 gallons 
 per minute is but 144,000 gallons per day, and this 
 quantity is a meagre supply for an ordinary, sized 
 village. This quantity of water does not afford even 
 fire protection, for there is but 6000 gallons per hour 
 available, and two fairly good fire-streams require, 
 each, 160 gallons of water per minute, which in the 
 aggregate amounts to a discharge equal to 9600 gallons 
 per hour. The artesian well fulfils its mission in those 
 localities where there is no other supply obtainable. 
 
 The source of supply should be located, where pos- 
 sible to do so, where there will be no danger of future 
 contamination, and to make such assurance sure the 
 
A WATER-WORKS SYSTEM. 45 
 
 location and outfall of the main sewerage of a town or 
 city should be considered at the same time that the 
 water-works system is planned. Lay no pipe in the 
 streets less than six inches internal diameter. Only 
 one efficient fire stream can be had from a four-inch 
 water-pipe, and only single-nozzled hydrants can be 
 placed on such a diminutive pipe-line. A cast-iron six- 
 inch diameter pipe, well laid in the ground ready for 
 use, costs 40 per cent less per lineal foot, so laid, than 
 does good rubber hose per lineal foot ; one double- 
 nozzled hydrant set in place ready for use costs about 
 $30 showing that cast-iron pipe and hydrants are a 
 cheaper fire protection than is the best rubber hose. 
 Yet the rubber hose must be kept on hand whether or 
 not a city has a water-works system, but not so many 
 lineal feet are required to be kept on hand. The fire 
 department of a city without water-works is com- 
 pelled to use long lengths of hose to each pipe-nozzle 
 because of the remoteness of the water supply, using 
 lengths varying from 800 to 1200 feet, while a city 
 having water-works, and hydrants located at alternate 
 blocks, seldom uses more than 300 feet of hose to a pipe- 
 nozzle and more often only 100 or 150 feet of hose, 
 thus supplying from four to eight streams from the 
 same length of hose which in the first instance supplied 
 but one stream, and a weak stream at that ; for the pres- 
 sure loss when rapidly conveying water through 1000 
 feet of hose is very considerable, and the pressure is 
 so great that there is usually a heavy loss in bursted 
 hose at every fire where long lengths are used. A 
 
46 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 certain city having a population of about 7000 keeps 
 for use about 30 per cent more hose than a neighbor- 
 ing one does having a population of 20,000 and 
 equipped with a water-works system. 
 
 A good cast-iron water-pipe thoroughly coated with 
 iron varnish and well laid in the ground, has a dura- 
 bility that is practically unknown to-day, while the 
 durability of the best quality of rubber hose is scarcely 
 more than four years. A well varnished cast-iron pipe 
 does not decompose in the ground unless there are 
 deleterious gases or chemicals in the soil about it. 
 
 The water-pipe throughout a system should be am- 
 ply large to ensure sufficient fire pressures at all the 
 hydrants of the system. In cities with a population of 
 30,000 or less the system should be so planned that no 
 steam fire-engines need be used for the extinguishment 
 of fires. The pressure at the hydrant should be such 
 that with the aid of the hose efficient fire-streams can 
 be thrown upon a burning structure with satisfactory 
 results and without the aid of a fire-engine. There are 
 several cities in the Northwest where fire-streams are 
 thus used and the fire-engines, purchased before the 
 water-works were built, have never been taken from 
 the engine-house to serve at a fire, although five or 
 more years have elapsed since the water-works were 
 built ; in the meantime quite large fires have occurred 
 in these cities, which were combated successfully by 
 the firemen with hose attached to the hydrants. 
 
 A city having a population of about 5000 pays 
 usually an annual hydrant rental of about $4000. To 
 
A WATER-WORKS SYSTEM. 47 
 
 maintain a fire department equipped with steam fire- 
 engines would be an additional expense of $2500 or 
 $3000 unless the water-works system was properly 
 planned so as to afford ample hydrant pressures, when 
 two-horse hose-carts would be the most expensive 
 equipment needed. 
 
 Where a city depends upon its fire-engines and not 
 its hydrants for streams, the number of streams avail- 
 able at a fire is the number which the steam fire-en- 
 gines can throw. With adequate pressures at all hy- 
 drants, the limit to the number of streams which can be 
 thrown will be the number of hydrants available in the 
 locality of the fire ; and if some of the hydrants used are 
 located upon the larger pipe of the system, then the 
 double-nozzle hydrants will also furnish a much greater 
 number. Where a planing-mill or other wood factory 
 takes fire and a high wind prevails at the time, many 
 streams are required to prevent the fire spreading to 
 localities outside of the course or route taken by the 
 conflagration : these incipient fires are caused from 
 flying brands carried among the buildings by the pre- 
 vailing wind, and unless extinguished at once the de- 
 vastation is widespread, and the fire loss will be im- 
 mensely greater. Instances of this kind have occurred 
 in this country where from thirty to forty streams 
 were necessary to prevent a conflagration from becom- 
 ing widespread. It is a very large city that is equipped 
 with twelve steam fire-engines, and none of our cities, 
 having a greater or less number of fire-engines, depend 
 upon hydrant pressures for fire-streams. The real 
 
43 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 reason why cities as a rule do not provide adequate 
 fire pressures at hydrants, and maintain instead large 
 and expensive fire-department machinery, is the false 
 economy of laying small pipe. Outside of the fire de- 
 partment and the engineering staff of a city, the value 
 of pipe, pumps, and water of generous measure and 
 capacity is not generally appreciated, nor are they ex- 
 tensively provided.* The experienced fireman will say, 
 if asked to name the conditions which make an efficient 
 fire-stream : a stream of water forced through 200 or 
 250 feet of two and one-half inch rubber hose, with a 
 smooth nozzle not less than one and one-eighth inches 
 diameter and a pressure at the hydrant of not less 
 than sixty pounds, such pressure and streams throw 
 185 gallons of water per minute, to an elevation of 74 
 feet. Yet this fireman is giving almost minimum con- 
 ditions ; he would undoubtedly prefer a smooth nozzle 
 one and one-fourth inches diameter and eighty pounds 
 pressure at the hydrant, which would discharge 239 
 
 * At the great fire in Milwaukee, Wis., October 28, 1892, there 
 were available in the city eighteen steam fire-engines and a steam 
 fire-tug on the river with a capacity of eighteen streams more, although 
 not all available at one time. The city made a call upon neighboring 
 cities for help, and fire-engines came from Chicago and intervening 
 cities to the number of eight. A very high wind prevailed at the time 
 of the fire, and the area burnt over had been previously covered with 
 old-time, cheaply built, wooden-houses, with some few factories and 
 buildings of the better class among them. The hydrant pressures alone 
 were not sufficient to furnish fire-streams. The sole dependence of 
 Milwaukee was her eighteen fire engines and the steam fire-tug. 
 
A WATER-WORKS SYSTEM. 49 
 
 gallons per minute to an elevation of 80 feet. These 
 streams would be, at the heights specified, solid col- 
 umns of water, not sprays of water which spread in 
 mid-air and feed the flames. The average pressure 
 maintained by steam fire-engines at work is, for steam, 
 100 pounds per square inch and from 130 to 160 
 pounds water pressure. Oftentimes even greater pres- 
 sures are used.* 
 
 If all cities of the larger growth could be divided 
 into prescribed areas, with lines of large pipe well 
 stocked with hydrants to a reasonable number, such 
 pipe lines would afford a more practical and safer bar- 
 rier against the sweeping conflagrations which often- 
 times devastate large districts than anything that has 
 yet been done in our American cities to check such 
 fires. The best conditions of water-works construc- 
 tion, combined with the best principles of fire-resisting 
 construction, must be observed and practised in our 
 larger cities if we would save them from the great de- 
 structive fires which are nowadays a quite common 
 occurrence. In our large cities, where the popu- 
 lation is more dense, where the daily domestic and 
 factory consumption of water is great and the busi- 
 
 * While advocating the use of large pipe and heavy pressures, the 
 writer does not mean to convey the idea that our larger cities can 
 dispense with the steam fire-engine ; the prevalence of tall buildings 
 and the modern sky-scraper building not only demands their reten- 
 tion, but also requires engines of larger capacity than those now built 
 and used. 
 
SO MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 ness blocks are very tall, the standpipe loses its 
 utility as a reservoir, and its static pressure is of little 
 avail ; in such instances the supply and pressure for 
 all purposes must come from the pump direct, and 
 steam fire-engines must be employed to take the water 
 from the hydrant and throw it upon the burning struc- 
 ture. For cities of the second and third class the 
 standpipe is a great economical factor in the operation 
 of a system, and a valuable adjunct to its utility. It 
 saves the cost of steady pumping day and night, 
 including the labor of a night engineer and fireman and 
 the fuel they would burn during their hours of duty. 
 The stand-pipe affords a steady static pressure at all 
 times, and provides a large supply of stored water, 
 which by its altitude is available at once for the extin- 
 guishment of fires. To say that this use of water is not 
 possible or practicable because the engineer might 
 neglect to keep the standpipe filled is tantamount to 
 saying that railway trains cannot be run on time because 
 the engineer might fail to keep up steam : a pressure 
 gauge or an Edison recording gauge, posted in the 
 office of the mayor, or of the chief of the city fire 
 department, will tell at a glance whether or not the 
 tank is full and the engineer attending to his duties. 
 The great utility and economy of the standpipe is rec- 
 ognized wherever it is used. 
 
 The largest standpipes built in this country are 20 
 and 25 feet diameter, with tank 100 feet and more in 
 height. The extreme height is in many instances in- 
 creased by placing the tank on a brick or masonry 
 
A WATER-WORKS SYSTEM. 
 
$2 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 tower varying from 50 to 100 feet high ; the static 
 pressure desired determines the total height. Where 
 a high elevation of land exists near a city the total 
 height of standpipe can be materially lessened by plac- 
 ing it upon such elevation. Where a standpipe is in- 
 corporated in a system of water-works, the engineer's 
 duty is to keep it full ; his pressure gauge placed in 
 the pump-room will show him at all times what the 
 elevation of water is in the tank. In most instances 
 the tank is kept full by pumping only morning and 
 evening and during a conflagration ; where there is a 
 great constant demand for water during the day, as is 
 the case in a manufacturing city, the engineer must 
 pump at noon as well as morning and night. The in- 
 tervals at which the pumps remain idle depend upon 
 the capacity of the standpipe and the hourly consump- 
 tion of water. The standpipe was first designed to 
 afford relief to the pumps and protection to the pipe 
 system from injury by " water-hammer," but of late 
 years it has been increased in size and become utilized 
 as a storage reservoir ; thus in the modern water-works 
 system it serves a twofold purpose. 
 
 The earlier settlers of the West voted money quite 
 lavishly to secure railway facilities, and they handed 
 down to the present generation in many localities some 
 heavy bonded debts. The effect of these debts upon 
 the present generation is that they have a very great 
 dread it may be said, an unreasonable dread of any 
 and all public improvements which cannot be built 
 without an issue of bonds whereby to provide the nee- 
 
A WATER-WORKS SYSTEM. 53 
 
 essary funds. Consequently there are numerous towns 
 and cities in the West to-day without water-works, sew- 
 erage, improved or paved streets. Yet the denizens 
 of such towns and cities have lived on the same spot, 
 the same ground, using water from the same old well, 
 and casting all manner of filth upon the same ground 
 as they have continued to do for the past forty and in 
 some instances sixty years, yet will persistently vote 
 down any proposition which will secure them a water- 
 works or a sewerage system upon very favorable terms. 
 In nearly every instance it is noticeable how rapidly 
 a small city thrives and grows in wealth and popula- 
 tion when it has in operation a water-works and sew- 
 erage system. In a few years the increased wealth 
 contributes a tax levy to the municipal treasury greater 
 than the annual outlay which the improvements cost 
 the taxpayers. A good water-works system costs the 
 consumer (the taxpayer) but very little ; if he pays a 
 water rate of $6 per year for one faucet in the kitchen, 
 he gets all the good water the household needs for the 
 sum of one and two-thirds cents per diem. This sum 
 is less than it costs to maintain a pump, and the faucet 
 supply is vastly more convenient to the household 
 than a pump ever could be. 
 
 Items from the Report of the Superintendent of Water- 
 works, Madison, Wis.,for the Year 1891-2. 
 
 Population, 13,246. 
 
 Total number of water takers, 1405. 
 
 Greatest number of gallons pumped per day, 925,000. 
 
54 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 Smallest number of gallons pumped per day, 375,000. 
 Number of gallons pumped per pound of coal, 189^. 
 Number gallons of pumped for one cent of fuel, 924. 
 Average head pumped in feet, 214. 
 Total number of tons of coal consumed during the 
 year, 522. 
 
 Cost of coal during the year, $2140.20. 
 Receipts for the year were $15,372.26. 
 Operating expenses were $7564.25. 
 The system is direct pressure. 
 
 Cost of Operating a Water-works System and Collecting 
 its Revenues. Taxes not included* 
 
 For a city with a population of 10,000, standpipe 
 system : 
 
 Superintendent $1,000 oo 
 
 Engineer 600 oo 
 
 Fireman (and other duties) 360 oo 
 
 Fuel, oil, waste, etc 1,000 oo 
 
 Repairs, etc 300 oo 
 
 Annual cost $3,260 oo 
 
 For a city with 2000 population, standpipe system : 
 
 Supterintendent and engineer $700 oo 
 
 Fireman and helper 300 oo 
 
 Fuel, oil, and waste 500 oo 
 
 Annual cost $1,500 oo 
 
 City clerk collects the revenues. 
 
A WATER-WOKKS SYSTEM. 55 
 
 In most instances the cost of maintaining a horse 
 and wagon should be included in the annual expenses. 
 It is difficult to obtain exact figures of cost of operat- 
 ing a plant. The water companies decline to furnish 
 such data. Water-works accounts of the smaller cities 
 are not as a rule kept in a classified form available for 
 such showing. 
 
 The foregoing statements are taken from cities 
 where the standpipe is used ; where no standpipe is 
 used and the daily pressure is furnished directly from 
 the pumps, the cost of operating expenses is increased 
 very largely. In the smaller cities the employees in 
 the water department have sometimes other duties to 
 perform outside of the water department, and instead 
 of the superintendent of the works caring for its reve- 
 nues, the city clerk is appointed to do so. It is be- 
 cause of these complicated duties of water-work 
 employees in the smaller cities that exact items of the 
 cost of operating the works cannot be readily ob- 
 tained. 
 
 Where water is supplied to a city under a franchise 
 by a private company, the city pays an annual rental 
 at such price as may be agreed upon between the city 
 and the water company when the franchise is granted. 
 This sum varies considerably. The water companies 
 that supply by direct pressure (without a standpipe) 
 usually charge more hydrant rental than those that 
 build the combined system (that is, furnishing both 
 pump and standpipe pressures, as may be called for 
 from time to time). The usual price per hydrant is 
 
56 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 from $45 to $50 annually, and $30 to $35 annually for 
 all additional hydrants located on future extensions of 
 the pipe system. One city in the West is paying an 
 annual hydrant rental of $70, another $68, and a third 
 pays $60. All three cities are supplied with water by 
 direct or continuous pumping. These rates are con- 
 siderably higher than are paid by cities having a com- 
 bined system, both pump and standpipe. 
 
 A standpipe 16 feet in diameter, 50 feet high, con- 
 taining 75,375 gallons of water, if placed upon a masonry 
 tower 50 feet high will, when full, afford a static pres- 
 sure of 43 pounds per square inch. 
 
 A standpipe 18 feet diameter, 60 feet high, contain- 
 ing 114,510 gallons of water, if placed upon a masonry 
 tower 60 feet high will, when full, afford a static pres- 
 sure of 50 pounds per square inch. 
 
 A standpipe 20 feet diameter, 80 feet high, contain- 
 ing 188,480 gallons of water, if placed upon a tower 70 
 feet high will, when full, afford a static pressure of 65 
 pounds per square inch. 
 
 A standpipe steel tank with masonry or brick tower 
 costs to erect from $6000 to $16,000, if plainly con- 
 structed ; if the design is ornamental and much cut 
 stone is used in its construction, or an expensive founda- 
 tion is to be prepared, then the cost is materially in- 
 creased ; but a large number of the standpipes in use 
 throughout the country cost from $6000 to $10,000; a 
 variation in the dimensions and capacity affecting the 
 price. 
 
 The tower may be built of shape iron, brick, rubble 
 
A WATER-WORKS SYSTEM. 57 
 
 or ashlar masonry. Whatever material is used should 
 be of the best and the workmanship first-class, for the 
 weight to be sustained is a heavy one and the tower 
 as a whole structure is subjected to great wind-strains. 
 
 When setting the pumps, keep them well down to 
 the water level in the well. A lo-foot lift (suction) is 
 an economical one ; an 8-foot lift is even better. 
 
 Use a duplex compound pump and condenser of 
 some reputable make, and thus help to keep operating 
 expenses within reasonable limits. 
 
 If the water supply will permit it, locate the pump- 
 ing station as near as practicable to the business 
 centre, where exist the vital interests of a city ; then 
 the power to supply water is where the most water 
 is likely to be required ; it is also where the greatest 
 need exists for protection against fire. If a city is 
 divided by a stream, have more than one pipe crossing 
 the stream and place the pumping station on one side 
 of the river, the water-tower upon the other. In many 
 cities the water-tower and the pumping station are thus 
 separated for a distance of more than a mile. By means 
 of an electric connection between the two structures, 
 the engineer at the pumping stations can, by pressing 
 a button in the wall of the pump-room, close the valve 
 in the water-tower and thus disconnect it from the 
 pipe system and give direct pump pressure whenever 
 called upon to do so. Use plenty of gates or valves 
 in the pipe system, so that if a break in a pipe, occurs, 
 or a hydrant is to be removed for repairs, only a small 
 section of the pipe system need be deprived of water 
 
58 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 while the repairs are being made. In the business 
 part of a city it is better to place a gate on the (pipe) 
 hydrant connection, between the hydrant and the 
 street main ; then a hydrant can always be removed or 
 repaired without interrupting the flow of water in the 
 street mains. 
 
 Never be parsimonious in the furnishings of a water- 
 works system : if such extreme policy be followed 
 it will be found, after the works are completed, 
 that there are several omissions in their construction 
 which must be supplied, and at much greater cost 
 than if adopted at the outset, as they should be. 
 The careful engineer will provide for many things 
 which to the novice seem of minor importance ; but 
 the engineer is a man who obtains a livelihood by 
 spending other people's money ; so the purse-strings 
 are drawn tightly on him, and later on some one else 
 supplies the deficiencies at a greater cost and nothing 
 is said about it. 
 
 Build all structures connected with a water-works 
 system as nearly fire-proof as practicable. 
 
 Always subject a pipe system after it is laid, and be- 
 fore acceptance of the work, to a substantial test with 
 the aid of the pump at least 100 pounds pressure at 
 the hydrant ; and hold this pressure one hour if desired. 
 Such a test is liable to show all the weak places in the 
 pipe and expose bad calking. It is much better to 
 find the weak places in a pipe system before the accept- 
 ance of the work than afterwards during a conflagra- 
 tion. If under the test a breakage occurs, it should be 
 
A WATER -WORKS SYSTEM. 59 
 
 repaired and a second test made, and again if neces- 
 sary until no breaks occur. 
 
 Test the valves of all hydrants in the fall of the year 
 before freezing weather sets in, and have them well 
 protected against frost. Test them again in the early 
 spring when freezing weather ceases, and drive down 
 all frost-jackets which may have raised during the 
 winter. 
 
 Capacity of Pumps required for Cities of a Stated Popu- 
 lation. 
 Population. Daily Capacity, Gallons. 
 
 1, 800 to 3,OOO I,OOO,000 
 
 3,000 to 6,000 1,500,000 
 
 6,000 to 10,000 2,000,000 
 
 IO,000 to 20,000 2,50O,OOO 
 
 20,000 tO 25,OOO 3,OOO,OOO 
 
 Most towns and cities have two pumps and two 
 boilers ; the pumps are not always of the same capac- 
 ity. Some smaller cities have but one pump and one 
 boiler. This is not only a risk because of the liability 
 of a breakdown, but there comes a time when pump 
 and boiler must be cleaned or repaired, and then no 
 pumping can be done and for the time being there is 
 no protection against fire. 
 
 When considering the adoption of a water-works 
 system, whether for construction by the town or city 
 itself, or by granting a franchise to a company, a 
 map or plan of the entire pipe system and hydrant 
 location should be carefully prepared. To prepare 
 such a plan in a practicable manner the source of 
 
60 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 water supply must first be permanently fixed, then 
 locate the site for the pumping station and the water- 
 tower, and if there is a stream traversing and dividing 
 the city, the pipe crossings of the stream should be 
 located. When these points are determined, the pipe 
 lines can be drawn thereon. The map should show 
 also all inhabited blocks in the city, the location of all 
 public buildings, churches, manufactories, etc., and the 
 business blocks of the city should be " hatched," i.e., 
 cross-lined, so that the map will show at a glance all the 
 actual property of the city that is to be protected with 
 hydrants and exactly what streets are to be piped to 
 supply water to consumers. When the map is thus 
 prepared, the hydrants can be located to the best 
 advantage. Place one hydrant at every block in 
 the business centre of the city, also a hydrant at 
 the corner of alleys on every cross street, so that a 
 line of hose can be run along the alley in rear of the 
 stores, where fires most commonly break out. In the 
 residence parts of the city locate one hydrant at every 
 alternate block. Place hydrants on the north and east 
 side of streets, where they will receive the most benefit 
 from the sun's rays in the winter months. The usual 
 number of hydrants placed upon a system is ten to 
 one mile of pipe. This is about the right number in 
 the more densely settled parts of a city ; but in the 
 suburbs, where land lots are larger and houses farther 
 apart, seven to the mile is enough ; this number gives 
 one hydrant to every 754 lineal feet of pipe. 
 
 When the map is entirely completed it should be 
 
A WATER-WORKS SYSTEM. 6 1 
 
 formally adopted by the city council and placed on 
 file, and the franchise, if one be granted to a company, 
 should refer specifically to this map in its details and 
 conditions ; for future reference it will be invaluable, 
 for it shows the original pipe system and plant of the 
 city's water-works system, independent of its subse- 
 quent growth and extensions. 
 
 * 
 
 Weight per Foot of Cast-iron Pipes, including Socket and 
 Spigot Ends. 
 
 Diameter. Thickness. Weight per foot. 
 
 4 inches \ inch 23 pounds 
 
 6 " " " 33 " 
 
 8 " " " 43 " 
 
 10 " | " 68 " 
 
 12 " " " 82 " 
 
 14 " " 94 " 
 
 16 " f " 129 " 
 
 18 " " " 137 " 
 
 20 " f " 197 " 
 
 24 " " " 224 " 
 
 Note. Cast-iron pipe costs from $24 to $30 per ton at the foundry. 
 Specials (T's and Y's) cost $50 per ton. Freight from n to 18 cents 
 per 100 pounds to points in the Northwest. 
 
 The usual length of a water-pipe is 12 feet. 
 
 The length of a hydrant stock is 7 feet below the 
 level of the sidewalk curb, unless otherwise ordered by 
 the purchaser. 
 
62 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 The valve or gate stocks which cover and protect 
 the valves on the street mains are made 6 feet long, 
 with screw-sleeve attachments, so that the top of them 
 can be adjusted -to the grade or surface of the street. 
 
 The grade of all streets in a town or city should be 
 established and profiles of the same placed on file in 
 the city clerk's office, and the water-pipe laid, where 
 practicable to do so, to conform to such grades. Un- 
 less this be done trouble will arise between the city 
 and the water company whenever a street is graded 
 and the water-pipe thus exposed to the danger of 
 freezing; the water company must lower the pipe, 
 and it generally expects the city to pay for such work 
 where no street grades are established. 
 
 It is an open question whether a city council has the 
 authority to convey to a water or a gas company any 
 right whatever to the use of its streets, above or belcw 
 ground, which entails upon that city expense in 
 caring for or protecting such property as these com- 
 panies may bury below the street surface. The city 
 had certain rights and authority to grade, level, pave, 
 and otherwise improve its streets before the water 
 company existed, and the granting of a franchise to 
 supply the city with water or gas should not curtail 
 this right in the least particular ; if the city must pay 
 for lowering or raising water and gas pipes whenever 
 it grades a street, it certainly is a curtailment of the 
 rights of a city to improve its streets. 
 
A WATER-WORKS SYSTEM. 
 
 Gallons of Water required Daily for Man and Beast. 
 (German Estimate?) 
 
 One person, in summer 20 gallons. 
 
 " " " winter 15 " 
 
 " horse, average 1 8 " 
 
 " cow, " 13 " 
 
 " heifer, " 10 " 
 
 " sheep, " i 
 
 " hog, 7 
 
 Hydrant Pressures required to give Certain Streams of 
 Water of Stated Volume and Efficiency. 
 
 Hydrant 
 Pressure, 
 pounds per 
 sq. inch. 
 
 Length of 
 aj-inch Ruh- 
 ber Hose 
 in feet. 
 
 Size of 
 Nozzle, 
 Smooth 
 Bore. 
 
 Gallons 
 discharged 
 per 
 minute. 
 
 Height 
 thrown in 
 ieet. 
 
 Distance 
 thrown in 
 feet. 
 
 50 
 
 300 
 
 l ins. 
 
 155 
 
 53 
 
 82 
 
 55 
 
 300 
 
 I* " 
 
 164 
 
 59 
 
 89 
 
 60 
 
 300 
 
 it ' 
 
 170 
 
 63 
 
 93 
 
 50 
 
 400 
 
 U " 
 
 142 
 
 45 
 
 74 
 
 55 
 
 400 
 
 
 152 
 
 51 
 
 80 
 
 60 
 
 4OO 
 
 l| " 
 
 1-58 
 
 55 
 
 84 
 
 60 
 
 2OO 
 
 it " 
 
 182 
 
 75 ' 
 
 106 
 
 70 
 
 200 
 
 it " 
 
 196 
 
 85 
 
 117 
 
 80 
 
 2OO 
 
 it " 
 
 209 
 
 94 
 
 123 
 
64 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 A MUNICIPAL FRANCHISE. 
 
 A FRANCHISE granted by a town or city is now- 
 adays, in its form and terms, the record of a bargain 
 between two parties, whereby the conditions may 
 prove to be exceedingly favorable to the grantee 
 and very onerous and unfavorable to the grantor, or 
 the community the franchise is intended to benefit for 
 a consideration ; but frequently the grantor does not 
 discover or realize the true intent or purport of all 
 the conditions imposed until the results are shown by 
 actual working operations. When the franchise is con- 
 sidered and discussed before its passage, the grantee 
 invariably knows of what he is talking and the 
 council, as a rule, does not, it having no previous 
 experience in that particular matter ; and many fran- 
 chises have been granted for gas, electric lighting, 
 street railways, water-works, etc., that were not fully 
 comprehended by any of the council when under con- 
 sideration ; indeed, there are existing franchises which 
 contain conditions that would not be tolerated, nor even 
 considered for a moment, had the grantors their work 
 to do over again. But the grantors in such cases are the 
 people, and the people have only themselves to blame 
 for the bad effects of their bargains : they allowed their 
 representatives to buy goods of a kind and quality with 
 
A MUNICIPAL FRANCHISE. 65 
 
 which they were totally unfamiliar, and although the 
 community may murmur because of the poor results 
 obtained, it must nevertheless foot the bills. The care- 
 ful, conservative alderman, one who exercises the same 
 good judgment and business tact in public matters 
 that he does in his personal affairs, will hesitate to 
 vote for or approve of any contract or franchise to 
 be granted or let in the interest of his city until he 
 fully understands all the conditions involved and some- 
 thing of the effect they may have upon the community 
 when the instrument is subjected to practical operation. 
 
 The legal requirements of a franchise are most gen- 
 erally well cared for, because both parties to the agree- 
 ment employ able lawyers to frame the conditions ; but 
 oftentimes there exists a gap between the legal and 
 the mechanical requirements that cannot be closed 
 where human and natural laws will not join and make 
 a harmonious whole because the mechanical part of 
 the franchise was not represented and in connection 
 with the legal part when the document was framed. 
 In such cases the mechanical conditions must in effect 
 be ignored and are inoperative, because they would 
 otherwise conflict with the law, which has a weakening 
 effect upon the whole franchise, creating in the com- 
 munity a feeling of dissatisfaction that exists during the 
 life of the franchise. 
 
 There are many instances where municipalities could 
 have obtained better water systems, better bridges 
 and pavements, and for the same money that is ex- 
 pended for poor work or service, had the city em- 
 
66 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 played a competent* engineer to care for its interests, 
 instead of dealing unadvisedly with the contractor 
 and accepting plans and specifications drawn by him, 
 or a franchise drawn by the would-be grantee, of 
 which the council knew little or nothing. The ten- 
 dency when granting a franchise is to be too liberal 
 with the terms imposed and at the same time care- 
 less regarding the exact nature of those which the 
 same franchise will impose upon the city. A franchise 
 is presumed to convey benefits to a community grant- 
 ing it, and for such benefits the community are gen- 
 erally required to pay, either individually or collectively, 
 as with street-cars and street-lighting. The franchise 
 when in practical operation is expected to produce a 
 sufficient remuneration to the holder thereof to induce 
 him to confer certain benefits upon the community for 
 
 * The use of the word " competent " is every way better for the 
 engineer than the word expert. All professional men are not experts 
 in their particular calling. When called into court to give testimony 
 upon matters pertaining to their vocation they are generally rated as 
 experts and berated by the opposing lawyers because of this dis- 
 tinguishing title, and in the minds of some persons the word " expert," 
 as applied to professional men, has become synonymous with the 
 word liar perhaps justly so in some cases. A competent engineer is 
 no more of an expert than is a competent doctor, lawyer, or manu- 
 facturer, unless he is a specialist in certain branches of his vocation 
 and well known as such. Neither the city attorney, the city engineer, 
 nor the city physician is rated as an expert, however competent he 
 may be in his calling; but when the outside professional man is called 
 upon to consult with one of these officials upon matters profound or 
 difficult, he is forthwith dubbed an expert, when in a majority of 
 cases he is simply competent. 
 
A MUNICIPAL FRANCHISE. 67 
 
 a specified term of years: should it prove to be un- 
 remunerative, it is generally allowed to lapse and 
 the public receive no further service from it, notwith- 
 standing the conditions it contained requiring the 
 continuance of the service ; but no lapse occurs if the 
 conditions of the franchise prove to be advantageous 
 and remunerative to the holder and are insufficient 
 and burdensome to the community for which it was 
 created. Under these circumstances the community 
 will bear with it to the end, complainingly of course, 
 unless the conditions become unbearable and relief is 
 sought in a court of law. 
 
 Most franchises in their operation impose a twofold 
 tax upon a community : the individual being taxed, for 
 instance, for gas and water for the house, and the 
 city for gas for street-lighting, and water for the hy- 
 drants. Street-car service imposes a tax upon the 
 individual alone, and this not quite so voluntary as has 
 been claimed for it : it is not always optional with the 
 business man whether he will ride or walk ; his own or 
 his employer's interests may not permit it, because of 
 the time consumed in walking long distances. 
 
 Modern appliances and appurtenances seem to be 
 in a constant state of evolution ; the best methods 
 and appliances of to-day may become obsolete within 
 a year. This rapid material development has had a 
 marked effect upon municipal improvements, simplify- 
 ing and cheapening so many of them that they have 
 been readily adopted by the smaller cities, giving them 
 quite as metropolitan an appearance as our largest 
 
68 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 cities. This transitory state of material things affect- 
 ing municipal improvements has also a marked effect 
 on the population of a city : it demands the best and 
 cheapest service of all kinds, and as soon as it is dem- 
 onstrated that the improved service is better than that 
 which they have, its adoption is an immediate result. 
 Therefore, when a franchise is to be granted for any 
 purpose it should be for a short period of time about 
 ten years ; otherwise it should contain a provision 
 whereby a community may in after years regulate the 
 service performed to conform to the changed and 
 altered conditions of the municipality wherein it exists, 
 and also regulate the price exacted for the service ren- 
 dered upon the same principle that long leases of real 
 estate are re-rated in rental price every ten or twenty 
 years. The conditions involved when granting a fran- 
 chise are matters peculiarly under the care of the 
 municipality, and the council granting it is not only 
 required but bound to act with the highest regard for 
 public interests. 
 
 It is strongly advocated by some of the best munici- 
 pal legislators in this country that the use of streets 
 by companies whose franchises grant such use should 
 be paid for, and not freely donated as is now commonly 
 done. The license fee paid by street-car companies in 
 some cities is a practical illustration of this opinion. 
 
 A city granting a franchise at the present time should 
 do so conditionally, and the conditions held in view 
 should be: 
 
A MUNICIPAL FRANCHISE. 69 
 
 A re-rating at stated intervals of prices paid for 
 service rendered ; 
 
 The termination of the contract by purchase when- 
 ever desired, in a fair and equitable manner ; 
 
 Reserving the right to annul the contract when the 
 service rendered is continuously inferior to the better 
 service required. 
 
 When a company seeks to obtain a franchise from a 
 municipality, it does so because it is believed that the 
 results of its operation will be remunerative, otherwise 
 it would not be asked for, and this fact should be 
 borne in mind, as it affords some idea of the value of 
 the franchise asked for. 
 
70 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 PAVING MEMORANDA. 
 
 STONE paving-blocks are supposed to be made of 
 uniform dimensions, but they are seldom found to be 
 so. The usual dimensions of the granite block are 
 3i X 6 X 8 inches ; upon work where the pavers are 
 laying them they will be found not only of these 
 dimensions, but also of 4 X 6 X 9 inches, 3X6X9 
 inches, and 4x6x7 inches. This variation in dimen- 
 sion is not in the least objectionable if all are of a uni- 
 form depth of six inches and have parallel surfaces. 
 Sometimes paving-blocks are used which comply with 
 the required dimensions at one end only, and this end 
 is placed upwards by the . paver ; the lower end of the 
 block may be either wedge-shaped or bluntly pointed, 
 or quite suggestive in shape of a kernel of corn. Such 
 a paving-block, having no flat base to rest on, sinks in 
 the ground, causing many of the numerous depressions 
 seen in pavements. Stone blocks may vary a little in 
 width and not be at all detrimental to the quality of 
 the work. Three blocks placed side by side should 
 not measure in the aggregate more than fourteen 
 inches in width. When granite blocks are set on a 
 concrete base the joints are generally filled with a mix- 
 ture of hot tar or pitch and gravel. 
 
 The paving-bricks now offered for sale are 2j X 3^ 
 
PAVING MEMORANDA. ?i 
 
 X 7f inches ; they are burned harder than the ordi- 
 nary brick, and when struck smartly give a metallic 
 ring like vitrified sewer-pipe. In pavements they 
 are generally laid in two courses or layers : the lower 
 course is laid flatwise, the length placed longitudinally 
 with the street ; the upper course edgewise, the length 
 placed transversely with the street. An interstitial 
 filling is used in the joints composed of hot tar and 
 coarse sand, or asphaltum and coarse sand, or some 
 patent compound prepared for the purpose, of which 
 there are several kinds on the market. 
 
 Wood paving-blocks should be as nearly of uni- 
 form diameter as practicable. The lesser diameter 
 should be four inches, and the greater eight inches. 
 The pavement will be the better if all the larger blocks 
 are split into two parts and then laid among those 
 of lesser diameter. A block eight or nine inches in 
 diameter, surrounded with blocks of much less diame- 
 ter, will make in time a noticeable elevation in the 
 pavement, the smaller blocks wearing away or being 
 crushed down by the traffic, leaving the broader block 
 isolated and higher than those about it. Six inches is 
 the usual depth of block used, although blocks of five 
 inches depth are not uncommon. The blocks must be 
 set quite loosely in place, for when wet they expand 
 so much as to lift from the foundation. Select the 
 largest blocks, split them in two, and place the split 
 sides against the curb, which forms an excellent joint : 
 the large blocks are thus removed from the middle of 
 the street, where those of a uniform size should be used. 
 
?2 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 The Telford-Macadam pavement as now constructed 
 is substantially made by first grading, surfacing, and 
 rolling, in a ver)' thorough manner, the earth road-bed 
 upon which the stone covering is to be laid ; the first 
 layer, of broad, flat stones, is then placed by hand, 
 the stones set closely together, with the base of 
 each downwards ; the joints are then filled with spalls 
 wedged and sledged solidly in place. Upon this pre- 
 pared surface the coarser stone from the crusher is 
 laid, covering it with coarse gravel as a binder that it 
 may be well rolled ; upon this a third layer of the 
 medium-sized stone from the crusher is spread, and upon 
 this third layer is put the finer stone from the crusher ; 
 this surface is then wet thoroughly and rolled until it is 
 very compact and firm. 
 
 Before any paving or macadam is laid, the subgrade 
 or earth road-bed which is to receive the wearing sur- 
 face of the road or street should be graded so as to 
 insure good drainage and then be well and compactly 
 rolled ; for if this subgrade yields in places under future 
 conditions of weather or traffic, the surface of the road 
 will yield correspondingly, and every such depression 
 will be plainly indicated by a puddle on the surface in 
 wet weather, and it is the puddles which make our 
 bad streets and roads. 
 
 General Gillmore said that a good, well-built road 
 was also a good roof. This comparative idea should be 
 borne in mind by the builders of roads. 
 
BRIDGES. 73 
 
 V?'** 
 
 X OD,... * 
 
 BRIDGES. 
 
 THE bridges generally built by a municipality are of 
 two kinds : the swing-bridge for navigable streams, 
 and the fixed or permanent bridge for unnavigable 
 streams. 
 
 If a swing-bridge is desired, the first thing to con- 
 sider is the width of the channel upon either side, which 
 should be wide enough to permit the passage of the 
 largest boat that navigates the waters of that locality. 
 Sixty feet is the usual width for draw-channels in the 
 cities located on the shores of the great lakes, although 
 there are several draw-channels in the Northwest which 
 are sixty-six feet wide, and this is not an undesirable 
 feature for the larger vessels which require more leeway. 
 Side-wheel steamers require a greater width of channel 
 than other boats, but such boats are now principally 
 confined to river traffic ; hence the width of a draw- 
 channel is a matter of local consideration. For a swing- 
 bridge there is nothing gained by making it wider and 
 longer than is absolutely necessary ; the heavier the 
 bridge the harder or more difficult it is to turn, and 
 such bridges are most generally turned by hand. 
 
 The roadway of a swing-bridge is generally made 
 1 8 feet wide, and the sidewalks 9 feet 4 inches wide 
 from the inside of the roadway curb to the extreme 
 edge of the sidewalk floor ; but from this width of 
 
74 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 9 feet 4 inches must be deducted the width of the 
 roadway curb, the thickness of the truss post, and 
 the space occupied by the sidewalk rail, which in the 
 aggregate amounts to about 2 feet, thus leaving a clear 
 width of sidewalk of 7 feet 4 inches. The aggregate 
 width of the two sidewalks and roadway is 36 feet 8 
 inches ; the width of draw-seats at each abutment is 
 3 feet 6 inches. The pier protection in mid-channel 
 should be built at least 3 feet wider than the extreme 
 width of bridge, to afford a safe protection to the draw 
 when swung. The summing up of these dimensions 
 will give the total length of draw required for a chan- 
 nel 60 feet wide upon either side of the bridge : 
 
 Width of bridge 36 feet 8 inches 
 
 Two draw-seats 7 " o " 
 
 Pier protection, outside of draw 3 " o " 
 
 Two channels, each 60 feet 120 " o " 
 
 Length of bridge 166 feet 8 inches 
 
 If the width of the bridge is increased, the length 
 must be increased correspondingly, otherwise the 
 width of channels will be decreased. 
 
 The iron or steel bridge is now almost universally 
 adopted by towns and cities,* but the wooden bridge 
 floors have not yet been relegated to obscurity, along 
 
 *The first all-steel bridge was that over the Missouri River at 
 Glasgow, Mo., built by Gen. W. S. Smith, civil engineer, of Chicago, 
 111., and completed in 1880. Now the steel bridge is met with not 
 only in cities, but on country highways. 
 
BRIDGES. 
 
 F o 
 o o 
 o o 
 
 I 
 
 $ > 
 
 5 5 
 
 SJ & 
 
 
 Sj 
 
 f 
 
76 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 with the wooden truss, as they should be. The fixed or 
 permanent bridge can be made of almost any reason- 
 able length desired, and without any consideration of 
 the weight and difficulty of turning which is involved 
 in the construction of the swing-bridge. Its width 
 of roadway can be made as desired, for two or four 
 vehicles to move abreast of each other, or it can be 
 made the full width of the street or streets it is to 
 connect. 
 
 If a bridge floor is to be of wood, the roadway floor- 
 ing should be of double thickness, and the upper 
 thickness (called wearing plank) laid independently 
 of the guard-rail and sidewalks, that it may be re- 
 newed when necessary and without disturbing the 
 sidewalks. Sidewalks will last much longer than any 
 surface plank that can be laid upon a bridge roadway. 
 This method of flooring is applicable to either the 
 swing or fixed bridge. 
 
 The foundation for a masonry centre pier for a 
 swing-bridge, or for a pier placed in mid-stream to 
 connect two spans, can be made by sinking a caisson 
 below the river bottom upon stable soil or rock and 
 filling the same with concrete to the water-level. 
 A pile sub-foundation may be made by driving the 
 piles closely together within the area desired, and cut- 
 ting them off at a depth of about four feet below 
 water-level ; then place a water-tight caisson on the 
 piles, and commence laying the masonry on the floor 
 of the caisson. The interstices of the piling should be 
 well filled with broken stone before the caisson is 
 placed thereon. If the subsoil below the bed of the 
 
BRIDGES. 77 
 
 stream is soft and mucky, or partakes of the nature 
 of quicksand, and is of such depth that piling when 
 driven into it will not stand sufficiently firm and steady 
 to support the proposed structure, then pneumatic 
 caisson work will be necessary, and the plans, specifi- 
 cations, and work itself should be placed in the hands 
 of a competent engineer. 
 
 Cribwork made with sheet-piling and walings, two 
 rows, with an intervening space about 18 inches wide, 
 packed solidly with gravel to exclude water, costs from 
 $6 to $10 per lineal foot, according to the depth of 
 water in which it is built. Pneumatic caisson work 
 costs about $2.25 to $3 per cubic foot, measuring the 
 entire bulk of the caisson. A caisson constructed on 
 shore and floated to place and set on a pile support, to 
 a depth of four feet, more or less, below water-level, 
 costs from 30 to 40 cents per cubic foot. Such caissons 
 are generally built of heavy pine plank. 
 
 Piles that are to be driven below water-level may be 
 of pine, cedar, tamarack, or elm ; oak is preferable 
 where they remain partially above ground or water, 
 and in this case they should be stripped of their bark. 
 
 Piles when driven should be ringed unless an iron 
 cap is used, and should not be forced into hard ground 
 to their injury. The driving should stop when they 
 cease to move under the blows of the hammer. Piles 
 cost from 16 to 25 cents per lineal foot; the cost of 
 driving varies from 15 to 20 cents per foot. Founda- 
 tion-piles should girt not less than 36 inches midway 
 their length. 
 
?8 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 It pays well to select all lumber intended for bridges, 
 using only the best. Although the first cost is there- 
 by much increased, there is an actual saving of money 
 in the greater durability of the work. All bridge lum- 
 ber and timber is necessarily long, consequently is the 
 most expensive ; and the renewal of a bridge floor is 
 not only an expensive job, but is an annoyance to the 
 public and an obstacle to the business interests of a 
 city. Norway pine should not be used on bridges ; it 
 checks badly, which diminishes the strength of the stick. 
 
 When a municipality can afford to do so it should 
 build its bridges with iron or steel floor beams and 
 joists in fact, make all of the structure that is practica- 
 ble of steel. If a fixed or permanent bridge, the floor 
 may be of asphaltum ; but if a swing-bridge, a plank 
 floor is necessary, as paving of almost any kind will 
 load the structure too heavily, unless steam or electric 
 power be used to turn it. 
 
 When advertising for proposals for bridge construc- 
 tion, divide the work, requiring separate bids for the sub- 
 structure and the superstructure ; because some bridge 
 builders do not build substructures, besides the council 
 will have the advantage of a greater number of bids to 
 choose from. 
 
 When a municipality grants an electric motor line 
 franchise, a clause should be inserted requiring the 
 company to furnish power to turn all drawbridges which 
 are traversed by the cars of the company. Of course 
 the city must furnish and keep in repair the necessary 
 electric cables and apparatus for turning the bridge. 
 
ASSESSMENT AGAINST REAL ESTATE. 79 
 
 METHODS OF ASSESSMENT AGAINST 
 REAL ESTATE. 
 
 LOCAL customs and laws have produced different 
 methods of assessment. The prevailing opinion now- 
 adays seems to be that " every tub shall stand upon 
 its own bottom" or, in other words, every piece of 
 property on a street shall pay for one half the cost of 
 all improvements done on the street ; and this rule is 
 perhaps as good equity in such matters as can be prac- 
 tised. 
 
 If it is desirable to raise a general sewer fund, legis- 
 lative authority to do so may be obtained, provided 
 that the city charter does not warrant the raising of such 
 a fund ; or a community may ask for an election, that a 
 popular vote may give the council authority to issue 
 bonds the sale of which will afford the funds desired. 
 
 Sometimes a general city tax can be levied annually 
 to pay for sewers built during the year. A general 
 sewer fund is in most instances necessary, because 
 without it the sewers at street intersections cannot be 
 built, and private property can rarely be assessed to 
 pay for such construction ; therefore it is necessary 
 that the city have funds to pay its share of the con- 
 struction, whether it be sewers or pavements, other- 
 wise the property owners cannot have the benefit of 
 such improvements. 
 
80 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 It is customary for the city to pay from the general 
 fund : 
 
 For sewer work the cost of main and intersecting 
 sewers, man-holes, catch-basins, lantern-holes, flushing 
 tanks and outfalls ; also sewers at all street intersec- 
 tions and along the frontage of all city public buildings 
 and parks. 
 
 For street work pavements and crossings at street 
 intersections ; pavements along the frontage of city 
 public buildings and parks. 
 
 For bridges all bridge and viaduct work between 
 dock lines or meander lines, unless the construction 
 involves a change of grade ; then the city should pay 
 for all the work done ; also for all culvert work done 
 on streets within the city. 
 
 It is very unusual for a city to pay from the gen- 
 eral fund the cost of curbs and sidewalks at street in- 
 tersections ; this is invariably charged to the property 
 located at each corner, respectively. 
 
 Where a city builds its own system of water-works 
 the entire cost of the system is paid from a general 
 fund provided specially for the purpose. The sale of 
 water to the inhabitants is about the only method that 
 has been adopted to reimburse the city for such an 
 improvement ; it is for this reason that the revenues 
 from the water-works system are in most cities kept 
 separate from other revenues. The revenues thus re- 
 ceived are used to liquidate the indebtedness caused 
 by the construction of the system and for repairs and 
 extension of the pipe-lines, also for operating expenses. 
 
A SSESSMEN T AGA INS T REA L ESTATE. 8 1 
 
 When the revenues exceed the total expenses, the 
 rates to consumers are generally reduced. 
 
 In many cities the property owner is charged only 
 with the cost of laying an eight-inch sewer, no matter 
 how much larger in diameter the sewer may be that 
 was laid on his street. If a larger sewer was laid, the 
 city bore the expense but charged the cost of an eight- 
 inch sewer to the abutting property owners. Thus 
 property assessments for sewer construction per lineal 
 foot of frontage never exceed the cost per lineal foot 
 for laying an eight-inch pipe. 
 
 It is also a common practice to assess each lineal 
 foot of frontage of the entire city the sum of one 
 dollar or more. This sum the city can draw upon for 
 all sewer work, including the street sewers, which are a 
 benefit to the abutting property ; but when any lot 
 has paid this sum of one dollar per lineal foot it is 
 exempt from further assessments for sewer work. It 
 will sometimes require three or more partial assess- 
 ments, at intervals of several years, before the whole 
 assessment is collected. 
 
 Where cities because of their topographical con- 
 ditions are naturally divided, it is better to maintain 
 these divisions when the sewerage system is planned, 
 naming the different divisions " District A," " District 
 B," etc. Where these districts are formed they are 
 distinct from each other in all matters pertaining to 
 sewer construction ; each district can provide sewers 
 for itself without interference from the residents of 
 another district. 
 
82 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 There is another method of levying assessments 
 against property for street improvements founded on 
 areas of property. Each lot is assessed one cent, more 
 or less as may be required, per square foot of area 
 contained within its boundary. This method of assess- 
 ment may be used for the payment of sewer construc- 
 tion or for paving. A lot 50 feet wide and 120 feet 
 deep contains 6000 square feet ; at one cent per square 
 foot the assessment would be $60. 
 
 In making assessments for improvements it is cus- 
 tomary to deduct about one third of the total assess- 
 ment levied against a corner lot. 
 
 Assessments made against church property and othe-r 
 institutions (not public) are paid by the trustees or 
 other legal custodians of such institutions. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS MEMORANDA. 83 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS MEMORANDA. 
 
 CONDENSING-ENGINES require 2O to 25 gallons of 
 water to condense the steam evaporated from one 
 gallon of water. 
 
 A COLUMN OF WATER one inch square and 2-f-fa 
 feet high will give one pound (static) pressure per 
 square inch. 
 
 A CUBIC FOOT OF WATER at a temperature of 60 
 degrees (Fahrenheit) weighs 62 T 3 Tr \ 7 ir pounds (= 7^^ 
 gallons). 
 
 AN AREA 100 FEET SQUARE contains $ acres. 
 To find readily the quantity of land in a given area, 
 reduce it to square feet and multiply the sum by 0.23. 
 
 WEIGHT OF SUBSTANCES. 
 
 One cubic foot of granite weighs 160 Ibs. 
 
 " " limestone weighs 130 " 
 
 " " sandstone weighs 125 " 
 
 " " brickwork weighs 125 " 
 
 " " gravel weighs 84 " 
 
 " " sand (moist) weighs 84 " 
 
 " " clay (moist) weighs 90 " 
 
 " " earth, common loam, weighs 75 " 
 
 " earth, common loam, moist, 
 
 weighs 90 " 
 
84 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 One cubic foot of elm, dry, weighs 35 Ibs. 
 
 " " pine, white, dry, weighs .... 30 " 
 
 " " pine, yellow, dry, weighs.. . . 40 " 
 
 " " pine, Southern, dry, weighs 60 " 
 
 For green lumber add one fifth the weight given for 
 
 each kind, respectively. 
 
 MASONRY AND BRICKWORK. 
 
 I J barrels of lime and f of a cubic yard of sand will 
 lay 1000 brick. 
 
 1600 to 1800 brick laid is a day's work for one man, 
 properly attended. 
 
 \\ barrels of lime and I cubic yard of sand will 
 lay 100 cubic feet of stone. 
 
 One man and one tender will lay 150 cubic feet of 
 stone in one day (rubble masonry). 
 
 \\ barrels of cement and f of a cubic yard of sand 
 will lay 100 cubic feet of stone, rubble masonry. 
 
 FOR MAKING CONCRETE. Mix one barrel of cement 
 with 10 cubic feet of sand ; cast it upon 25 cubic feet 
 of broken stone ; moisten the mass with water applied 
 with a rose sprinkler ; overturn twice with shovels, 
 then cast into trench in layers not exceeding 8 inches 
 thickness and ram well in place. Rammers should 
 weigh about 12 pounds. Do not drench the concrete 
 with water when mixing it. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS MEMORANDA. 85 
 
 COAL. 
 
 Anthracite. 
 
 Lump coal contains 36.19 cubic feet per ton of 2000 
 pounds. 
 
 Egg contains 34.63 cubic feet per ton. 
 Nut contains 34.32 cubic feet per ton. 
 Pea contains 37.60 cubic feet per ton. 
 
 Bituminous Coal. 
 
 Indiana block contains 45.61 cubic feet per ton of 
 2000 pounds. 
 
 Illinois coal contains 42.35 cubic feet per ton. 
 Ohio cannel contains 40.66 cubic feet per ton. 
 Hocking contains 40.56 cubic feet per ton. 
 Coke contains 76.04 cubic feet per ton. 
 
86 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 GRADES OF SEWERS. 
 
 THE grade or inclination of a sewer is an important 
 feature of a sewer building. It is not wise to lay 
 sewers at such excessively steep grades that the fluids 
 will flow rapidly away, leaving the solids stranded as it 
 were for awhile, to be shoved or carried along farther 
 by the next influx of fluid, for the flow of sewage is 
 not a certain constant quantity, only in main sewers 
 which receive their flow from all the minor sewers, 
 and even in main sewers the volume of flow varies with 
 the hours of the day in accordance with the domestic 
 work of the many households which supply it. 
 
 If the grades are too light or there is too slight an 
 incline, there is more danger of clogging and stagnation, 
 which will cause offensive odors and the accumulation 
 of gases within the sewer system. As a rule, what is 
 sufficient to drain the street surface is more than suffi- 
 cient to drain the sewers. 
 
 Where the combined system is used the watershed 
 area and the annual rainfalls are the governing factors. 
 Locality, therefore, makes a great difference in this 
 respect : the larger the watershed the larger must be 
 the sewers. Where the ground takes up much water 
 and where the streets are unimproved, one fourth of 
 an inch rainfall per hour is a fair basis for determining 
 
GRADES OF SEWERS. 87 
 
 the size and grade of the sewers. In a city where all 
 the streets are improved (paved or macadamized) the 
 absorption is very small, and one-half inch rainfall per 
 hour is a safe basis for computation.* 
 
 The shape of a sewer affects its velocity, and the size 
 affects it even more. An elliptical or egg-shaped sewer 
 gives a greater velocity to the same volume of sew- 
 age than if it flowed through a round pipe of the same 
 sectional area ; the reason for this is that there is less 
 wetted perimeter (i.e., wetted pipe surface) in the 
 former than in the latter to the same volume of sew- 
 age, and this wetted surface retards the flow in direct 
 proportion to its area. A sewer five feet in diameter 
 with a fall of four feet per mile, and a sewer two feet 
 in diameter with a fall of ten feet per 'mile, have the 
 same velocity that a sewer ten feet in diameter with 
 a fall of two feet per mile has. A sewer having a veloc- 
 ity of three feet per second is sufficient ; five feet per 
 second is considered an extreme velocity. 
 
 Where the separate system is used the questions of 
 watershed areas and rainfalls are not considered. In 
 this case the sewage of the city only is to be cared 
 for. Here the population of a city, present and pro- 
 spective, which is to be served with house-drainage is 
 the consideration of the engineer who makes the plans 
 for the system. 
 
 Whichever system is adopted, the grades and sizes 
 
 * The rainfall in Wisconsin during the months of May and June, 
 1892, amounted to fifteen inches. This is equal to nearly one half 
 the annual average rainfall for the decade of 1880-90. 
 
88 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 of sewers are not a matter of guesswork but of mathe- 
 matical calculation, good judgment, foresight, and 
 skill ; and every locality where sewerage is contem- 
 plated must be studied and treated according to the 
 conditions found, if an efficient system, economically 
 built, is desired. 
 
 The centre of all streets for a width of at least ten 
 feet (located longitudinally with the street) should 
 be reserved in all towns and cities exclusively for 
 sewers. This reservation should not prevent the sur- 
 face of the street from being used for any legitimate 
 purpose or traffic. It simply reserves that much of 
 the street from occupation by water, gas, and other 
 pipes, or obstructions to sewers and sewer grades. A 
 sewer in operation is a gravity conduit, while other 
 pipes or conduits are not and a grade is not essential 
 to their operation ; with a sewer, grade is everything ; 
 therefore a sewerage system should have first place in 
 municipal consideration and foresight. 
 
FIRE LIMITS. 89 
 
 FIRE LIMITS. 
 
 THE fire limits of a city should be the corporate 
 limits, but for many reasons they are not so defined. 
 The customary practice is to establish a fire limit which 
 encloses the business centre of a city and allows the 
 residence portion to build as it pleases and fight fires 
 when compelled to. In most cases the only difference 
 existing between the inside and the outside of the fire 
 limit is that only brick or stone structures can be 
 erected within the fire limits, and no restrictions what- 
 ever are placed upon building methods outside of it ; 
 consequently the fire limit is surrounded with a dense 
 mass of kindling which, if ignited and favored with a 
 brisk wind blowing from the right quarter, will burn 
 to the corporate limits the only fire limits it recog- 
 nizes. 
 
 The actual reason why the ordinary fire limits of a 
 city are so contracted is, that it entails upon owners 
 of property within such limits more expensive build- 
 ings. The possibilities of obtaining lower rates of in- 
 surance and securing less danger from fire are minor 
 considerations with many. The overwhelming depres- 
 sion, private and public, which falls upon a community 
 that has suffered a sweeping conflagration is not known 
 or appreciated until experienced. Cheap buildings are 
 desirable adjuncts wherewith to boom a town, but 
 they add nothing to its permanence. The logic de- 
 
QO MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 duced from our present building laws is well illustrated 
 by the remark of an alderman of a city that had re- 
 cently suffered from a great fire : " It is better that the 
 homes of the people should burn rather than the shops 
 and factories which give them employment " which is 
 practically saying, " Of two evils choose the least." 
 Yet when a fire sweeps everything, homes, shops, fac- 
 tories, and all, directly there is a strong demand upon 
 all sides for better and more stringent building laws. 
 There is an underlying principle of selfishness, or it 
 may be said avariciousness, which controls and defines 
 the area of a fire district in cities. Builders as a rule 
 will erect buildings which will give the highest . remu- 
 neration upon the investment, and the rule as applied 
 is : a building erected on a certain lot and costing $4000 
 will return $400 per year to the owner, and a building 
 erected upon the same lot, and of the same dimen- 
 sions, which costs $3000 will also yield $400 per annum. 
 The established fire limits compel the erection of the 
 higher-priced building.* 
 
 The principles of fire-resisting construction and fire 
 limits cannot be very successfully maintained against 
 the percentage principles of investments ; they are the 
 strongest in times of disaster. 
 
 * In less than three weeks after the great fire in Milwaukee, Wis., 
 of October 28, 1892, the burnt district, which had been previously 
 covered with frame or wooden buildings, was again dotted with wooden 
 buildings which had been moved there by property owners ; one 
 owner taking out four permits at one time for moving wooden houses 
 thereon. Yet there existed at the time a popular demand that this 
 burnt district be incorporated within the fire limits. 
 
BUILDING LAWS AND ORDINANCES. 91 
 
 BUILDING LAWS AND ORDINANCES. 
 
 EVERY city in this country that has been visited by 
 a disastrous conflagration has immediately thereafter 
 promulgated more stringent laws and regulations re- 
 garding the construction of buildings, and this fact 
 seems to indicate that few if any of our cities have 
 building laws that are adequate and practical, or else 
 they are not properly enforced by the authorities. 
 
 All of our larger cities have in force laws and regu- 
 lations governing the construction of buildings of dif- 
 ferent kinds designed for different uses, with inspec- 
 tors appointed whose duties are to enforce these laws. 
 These building laws require that the doors of public 
 buildings, factories, and assemblage halls shall open 
 outwards ; that fire escapes or ladders shall be pro- 
 vided for hotels, office buildings, etc. To insure 
 strength of walls, certain thicknesses of wall are defined 
 for each story and the safety loads for floors are pre- 
 scribed, yet in spite of all precautions communities are 
 often horrified at the great loss of life incident to a con- 
 flagration. In most instances the cause which led to 
 the loss of life was bad construction perhaps weak con- 
 struction is a better expression, owing to the niggardly 
 economy of the builder, who will erect an 8-inch wall 
 
92 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 when it should be 12 inches thick, and support floors 
 with posts 6x6 inches cross-section when they should 
 be twice as large. The strength of all kinds of build- 
 ing material, where used to carry certain loads under 
 specific conditions, is readily determined by the com- 
 petent architect and engineer, and it should be made 
 a criminal act for a builder to erect buildings whose 
 walls and floors have not been passed upon and 
 approved by competent judges. The building laws 
 of most cities are supposed to insure safe construc- 
 tion in this respect, but in very few cities are such 
 laws rigidly enforced. It is commonly said that an 
 efficient building inspector has a short term of office, 
 and there is more than a grain of truth in the saying ; 
 every bit of poor construction which he condemns 
 makes the owner thereof his implacable enemy, and 
 the inspector is sooner or later " worked " out of 
 office. 
 
 The use of anchor-bolts for uniting floors and wall 
 together is the worst sort of construction and should 
 not be tolerated. The specious plea for using such 
 bolts is that the floors thus bolted to the walls tend 
 to stiffen them and thus make them safer. This is 
 undoubtedly true as affecting a weak wall ; any prop 
 will strengthen a weak wall, but a strong wall needs no 
 extraneous support. In reality the anchor-bolt makes 
 a building unsafe and more dangerous to life and prop- 
 erty should it take fire. If the walls of a building are 
 not designed with sufficient strength to stand safely 
 without the extraneous and doubtful stiffness which 
 
BUILDING LAWS AND ORDINANCES. 
 
 93 
 
 the floors will afford, then their erection should not be 
 permitted. Builders of the Budensieck kind defend 
 the use of anchor-bolts because they tend to strengthen 
 the walls of a building : it is a great pity that such 
 builders cannot be deprived of the use of the anchor- 
 bolt. When buildings of this kind take fire they are 
 unsafe to approach ; firemen dare not enter them nor 
 mount the walls, and a fire-marshal would be justified 
 in allowing such buildings to burn to the ground. If 
 the walls of a building are designed and built of proper 
 strength and stiffness, the excuse for using anchor- 
 bolts is removed. 
 
 The following tables show the usual thickness of 
 wall required for buildings at different heights or 
 stones: 
 
 For Business, Manufacturing, and Public Buildings, 
 Sixty Feet or more. Thickness in Inches. 
 
 Outside, Party 
 
 
 Stories. 
 
 and Division 
 
 
 
 Walls. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 7 
 
 8 
 
 One story... . 
 
 16 
 
 12 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Two stor es. . 
 
 16 
 
 12 
 
 12 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Three 
 
 16 
 
 16 
 
 12 
 
 12 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Four 
 
 20 
 
 16 
 
 16 
 
 12 
 
 12 
 
 
 
 
 
 Five 
 
 24 
 
 20 
 
 16 
 
 16 
 
 12 
 
 12 
 
 
 
 
 Six 
 
 24 
 
 20 
 
 20 
 
 16 
 
 16 
 
 16 
 
 12 
 
 
 
 Seven 
 
 24 
 
 2O 
 
 20 
 
 20 
 
 16 
 
 16 
 
 16 
 
 T2 
 
 
 Eight 
 
 28 
 
 24 
 
 20 
 
 2O 
 
 20 
 
 16 
 
 16 
 
 16 
 
 12 
 
94 
 
 MUNICIPA L IMPRO VEMEN TS. 
 
 For the same Class of Buildings as for previous Table 
 less than Sixty Feet deep. Thickness in Inches. 
 
 Outside, Party 
 and Division 
 
 Base- 
 
 Stories. 
 
 Walls. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 i 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 7 
 
 8 
 
 One story.. 
 
 12 
 
 12 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Two stories 
 
 16 
 
 12 
 
 12 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Three 
 
 16 
 
 12 
 
 12 
 
 12 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Four 
 
 20 
 
 16 
 
 12 
 
 12 
 
 12 
 
 
 
 
 
 Five 
 
 20 
 
 16 
 
 16 
 
 12 
 
 12 
 
 12 
 
 
 
 
 Six 
 
 24 
 
 20 
 
 16 
 
 16 
 
 12 
 
 12 
 
 12 
 
 
 
 Seven 
 
 2 4 
 
 20 
 
 20 
 
 16 
 
 16 
 
 12 
 
 12 
 
 12 
 
 
 Eight 
 
 24 
 
 20 
 
 20 
 
 16 
 
 16 
 
 16 
 
 12 
 
 12 
 
 12 
 
 If the walls are built of rubble masonry, or are faced 
 with stone, an increase of 4 inches in thickness should 
 be added, also an increase of 4 inches should be made 
 in all cases where the walls are over 100 feet long, 
 unless there are cross walls of equal height. 
 
 Buildings erected for the storage of petroleum or 
 fluids of like nature should be constructed as follows : 
 
 Walls should be 16 inches thick and not more than 
 16 feet high, made of brick ; the floor to be of fire- 
 proof paving or concrete upon the ground, level of 
 floor not to be above street grade. Roof to be of 
 metal or best composition roofing ; fire-wall all around 
 8 inches thick and not less than 18 inches high. It 
 should be built without cornice of any kind. 
 
 There does not seem to be a good, practicable 
 method for chimney construction provided in any of 
 the building ordinances which the writer has read. 
 Most of them commence by saying that " no chimney 
 
1W1LD1NG LAWS AND ORDINANCES. 9$ 
 
 shall be built with walls less than 4 inches thick, and 
 no flues to be less than 8x8 inches." This is poor 
 enough construction for any chimney, and the ordi- 
 nance presumably deters the builder from setting his 
 brick edgewise when he builds his chimney. 
 
 There should be a standard chimney, well defined 
 in dimensions and construction, for each class or kind 
 of houses erected in cities, because the " defective 
 flue " is the principal cause of fires in all cities. It is 
 a serious risk to build a fine house with chimney walls 
 only 4 inches thick. Bituminous coal, and all coal 
 which contains more or less sulphur, will in time de- 
 stroy the lime-mortar in the joints of a chimney and 
 render them as porous as a sieve ; for this reason the 
 chimneys of all buildings erected in cities should be 
 lined either with clay pipe, terra-cotta lining, fire-brick 
 or cast-iron. Plastering the inside of a chimney is not 
 sufficient protection where coal is burned. If dwelling- 
 house flues were lined with common brick placed 
 edgewise within the 4-inch walls, it would be a vast 
 improvement upon the average dwelling-house chim- 
 ney ; the walls would then be about 7 inches thick 
 and the joints would alternate, thus making it a safe 
 flue within the house, 
 
 In this country there does not seem to be any per- 
 sonal responsibility connected with weak and defective 
 construction of buildings , we see enough of it so far as 
 sidewalks, bridges, etc., are concerned, but the owner 
 of a weak, badly constructed building goes scot-free 
 should its destruction damage other buildings. 
 
g6 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 Contractors are often held liable for injuries received 
 by an employee on the work and have to pay a smart 
 sum of money in consequence ; yet that same building 
 may afterwards take fire because of a defective flue, 
 and in burning destroy all the adjacent buildings, but 
 the owner of the building is never held liable for the 
 destruction of the adjacent buildings because of the 
 defective flue. A French court a few years ago held a 
 property owner liable for the destruction of adjoining 
 property by fire, caused by a badly built chimney 
 erected by the defendant. With all our love of justice 
 and fair play, we Americans have not yet reached this 
 degree of equity. 
 
FIRE-DESISTING CONSTRUCTION. 97 
 
 FIRE-RESISTING CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 WHILE we cannot erect buildings that are absolutely 
 fireproof, yet we may erect buildings of brick and iron 
 that are less liable to damage beyond repair, and we can 
 erect wooden buildings that will resist fire long enough 
 to enable a fire department to save them and their con- 
 tents from a total loss, and without doing serious dam- 
 age to adjacent buildings. Soon after the second great 
 fire in Chicago (July, 1874) a prominent builder of that 
 city was asked, " What are the essentials of a fire- 
 proof building ? " The builder's sententious reply was : 
 " Build of brick and iron, use the least quantity of 
 stone possible, leave out all doors and windows, and 
 put nothing in the building." His comments upon 
 the use of materials are the strong points of fire-resist- 
 ing material. Our best building stones, limestone and 
 granite, are the poorest fire-resisting materials we can 
 use in a building, for they will absolutely go to pieces 
 under great heat. A brick building to be fire-resisting 
 should have all its iron columns and beams covered 
 with asbestos or other non-heating substances : to leave 
 such columns and beams exposed is to insure their 
 destruction should the building take fire. Its windows 
 should be protected with metal shutters, and its roof 
 slated or metal-covered. Elevator openings and stair- 
 
93 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 ways should be located outside its walls, thus having no 
 openings in the floors within the building. The floors 
 should be laid solidly with two thicknesses of plank, 
 with an intervening thickness of tin or galvanized 
 sheet-metal placed between the plank. The roof 
 should be made of three-inch plank, lap-jointed, and 
 then covered with slate or metal. If the basement is 
 to be used for any purpose that causes an accumulation 
 of inflammable goods, such as a printing establish- 
 ment would have, the basement walls and the pedes- 
 tals supporting the columns should all be of brick. 
 Wooden columns will stand a hot blaze for some length 
 of time. They are far safer than ordinary cast-iron 
 columns ; in fact, they are better than iron columns 
 unless the iron is covered with some non-heating sub- 
 stance. A wood column burns slowly when subjected 
 to a flame, and will char slowly when subjected to 
 heat alone ; while an iron column will soften and 
 weaken when subjected to either heat or flame,* and 
 if a stream of cold water strikes a heated iron column 
 it will surely go to pieces. 
 
 There is no building that firemen dread more than 
 one built with light brick walls, a stone-veneer face, 
 the front and floors supported with cast-iron columns 
 
 * At the great fire in Chicago papers of tacks and kegs of nails were 
 fused into solid masses and retained their package shape, showing that 
 intense heat (not flame) had fused the iron into a mass before the pack- 
 age covering was burned or destroyed, otherwise the package shapes 
 would not have been preserved. The iron-work of a carriage melted 
 and dripped as if it had been tallow, while parts of the wood of the 
 running gear still retained their shape although much charred. 
 
FIRE-RESIST/NG CONSTRU^Tfoy. ^ QQ 
 
 o <&****i 
 
 unprotected. A building of this kind is % x ndh^p & 
 life and property when on fire, and in some respects 
 worse than a wooden-building. 
 
 Wooden buildings to be fire-resisting should be en- 
 closed or sheeted outside of the studding ; have no 
 elevator or stairway openings within the building, and 
 the floors and roof built as described for brick build- 
 ings (excepting slate covering). The ceilings, walls, 
 joists, studding, and all other exposed surfaces within 
 the building should be well whitewashed, which makes 
 the fibrous surface of the wood less liable to quick 
 ignition when a fire occurs. 
 
 In brick buildings wire or metallic (corrugated) lath- 
 ing should be used upon which to plaster the walls 
 and ceilings. All doorways should be surfaced with 
 tin, and the doors themselves covered, both sides, with 
 the same metal. All chimney-flues should be lined 
 with either clay pipe or fire-brick from the bottom to 
 the top of the chimney. A hollow cornice of either 
 wood or iron should not be built, a simple brick fin- 
 ish is better, or a terra-cotta cornice if ornamentation 
 is desired. 
 
 When wooden columns are used they should be 
 bored through the centre longitudinally (i J inch bore) 
 and half-inch holes bored transversely at the top and 
 bottom, to prevent dry-rot. The cast-iron caps for the 
 tops of the columns should have a projection to enter 
 the bore of the column, and the area of the caps 
 should be about three times the cross-section of the 
 wooden girders. 
 
IOO MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 Care must be taken also to prevent dry-rot in the 
 thick flooring, when it is the intention to plaster be- 
 neath it by nailing the lath to furred projections. 
 
 Cross-walls should occur in the building as often as 
 convenience for use will admit ; if none can be built, 
 the walls must be strengthened with substantial pilas- 
 ters. To go farther into the details of fire-resisting 
 construction would encroach on the specifications 
 which the architect should furnish to the builder. The 
 foregoing items are given to define the essential fea- 
 tures of fire-resisting construction. 
 
MUNICIPAL BONDS. IOI 
 
 MUNICIPAL BONDS. 
 
 THE issue of interest-bearing bonds for the purpose 
 of providing funds for the prosecution of public im- 
 provements is a matter of much importance to a 
 city, and demands great deliberation as well as the 
 exercise of good financial judgment. While the 
 finances of a city may be in such excellent condition 
 that its bonds when issued for a reasonable amount 
 make a really good, sound investment, yet sometimes 
 the methods of procedure in preparing the issue are 
 so irregular and careless in their details that the bonds 
 do not command a premium, nor even find a ready 
 sale, as they otherwise would had the work of the 
 council been better done. 
 
 The issuance of bonds by a council should always be 
 correct in its minor details, and conform strictly to the 
 law by which the issue is governed. 
 
 When permission has been granted a council by the 
 affirmative vote of an election to issue bonds, the law 
 authorizing such election and the result as shown by 
 the affirmative and negative votes cast should be 
 printed on the face of the bonds ; also the act passed 
 by the council authorizing the issue, with all the neces- 
 sary dates. These statements are relatively the same 
 as an abstract of title to real estate, which the pur- 
 
102 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 chaser can verify or not as he chooses. Some cities 
 also make a statement, on the bonds which they may 
 issue, of their taxable wealth and property, and the 
 population of the city. 
 
 The tendency of the average council in many of our 
 smaller cities is to such paucity of record, and meagre- 
 ness of description of council proceedings as often- 
 times to subject the city to discomfiture in suits at 
 law. The records of proceedings of a council are as 
 valuable to the city it represents as are the recorded 
 transactions of a counting-room of a mercantile house ; 
 therefore the same degree of care and accuracy should 
 be observed when noting them 
 
 The denomination of the bonds is also matter of 
 consideration : if of large denomination, they will in 
 most instances be bought up by bankers or brokers 
 of distant cities ; very few, if any, are taken up by 
 the home capitalist, the denomination being too large 
 an investment for him ; if the issue is made in small 
 denominations the citizens at home, of small as well as 
 large means, may absorb the entire issue. The great 
 city of Chicago found a ready sale of its bonds in de- 
 nominations of $50, bearing an annual interest of 
 3 per cent. Bankers and brokers generally prefer 
 bonds of large denominations and long-time periods 
 before maturity. A bond issue should not be made 
 with conditions of payment that will prove onerous to 
 a city. If the bonds are payable in instalments, the 
 period of time between them should be at least two 
 years, especially if the instalments are very large, 
 
MUNICIPAL BONDS. IO3 
 
 although the creating of a sinking fund to meet large 
 payments on long periods of time is quite as onerous. 
 The taxpayer generally prefers an alternate year for a 
 breathing spell, when no special tax is levied. 
 
 There are no better securities in the land than the 
 bonds issued by a thoroughly solvent, well-governed 
 municipality, and its long-time bonds are much sought 
 after by investors ; such bonds will find purchasers a 
 long distance from home. 
 
 In the West, and in fact all over the country, the 
 rate of interest on money has been of late years 
 steadily decreasing. We have seen the interest on 
 Government bonds drop during the past twenty years 
 from 7 per cent to 2 per cent. Many cities in the 
 West that have been paying 7 per cent on their rail- 
 way bonded indebtedness for the past twenty years 
 can now borrow money at 5 per cent, and not a few 
 have borrowed at 4 per cent. Since cities have ceased 
 donating bonds to railway schemes, and have had 
 legislative restrictions placed upon them limiting the 
 amount of bonded indebtedness they can incur, the 
 facilities for borrowing money have become greater, 
 and the rate of interest paid by municipalities has been 
 lowered. Cities which twenty-five years ago " cheer- 
 fully " gave three hundred thousand dollars in bonds, 
 bearing interest at 7 per cent annually, to the further- 
 ance of some railway project, nowadays consider it a 
 very serious matter to issue, for the construction of 
 water-works or sewerage, fifty thousand dollars' worth 
 of bonds, bearing an annual interest of 5 per cent. 
 
IO4 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 Judging from the past, it is fair to suppose that the 
 future rate of interest will be lower than now, and 
 not a few able financiers believe that the general rate 
 after another decade has passed will be about three 
 per cent annually. Taking this view, let us suppose 
 that a certain city desires to issue bonds to the amount 
 of forty thousand dollars. Will it not be good policy 
 to issue the whole amount of forty thousand dollars 
 redeemable in ten years at one payment, the rate of 
 interest being 5 per cent ? If at the end of ten years 
 the city is unable to redeem them, or desires to defer 
 their redemption because of other and more pressing 
 necessities, it can refund the whole amount at the same 
 rate of interest, or at a lower if the general rate 
 throughout the country has dropped to the antici- 
 pated 3 per cent. 
 
 Certainly, if the decrease in rate of interest during 
 the next twenty years corresponds to that of the 
 last twenty, it will be unwise for any city to issue bonds 
 for a longer period than ten years. The high rate of 
 interest paid by Western cities on long-time railway 
 bonds during the past thirty years demonstrates the 
 folly of issuing a long-time bond. Perhaps the indica- 
 tions of a future low rate of interest is one reason why 
 the long-time bond is preferred to one that is shorter 
 lived. 
 
CULVERTS. 105 
 
 CULVERTS. 
 
 A CULVERT is most generally built of wood when it 
 should be built of either stone, brick, iron, or sewer- 
 pipe and these materials are fast superseding the wood 
 culvert. 
 
 Sewer-pipe twenty-four inches in diameter is about 
 the extreme size that can be used for this purpose. 
 A brick culvert thirty inches in diameter can be built 
 as cheaply as an iron-pipe culvert can be laid of the 
 same diameter. If pipes are used, end protection walls 
 must be built to prevent the washing away of the 
 earth at the ends of the pipe. 
 
 Large-span culverts, where sufficient height can be 
 had, can be arched and built of stone ; but if there is 
 not sufficient height for an arch, two masonry walls 
 can be erected and steel I beams (twelve or fifteen 
 inches depth according to the length of span) placed 
 upon them, the ends of the beams built into the 
 masonry flush with their upper surfaces, then floor the 
 structure and erect railings upon either side. The bed 
 of the stream, beneath culverts of large span, should 
 be paved with stone to prevent scouring in flood 
 seasons ; the paving-stones should be not less than 
 twelve inches in height. Never set the walls of a 
 
106 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 culvert on the paving : to do so is to invite their de- 
 struction. 
 
 The distance between culvert walls allowed for the 
 flow of water should never be less than the extreme 
 width of the stream it spans ; make the distance more 
 rather than less. More width is required for the dis- 
 charge of water than when the " oldest inhabitant " 
 first saw the same stream. As the streets are graded, 
 gutters are paved and many street surfaces are 
 wholly paved, there is a greater influx of water re- 
 ceived into the bed of the stream and in a much 
 shorter period of time than when it was a winding 
 meadow brook, half choked with weeds and rushes, 
 and the verdure-covered land held much of the rainfall 
 for evaporation and absorption by the earth. Under 
 better conditions of streets and areas the rainfalls 
 will cause the water to rise rapidly in the stream 
 and to a greater depth than before, and it will fall 
 rapidly if the bed of the stream has been cleaned, 
 straightened, and otherwise improved, as it should be 
 to prevent damage from high water. If the area of the 
 watershed drained by a stream is computed, which 
 can be easily done, there is no reason why the width 
 of a culvert opening should be matter of guesswork ; 
 the sectional area and the fall of the stream are also 
 easily determined. With these essential factors on hand 
 the local engineer can readily determine how wide the 
 opening of the culvert should be, basing his calcula- 
 tion upon a heavy rainfall upon snow-covered, frozen 
 ground, a condition or conditions which will give the 
 
CULVERTS. 107 
 
 greatest fluctuation. A heavy rainfall at the close of 
 a protracted season of rain will also require great ca- 
 pacity of discharge. A one-inch rainfall upon one acre 
 of ground is equal to 27,225 gallons of water ; allowing 
 a loss of 25 per cent of this quantity by evaporation 
 and absorption, there is still 20,418 gallons to be cared 
 for under ordinary conditions and circumstances. 
 
IO8 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 PLANS FOR A CITY HALL. 
 
 WHEN the building of a city or village hall is con- 
 templated and the plans are in the formative stage, 
 the first thing to be considered, when the site has been 
 determined, is the convenience of rooms, one with 
 another, relatively to public affairs; that is, particu- 
 lar rooms or offices most frequented by the public 
 should be easiest of access, and be located so as not 
 to discommode those who occupy rooms less fre- 
 quented. For instance, the rooms of the city clerk, 
 treasurer, and chief of police or marshal should be 
 easiest of access, because they have constant business 
 with the public more than other city officers. 
 
 The accompanying plans of the first and second 
 floors of a city hall are shown, not for an architectural 
 consideration, but merely to determine the best arrange- 
 ment of the various offices suitable for their purposes. 
 
 The duties of the city clerk and treasurer are almost 
 identical at least their work is quite interdependent 
 consequently their office rooms are placed together ; 
 each room has its own vault, and the rooms can be 
 used en suite or not during tax paying time it will be 
 quite convenient to use them so. The corner entrance 
 affords direct access from the street and the desk- 
 
PLANS FOR A CITY HALL. IOQ 
 
 railing forms a lobby in both rooms in which the public 
 can transact business with the occupants. 
 
 The chief of police or marshal has an office on the 
 ground floor, near the main entrance ; as an officer 
 for emergencies he is therefore located where he can 
 be reached easily and quickly. The marshal's duties 
 are quite in common with those of the " superintend- 
 ent of the poor," or the person who has charge of 
 public or municipal charities : for this reason the 
 rooms of these two officials adjoin. 
 
 In the rear of the Poor office is the water-closet, and 
 beyond it the policemen's room, from which the patrol- 
 men come and go as their duties require. This room 
 has a side entrance, presumably from the alley, through 
 which arrested persons may be taken to the lockup 
 without passing through the building. The loca- 
 tion of the water-closet, as shown, makes it convenient 
 of access by all the occupants of the 'building, and 
 for the police to take when necessary those who are 
 confined in the lockup. From the police-room is 
 a door to the basement stairway convenient for the 
 janitor. The lockup adjoins the police-room, and is 
 designed for temporary lodgment only ; it is provided 
 with bunks which should be iron cots, and the 
 bedding should be blankets, and cotton ticks filled 
 with straw, and pillows of the same materials. The 
 blankets should be washed often, and the ticks and 
 pillows, with contents, should be burned as often as 
 necessary. The windows of the lockup should be at 
 least seven feet from the floor, and barred upon the 
 
10 
 
 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 GROUND PLAN FRONT. 
 
PLANS FOR A CITY HALL. 
 
 Ill 
 
 SECOND FLOOR FRONT. 
 
112 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 outside. There is no basement under the lockup floor; 
 the area inside the walls is filled with gravel to within 
 six inches of the floor level, and upon this are placed 
 slabs of stone six inches thick, which serves as a floor; 
 ventilation should be provided at the ceiling. The 
 floor of the hose-carriage room is presumably about 
 two feet lower than the office floor of the hall. There 
 is no basement underneath this room nor under the 
 stable adjoining ; the floors are on a level with the 
 grade of the sidewalk, and are made of two thicknesses 
 of surfaced plank, laid crosswise of each other upon a 
 gravel filling, the same as described for the lockup 
 floor ; or a cement floor may be laid. 
 
 The stalls in the stable are planned the same as those 
 in general use where the doors are opened by electrical 
 power ; no mangers are provided, the animals being 
 fed from boxes placed before them, or, as is most 
 commonly done, the feed is dumped upon the floor 
 at the head of the stall. The place for hay storage 
 is sufficiently large where baled or pressed hay is 
 fed ; this may be built with 4X4 inch posts and the 
 outside sheeted with No. 26 galvanized iron and then 
 painted ; all that is necessary is to protect the hay 
 from sparks of fire and from pilferers. The paved 
 court, if roofed, makes a convenient place to groom 
 the horses. It is presumed the city has a water-works 
 system, and only a two-horse hose-carriage need be kept 
 in the building ; larger accommodations for stabling 
 horses will be necessary if both a steam fire-engine and 
 hose cart are kept in the building. It may be observed 
 
PLANS FOR A CITY HALL, 113 
 
 that no communication exists, within the hall, between 
 the office part of the building and that portion occu- 
 pied by the fire department ; consequently no odors 
 from the stable are communicated to the offices. If it 
 is necessary to place a heating-stove in the hose-car- 
 riage room, another flue may be added to the chimney, 
 although it is designed to heat the building either by 
 hot air or steam, from a boiler or furnace in the base- 
 ment. 
 
 The main hall is eight feet wide, and leads direct 
 from the main entrance to the stairway, which is of 
 the same width. The stairway should be of easy 
 ascent, not more than seven-inch risers and about 
 fourteen inches tread. The entry at the head of the 
 stairway is commodious and well lighted. 
 
 The council chamber has a wide entrance doors to 
 be double, and to swing either way. The chamber is 
 29 X 33 feet, and ample for a council composed of 
 fourteen aldermen. It is well lighted, having six win- 
 dows ; the large window shown above the mayor's desk 
 should be placed at least eight feet above the floor, 
 and the glass should be either colored or opaque, 
 so as not to affect the eyesight of the aldermen who 
 may sit facing it. The location of this window affords 
 a good position for placing an historical window of 
 colored glass, relating to some past event in the history 
 of the city. The chamber should have a hardwood 
 floor, and the walls should be wainscoted to a height 
 of about four feet upon all sides. 
 
 The school board has a room adjacent to the council- 
 
114 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 chamber; a window-lighted closet connects with this 
 room, where books and school supplies may be kept 
 under lock. 
 
 The committee-room, connecting with the council- 
 chamber, can be used as a mayor's office if desirable. 
 The city engineer's office is convenient of access and 
 well lighted. 
 
 The lower floor of the hall should have its ceiling 
 fourteen feet high ; the upper floor may be the same 
 if additional height can be had in the roof over the 
 council-chamber the ceiling of the chamber should be 
 fifteen feet high. If the ceiling of the lower floor is 
 made fourteen feet high, that of the hose-carriage room 
 will be about sixteen feet. There is no economy in 
 making ceilings very high : they do not afford any 
 better facilities for ventilation than of moderate height ; 
 besides, more expense is incurred in heating rooms 
 with lofty ceilings. Ventilation for the council-cham- 
 ber may be had through walls and roof, if provided for 
 in the plans. 
 
 The extreme dimensions of the hall are 54 X 60 feet. 
 The rear addition is 16 X 60 feet if we include the 
 court. The building is presumed to stand at a street 
 corner, detached from other structures. 
 
 The ground area occupied by the building includes 
 4328 square feet. It can be built for about $12,000, 
 which includes heating apparatus, plumbing, and sewer 
 connections. 
 
 It is designed to be of brick, with stone door and 
 window sills, water table, and porch columns. Roof to 
 
PLANS FOR A CITY HALL. I 15 
 
 be slated. Hardwood floors in hallway and entry ; 
 stairs of the same material. Provide ventilation for 
 the vaults by means of iron pipes, about three inches 
 in diameter, which may be removed when the vaults 
 have dried out and the openings then filled with good 
 concrete. It is almost impossible to make a vault (such 
 as are shown in the plan, for the clerk and treasurer) 
 dry out in a year's time so that it can be used, unless 
 ventilation is provided. 
 
Il6 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS, 
 
 CLEANLINESS AND PUBLIC HEALTH. 
 
 WE of this generation are lectured more on the sub 
 ject of cleanliness as conducive to public health than 
 on almost any other matter which relates to public 
 affairs. Yet our towns and cities are not kept in a 
 cleanly condition ; indeed, there are few municipalities 
 which do not put forth supreme efforts, annually, to 
 eradicate or abate some epidemic that is increasing 
 the death-rate of the community above the average, 
 and the cause of this increased mortality can in most 
 cases be traced directly to a neglect of proper sanita- 
 tion. 
 
 The cleanliness of cities is an enforced, not a volun- 
 tary, condition. Every city has upon record laws and 
 ordinances sufficient, which if properly enforced, v/ould 
 leave nothing to be said or written upon this subject ; 
 but filthy conditions exist because such laws are not 
 enforced, and only in our larger cities is any serious 
 attempt made to make people cleanly according to 
 the requirements of sanitary laws and regulations. 
 
 The cleanliness of a city, if made clean at all, must 
 be obtained through the efforts of a board of health, 
 a body of medical men appointed specially for the 
 purpose of enforcing such sanitary laws and regula- 
 tions as are by charter provided ; but if these medical 
 
CLEANLINESS AND PUBLIC HEALTH. 1 1/ 
 
 men, in the exercise of their duties as health officers, 
 attempt to carry out the sanitary requirements of the 
 law, involving an expense to the individual and the 
 city, they will surely draw upon themselves a great 
 deal of censure and personal dislike. The average 
 individual seems to consider personal conditions as 
 personal prerogatives, and therefore resents most em- 
 phatically any insinuations regarding the filthiness of 
 his person or premises. If by the filthiness of his prem- 
 ises sickness is caused in his household, he will not 
 hesitate to call a physician to meet the patient ; but 
 if that physician, as a health officer, have previously 
 called upon the householder and warned him to 
 remove the existing cause of the illness, the probabili- 
 ties are that the physician will be unceremoniously 
 ordered off the premises, nor will he afterwards be 
 called to treat the patient. This should not be con- 
 sidered an exceptional instance, for every bureau 
 officer connected with a city government knows how 
 far he can go in the discharge of his duties and retain 
 his popularity ; when this is gone his displacement is 
 sure to follow. 
 
 The general public are apt to confound hygienic 
 regulations with sumptuary laws and do not clearly 
 note the difference ; hence the unpopularity of an 
 officer which oftentimes results from the enforcement 
 of sanitary laws. 
 
 Some years ago it was a mooted question among 
 scientists whether disease is produced by filth alone or 
 by filth and some particular poison. Of late years 
 
Il8 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 Liebermeister's opinion is gaining ground : that filth 
 is the favorable nest (nidus) for disease to find condi- 
 tions favorable to a rapid development, and a potent 
 auxiliary to filth in the spreading of disease is damp- 
 ness. The Massachusetts Board of Health says, in 
 one of its reports : ' The most widespread evil in our 
 State brought out by these investigations is dampness 
 of soil arising from incomplete drainage." This con- 
 clusion was arrived at after a series of long-continued 
 and exhaustive investigations to find and locate causes 
 which led to the outbreak of typhoid fever and other 
 diseases. 
 
 We need no better sanitary laws and regulations 
 than now exist in nearly all cities, but they do need a 
 more efficient and intelligent recognition from the in- 
 dividual, and the general public through its represen- 
 tatives, the common council. If such laws were 
 enforced one half as rigidly as the same laws are in 
 the forts and encampments of the army, there would 
 be much less to complain of in this matter of municipal 
 cleanliness. There is no good reason why a city should 
 not be as cleanly as the ground occupied by troops 
 where the need of it is equally as great, if not greater ; 
 for a city has a large population of the young and the 
 helpless to protect and care for. The Union troops 
 which occupied the city of New Orleans during the 
 civil war made that city so clean that no epidemics 
 occurred there until after the government of the city 
 reverted to its civil rulers. 
 
 It is undoubtedly true that the uncleanness of 
 
CLEANLINESS AND PUBLIC HEALTH. 
 
 119 
 
120 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 towns and cities is the cause of most of the diseases 
 which prevail within them. The diseases prevalent 
 from this cause are small-pox, measles, scarlet fever, 
 diphtheria, croup, typhoid fever, diarrhoea, cholera 
 morbus and dysentery, consumption and pneumonia. 
 The detailed causes of the appearance of such diseases 
 are : bad or no ventilation, overcrowded habitations, 
 a polluted surface and subsoil, bad drainage or none 
 at all, neglect of vaccination, of isolation and disinfec- 
 tion, the presence of filth and the use of impure water 
 in the household. 
 
 The purity of the water used has much to do with 
 the healthfulness of a community, and the greatest 
 care should be exercised to obtain a wholesome 
 water which should be proven so by analysis. All 
 water obtained from wells located within a munici- 
 pality should be rejected for use in the household 
 and the wells filled up, for very few will bear the test 
 of purity. True, the average citizen will almost always 
 defend the purity of the water from the well located 
 upon his premises ; he may say that he has drunk that 
 water for twenty or perhaps forty years and he is 
 quite certain of its purity. At the same time he for- 
 gets that the population about him has in the mean- 
 time increased perhaps an hundred-fold, and the now 
 inhabited watershed which supplies that well with 
 water is not the cleanly slope it was all those years 
 the population has steadily contributed to its pollution. 
 
 The water in such a well may be clear, sparkling, and 
 palatable. The sparkle is due largely to the presence 
 
CLEANLINESS AND PUBLIC HEALTH. 121 
 
 of carbonic acid gas ; and if some of the water is put 
 into a bottle and placed where it will be warm, it will 
 soon indicate its bad qualities by a putrid condition 
 and offensive smell. 
 
 The vaults of all privies within towns and cities 
 should be built water-tight. It is better that they 
 should always be built so, whether in the city or coun- 
 try, for the farmer is not always particular regarding 
 the juxtaposition of privy and well. 
 
 Where sewerage is provided the outdoor privy is 
 generally dispensed with, but where it remains in 
 use the vault should be built as previously stated, 
 because it is essential to the healthfulness of a com- 
 munity that the area of ground upon which it lives 
 and exists should be undefiled, that causes for its 
 pollution should not be allowed to exist. In wet sea- 
 sons, when cellars are made damp or are flooded with 
 storm-water surcharged more or less with the pollu- 
 tion of the soil through which it percolates into the 
 cellar, the future danger from disease in the household 
 has its beginning. It does not follow that because 
 the cellar has a connection with the street sewer to 
 drain off the inflow, there will be an exemption from 
 illness in the household ; it is quite the reverse. For 
 the sewer-drain removes only the flowing water and 
 leaves the cellar damp, retaining all the impurities of 
 the soil brought into it by the influx of the water. If 
 storm-water is allowed to stand in puddles on the 
 street, it will surely find its way into adjacent cellars 
 if the soil is at all porous. 
 
122 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 Parents are often inclined to charge the public 
 school with the cause of illness of their children. In- 
 ferentially they are correct in doing so, for the public 
 schools assist in the dissemination of diseases, but it is 
 rarely that a disease originates within them. More 
 often the disease which has an outbreak in the school 
 comes from some household wherein the sanitary con- 
 ditions are bad, and the children have carried its results 
 into the school-room. 
 
 During the late war, after a regiment had encamped 
 upon a plot of ground for several weeks, its comman- 
 der would remove the regiment elsewhere, and the 
 camp would then be made upon new and fresher 
 ground, because the old camp-ground had become un- 
 cleanly and in a condition which made it a menace 
 to the health of the troops encamped upon it. Yet 
 there are hundreds of towns and small cities in this 
 country which have been camping-grounds for the 
 denizens thereof for a great many years, and they have 
 neither moved to more cleanly and fresher sites nor 
 have they done anything to make existing conditions 
 more cleanly and healthful. The truth plainly told 
 is that the average citizen of the smaller towns and 
 cities has rather a contemptuous opinion of sanitation 
 in all its branches, and is also inclined to consider the 
 relations between filth and disease as being something 
 mythological. 
 
 The occasional cholera " scares " which sweep this 
 country are the best incentives to municipal and pri- 
 vate cleanliness that we have. One scare such as we 
 
o '- 
 
 CLEANLINESS AND PUBLIC HEALT^O, 123 
 
 . 
 had in 1892 did more to alarm and awaken the public 
 
 to the needs of general sanitation, and cause immedi- 
 ate and active efforts towards cleanliness, than all the 
 lectures and publications which have been uttered 
 upon this question during the past quarter of a cen- 
 tury. 
 
 If we are inclined to believe that the particular city 
 in which we live is a cleanly one, all we have to do to 
 prove or to disprove the fact is to make an exploration 
 of the alleys and back-yards within it. It is not neces- 
 sary to relate what sorts of filth may be found, nor 
 speak of the general condition of the alleys and back- 
 yards thus explored, but it is quite safe to say that 
 few of us can make such an investigation and after- 
 wards say that we live in a city which is thoroughly 
 clean. 
 
 The writer was told more than once that a heap 
 of manure which remained piled in an alley some 
 length of time was not at all detrimental to healthful 
 conditions, because, it was said, it contained so little 
 moisture never enough to make a rill, however small ; 
 yet directly above the heap was the eave of a barn, 
 without a gutter ; and all the rainfall from that 
 slope of the roof fell on and about the heap, carry- 
 ing with it into the earth its share towards the pol- 
 lution of the soil of the city. In many places it is 
 hardly thought worth the while to grade alleys and 
 provide them with gutters, because they are so little 
 travelled ; consequently the rainfall, instead of washing 
 its surface clean, makes pools of water in all the de- 
 
124 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 pressions, and its subsequent absorption carries all the 
 impurities into the earth with it. 
 
 Garbage should always be deposited in water-tight 
 receptacles and thence regularly emptied and the con- 
 tents carted away. Manure, carcasses of dead animals, 
 small as well as large, dead poultry and all such refuse 
 should be removed daily from the precincts of a city 
 and either buried or burned ; the dumping of such 
 matter into living waters should be prohibited by a 
 general law. 
 
 The piles of boxes, barrels, refuse timber, and other 
 such material generally found in back-yards are not 
 conducive to healthful surroundings ; they not only 
 retain dampness and become affected with partial de- 
 cay, but they cover the ground and keep it damp, 
 when every foot of unoccupied ground about the 
 premises should be exposed to all the air and sunshine 
 that can favor it. Decaying vegetable matter in back 
 yards will produce miasmatic conditions as well as if it 
 were in a swamp, with a partial advantage in favor of 
 the swamp during those seasons of the year when 
 it is overflowed with water, the decay being arrested 
 by the submergence. Casting kitchen slops upon the 
 premises should never be allowed by a householder. 
 They contain a great deal of objectionable matter and 
 is one of the most difficult fluids to dispose of by earth 
 absorption that we have, and one of the most difficult 
 to cleanse of its impurities. Few persons can conceive, 
 without examination, how very foul a plot of earth 
 will become that has been the dumping-place for 
 
CLEANLINESS AND PUBLIC HEALTH. 12$ 
 
 kitchen slops for a considerable length of time. If the 
 soil is at all porous, this sort of pollution will affect the 
 earth many feet below the surface. 
 
 It is difficult to prevent the use of cesspools on pri- 
 vate grounds, but every cesspool in use contributes to 
 the unhealthfulness of a community, inasmuch as it 
 contributes to the general pollution of the subsoil. 
 
 Individual effort employed at intervals will not 
 keep a city clean ; the combined efforts of all are re- 
 quired : if one man keeps his premises clean and his 
 neighbor does not, both are likely to suffer from the 
 latter's neglect. Perhaps no other condition in life in 
 which man is placed exemplifies so well the old adage 
 " that one man is another man's keeper" as in this 
 one question of municipal cleanliness, when a neighbor 
 having filthy premises may cause disease and death in 
 one's household. 
 
 The statistics of the cholera epidemic which pre- 
 vailed in London in 1854 show that where people used 
 water conveyed through pipes from a pure supply 
 the deaths were 37 to 10,000, and among those who 
 used water from wells and cisterns the deaths were 
 130 to 10,000. Sixty-six per cent greater mortality 
 among those who drank impure water ! This is cited 
 to show how thoroughly the subsoil of a city can be- 
 come polluted and the inhabitants not realize to what 
 extent the danger exists. 
 
 Ice will contain germs of disease if taken from 
 waters affected by the decomposition of vegetation ; 
 this is often done under the belief that the water from 
 
126 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 which the ice was formed is strictly pure. Freezing 
 water does not destroy the germs of disease it may 
 contain, although freezing may cause them to be in- 
 operative, as it were, until placed in warmer conditions 
 when used in the household. Therefore a city should, 
 as a part of its hygienic duties, exercise some over- 
 sight regarding the source of the ice supplied to its 
 inhabitants. 
 
 In all towns and cities there exist people who are 
 not cleanly either of person or premises ; a great many 
 who have come here from abroad are not cleanly 
 either by training or instinct, and their number is 
 so large and they congregate under such unwhole- 
 some conditions in our cities that they should receive 
 special attention until they become habituated to a 
 cleaner life. There are others also who are uncleanly 
 in their person and surroundings who do not live in 
 poverty nor in overcrowded tenement-houses. Squalor 
 and poverty are terms generally used to describe the 
 poor of cities, yet there are many poor people who are 
 as neat and cleanly in all respects as can be found : 
 squalor and laziness are more often the conditions 
 which go together, and where found the sanitary laws 
 should be rigorously applied, for it is from such people 
 that epidemics spread among our schools. 
 
 The health officer cannot very well compel cleanli- 
 ness in a household, nor can he investigate the condi- 
 tion of private cellars previous to the outbreak of a 
 disease. We can only surmise from external appear- 
 ances that filthy conditions exist there, and we must 
 
CLEANLINESS AND PUBLIC HEALTH. I2/ 
 
 await results before an inspection of the premises will 
 be tolerated. But we can compel cleanliness of clothes 
 and person of the children sent to school from such 
 habitations, and this is a matter which should be rigidly 
 observed by all school boards. Some of them have al- 
 ready taken hold of this question of cleanliness of 
 pupils and in a commendable manner, and public opin- 
 ion should strengthen the hands of the school com- 
 missioner in this work, by giving him an unqualified 
 support. As a hygienic writer has truly said, rear the 
 children to habits of cleanliness and the result is a 
 greater self-respect and a higher view of man's general 
 condition, which leads them to revolt against filth and 
 disease as they become older. 
 
 Sewage disposal is another important question which 
 the denizens of all cities, not already having done so, 
 will be called upon to solve. The great increase of 
 population of this country during the past twenty-five 
 years is shown quite conclusively, if in no other way, 
 by the general adoption of sewerage systems even 
 by incorporated villages as well as cities. Ten years 
 hence the sewer connections in these towns and cities 
 will be quite extensively made, and all those modern 
 appurtenances of the household which collect and con- 
 vey filth to the public sewer will be in almost general 
 use, and the daily outpouring of sewage will then be 
 so great that the question of sewage disposal will of 
 itself arise, and it can be downed only in one way, 
 and that way must lead to a purifying process of some 
 kind. Those cities located remote from tide-water 
 
128 MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 will be the first to care for their sewage which has 
 been for years polluting some river, lake, or pond. 
 We are quite content, as a general rule, to turn our 
 sewage into such living waters, and excuse ourselves 
 with the plea that it is but temporary ; yet it is a fact 
 that we do not abate the nuisance until an outside 
 (outside the corporate limits) influence and pressure 
 compels such abatement ; and it is this outside pres- 
 sure of public opinion which will sooner or later com- 
 pel a majority of our cities to take care of their sewage 
 in a manner that will not be offensive nor objection- 
 able to the residents of adjoining towns. 
 
 Man is naturally gregarious, and what with " booms,'* 
 bonuses to manufacturing plants, and the construction 
 of suburban motor lines of railway, he is forcing this 
 natural instinct to a greater development than was 
 ever known before. By this means our cities are grow- 
 ing larger in area, and the populations becoming more 
 condensed, and the question of sanitation follows 
 closely at the heels of this rapid material development. 
 The population is on the ground, its work of pollution 
 has begun ; for how long a community will fight 
 against diphtheria, scarlet fever, and other zymotic dis- 
 eases before it will, as a body, act to remove the 
 causes, will depend largely upon the mortality within it. 
 
 The safe requirements for a community to observe 
 and enforce to promote its healthfulness are : clean 
 streets, alleys, and private grounds ; a well-drained 
 subsoil and dry cellars ; the daily removal of all garb- 
 age ; a water supply of known purity; good ventila- 
 
CLEANLINESS AND PUBLIC HEALTH. I2Q 
 
 tion in schools, halls of assemblage, and in its homes, 
 and the observance of personal cleanliness in all con- 
 ditions of life. We may not all be inclined to believe 
 that these conditions are strictly essential to the gen- 
 eral good health of a community, but we might give 
 them the benefit of the doubt, and take care that the 
 truth does not come to us through bitter experience. 
 
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