LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN CONTINENTAL EUROPE BY ALBERT SHAW AUTHOR OF MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN GREAT BRITAIN' NEW YORK THE CENTURY CO. 1897 Copyright, 1895, by THE CENTURY Co. THE DE VINNE PRESS. PREFACE THE many readers who have given a cordial wel- come to the volume on " Municipal Government in Great Britain/' which appeared in January of this year, and is about to enter a third edition, will need no prefatory explanation of the author's method and point of view in this companion volume. To others it may be well to explain that although each of the two volumes is complete in itself, the earlier book is in some sense introductory to the present one; while both together are intended to serve as a general sketch of the history, forms, methods, motives, and results of municipal administration in those countries of Europe which have dealt most successfully and in- structively with the new problems arising out of the conditions of life in cities. The rapid expansion of the great towns is, perhaps, the most striking social phe- nomenon of the last quarter of this eventful nine- teenth century. The term Municipal Government, in the United States, is suggestive of attempts to eman- cipate our great towns from the control of corrupt and inefficient men, to the end that the revenues may v vi MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUEOPE be honestly collected and expended and public work properly performed, and that the police power may be purified from its taint of alliance with injustice and crime. But in Europe the honesty and the gen- eral efficiency of municipal government are not seri- ously in question anywhere. Municipal government, from Scotland to Hungary, is exalting the bacteriolo- gist and the sanitary inspector, fostering the kinder- garten and the technical school, and inquiring anx- iously about the housing of the people. I have tried to explain intelligibly the structure and working of the municipal machinery, but I have considered it a no less essential part of my task to describe the trans- formation of street-systems, and the measures by which death-rates have been reduced. To some critics it may appear that I have ascribed undue importance to Paris as a type and an influence ; yet I can hardly think that any reader will fail to agree that Paris is the necessary starting-point for a description of the modern regime in Continental cities. In the preceding volume I found it advanta- geous to select Glasgow for the more rounded and elaborate study of British municipal life in the con- crete. In my own inquiries and observations as an American visitor, I had discovered that to know well the ways and works of the Glasgow municipality was to possess standards of comparison and points of view which afforded the best possible equipment for the further examination of municipal methods and achievements, whether in Edinburgh and Dundee, in Belfast and Dublin, or in Manchester, Birmingham, PREFACE vii and Liverpool. But if Glasgow is the convenient threshold to a comparative knowledge of British municipal affairs, Paris in a far more essential way holds the key to an intelligent survey of municipal progress on the Continent. Whether one goes to the Low Countries and Scandinavia, to Switzerland and Italy, or to Germany and Austria-Hungary, he finds evidences on all hands of the abounding influence that the modern Paris has exerted upon the outward forms of European cities. And some study of the history and characteristics of administration will soon make plain to him the remarkable influence that the symmetrical statutory schemes of France have exerted upon the law-making bodies of other countries. Thus in giving so large a space to Paris and the French system, as well, let me add, as in the differ- ent method employed for the description of German city government, there is nothing accidental either in the proportions or in the arrangement of the pres- ent volume. In various courses of lectures upon the administration of cities, in the Johns Hopkins Uni- versity and elsewhere, I have sometimes adopted the plan of choosing a different typical city for discus- sion in each lecture, and at other times have arranged a series of topics, illustrating each topic by citations from the experience of numerous cities. Each meth- od has its advantages; and while the first is for many reasons best suited to the purposes of this book, I have found it feasible in considerable measure to combine the two. I have not attempted to supply a viii MUNICIPAL GOVEENMENT IN EUEOPE cyclopedia of municipal information, and doubtless many things will be found lacking that would to one reader or another seem very important. Thus I have not discussed the local control of the liquor traffic, except for allusions to the new Hamburg policy which compels beer-sellers to wash their uten- sils and scour their mugs ! But largely as the liquor question enters into municipal discussion in the United States, it is in Europe for the most part a national or general rather than a municipal issue. I have omitted it, therefore, not because I failed to appreciate its importance, but rather because it is too distinct a question of the larger public policy for incidental treatment in a volume on European muni- cipal government. If this volume had been meant to give an exhaus- tive rather than a representative account of munici- pal arrangements in Europe, several additional chap- ters should have been added. The Scandinavian capitals possess much that is interesting and praise- worthy in their social institutions ; and their progress in educational and sanitary methods, as well as in public works and general aggrandizement, is cer- tainly worthy to be noted. Copenhagen had grown from 155,000 inhabitants in 1860 to about 350,000 in 1895, or 400,000 if the immediate suburbs are in- cluded. Its recent improvement in health conditions meanwhile is shown by a steady decline of the death- rate, which from a much higher average in an earlier period had fallen to 24 per 1000 of population in 1884, and to 18.7 in 1894. The city of Stockholm in PREFACE ix the thirty years from 1865 to 1895 had almost exactly doubled in population, having increased from about 130,000 to more than 260,000. Christiania meanwhile had grown at an amazing rate. In 1865 it was a town of 57,000 people, and in 1895 it had about 171,- 000 precisely three times as many as thirty years before. Stockholm's death-rate was 28.7 in 1877, 24.6 in 1884, and only 18.3 in 1894. Christiania's in 1894 was 18.8. The methods of municipal administration in the Scandinavian countries resemble in some re- spects those of Germany, and in other regards show the effects of French influence, while embodying va- rious features peculiar to themselves. But apart from the three capitals, the life of the Scandinavian peoples is chiefly rural. The Swiss towns far more distinctly than the Scan- dinavian reveal the twofold influence of France and Germany. Each Swiss canton has its own system of municipal and communal organization. The French- speaking cantons incline more strongly toward the methods that prevail in the provincial districts of France ; while the towns of the German-speaking cantons though not organized upon the Prussian model show more of the German spirit and scope of action. I had hoped to include in this volume a brief chapter on recent Swiss experiments, with the view of presenting some account of proportional rep- resentation, the referendum, and other innovations as adopted in Switzerland. But while proportional rep- resentation has been gaining ground rapidly since 1890, its application to the choice of municipal coun- x MUNICIPAL GOVEENMENT IN EUEOPE cils has been too recent to afford much instruction to other countries. Geneva, Bern, and Neuchatel are among the towns that have entered upon this con- stitutional reform, and in due time Switzerland's ex- perience will be of great value to our American com- munities, some of which recognize the theoretical justice and advantage of minority representation without having found any simple and practicable mo- dus operandi. The Swiss are by no means sure that they have as yet discovered a method that they can widely commend. Switzerland contains none of the huge hives of town-dwellers that are found in the larger European countries ; but its town government is, nevertheless, in many ways worthy to be studied, and in some to be imitated. In all cantons, German, French, and Italian alike, the general town council forms the central fact in the municipal government. The phenomenon of rapid city growth is, to be sure, observable in Russia as elsewhere in Europe, es- pecially since 1880. The story of the creation of St. Petersburg as a new capital and metropolis deserves a place, undoubtedly, in the annals of modern city-mak- ing. But the Russian empire for my present pur- poses can scarcely be regarded as a part of Europe. Local representative government has to a limited extent had a place in the conduct of the affairs of the great Russian towns, but of late the representa- tives of the house-owners have lost most of the muni- cipal authority they formerly possessed, a law of 1894 greatly increasing the arbitrary power of the gov- ernors named by the emperor to rule over the cities. PREFACE xi Nor would much benefit be derived from a survey of municipal institutions in Southeastern Europe be- yond the capital of Hungary. French engineers have laid out the new Athens, the new Bucharest, the new Belgrade and the new Sofia ; and administrative sys- tems in the states of the Balkan peninsula show a conspicuous tendency to borrow from the French codes. I have witnessed few sights more memorable than the Bulgarian capital afforded when under- going the process of transformation from a squalid Turkish farming village to a pretentious European town. In 1880 Sofia was a ragged settlement of cow- keepers, with a dismantled old church and a forlorn mosque or two. In the present year, 1895, Sofia can boast a population of at least fifty thousand, with all the modern municipal appointments, includ- ing boulevards and electric lights, and not excluding the accompaniment of a good-sized municipal debt. Belgrade, the Servian capital, has also grown rapidly since the treaty of Berlin, while from the Acropolis of Athens the visitor looks forth upon a town almost as new and regular as a "West Superior or a Seattle. These marks of town development in southeastern Europe may be full of novelty and interest, but they are superficial as yet, and have little or nothing to teach us. The ordering of municipal affairs in a German or Dutch or Swiss town on the other hand bears close inspection and gives many evidences of a true and admirable social progress. In the preparation of this volume I have found it convenient to include parts of four articles contrib- xii MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE uted by me to the "Century Magazine"; but they have been fused with a much larger amount of new mate- rial in such a manner as quite to have lost their iden- tity. The Hamburg chapter has been expanded and rewritten from an article which I contributed last year to the "Atlantic Monthly" (Hamburg's New Sanitary Impulse, "Atlantic Monthly " for June, 1894), and which I am kindly permitted to reprint. A por- tion of the third chapter has also been borrowed from an article of mine entitled "Belgium and the Bel- gians," which appeared in the "Atlantic Monthly " in 1890. To so many sources am I indebted for infor- mation or for assistance, all the way from Paris to Budapest, that I may not venture to publish the names of those who have aided me. I can only re- gret that circumstances have not permitted me to avail myself more largely of their knowledge and advice. New York, October, 1895. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. PARIS : THE TYBICAL MODERN CITY 1 II. THE FRENCH MUNICIPAL SYSTEM . . 146 III. THE SYSTEMS OF BELGIUM, HOLLAND, AND SPAIN 210 IV. RECENT PROGRESS OF ITALIAN CITIES 249 V. THE FRAMEWORK OF GERMAN CITY GOVERN- MENT 289 VI. MUNICIPAL FUNCTIONS IN GERMANY 323 VII. THE FREE CITY OF HAMBURG AND ITS SANI- TARY REFORMS 378 VIII. THE TRANSFORMATION OF VIENNA 410 IX. BUDAPEST: THE RISE OF A NEW METROPOLIS 435 APPENDICES I. The Budget of Paris 471 II. The Budget of Berlin 472 III. The French Municipal Code 474 INDEX . 493 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN CONTINENTAL EUROPE MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN CONTINENTAL EUEOPE CHAPTER I PARIS: THE TYPICAL MODERN CITY THE distinctively modern city had its birth in the French Revolution, and Paris has ever since then stood as its preeminent type. To French influence several European countries owe the administrative framework of their municipal governments, while every European capital has been more or less com- pletely made over in its external forms upon Parisian models. The recent history of municipal progress in continental Europe comprises much more, it is true, than an account of the triumphant advance from coun- try to country, and from capital to capital, of the trans- forming and modernizing influence of the new Paris : yet no other impulse has been so strong, no other spirit so dominant. It would be impossible to present any complete reason why Brussels, Berlin, St. Peters- burg, Dresden, Vienna, Budapest, or even Rome itself, is to-day what it is, without bringing Paris into the account. And thus a volume which would attempt to describe the methods and achievements of modern municipal Relation of Paris to municipal progress. MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. I. British to wnsless in- debted than continental to French ideas. Parisian im- press upon German cities. Congestion of the medie- val town. government in the different countries and principal cities of Europe must of necessity begin with Paris, for reasons of both logical and historical sequence. London and the great British towns, as I have shown in a preceding volume, have attained their present municipal forms and institutions through a process of development peculiarly their own. It would be easy to show that they too have yielded in various ways to the influence of the French capital; but continental ideas and achievements have been an indirect and unperceived rather than a vital and obvious impetus to the tasks of town improvement and municipal re- form in the British Islands. If the Germans have forgotten, it is none the less true that Paris has been a prime influence in the renaissance not only of Ber- lin, but also of Hamburg, Frankfort, Stuttgart, Mu- nich, and Dresden. Berlin and Vienna have accom- plished magnificent results in modern city-making, and in the past decade or two they and perhaps other continental cities outside of France have adopted municipal appointments in some respects more scien- tific and effective than those of Paris. But Paris was the pioneer, and it has not yet lost its place as the foremost type of the thoroughly modernized city. French public authorities, architects, and civil engi- neers were the first to conceive effectually the ideas of symmetry and spaciousness, of order and conve- nience, of wholesomeness and cleanliness, in urban arrangements. Those ideas, as embodied in the Paris of the nine- teenth century, have made their way even to Constan- tinople, and have begun the conquest of the Oriental cities. The medieval European town was a labyrin- thine tangle of narrow, dark, and foul passageways and alleys. Its frightful congestion was due in most cases to the military cincture of wall, moat, and glacis PARIS: THE TYPICAL MODERN CITY that yielded nothing to the growth of population. The modern spirit has thrown the walls into the moats to make boulevards and open spaces, has laid down broad and systematic thoroughfares upon the obsolete tangle of haphazard passages, has provided illumina- tion, water-supply, and drainage, and has in short created those appointments and conveniences that dis- tinguish the well-ordered city of our day from the old- time cities that had grown up formless and organless by centuries of accretion. In this brilliant nineteenth- century task of reconstructing cities in their physical characters, dealing with them as organic entities, and endeavoring to give such form to the visible body as should best accommodate the expanding life within, Paris has been the unrivaled leader. There has been some disposition, however slight, among English-speaking people to undervalue French civilization and to minimize the importance of French services to the world at large. The attainments of German scholarship in many directions are so colossal; the recent German applications of recondite scientific inquiry to the protection of the public health, and in various ways to the practical arts of lif e, have been so remarkable ; and German energy and prestige are now so dominant, that in our admiration for the achieve- ments of this younger people we are in danger, per- haps, of according less than her full due to France. It is something to remember that all countries are under permanent obligations to the clear political philosophy that furnished the French Revolution with its principles, while most countries are not less in- debted to modern France for lessons in the science and art of public administration. Nor is it a trifling debt we owe to the refined and artistic tastes of the French people for a host of the amenities and com- forts of our modern lif e. CH4P. L Modern ur- ban expan- sion as in- augurated by Paris. French ver- sus German contribu- tions to so- cial progress. 4 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. i. "When the French began to teach the new art of building cities, men were far from a realization of the city life and f act that the twentieth century was destined to dawn weifere. upon a group of nations that had adopted city life for the majority of their people; nor did men perceive that the mere difference bet veen good and bad muni- cipal arrangements would signify either the conserva- tion of the race in bodily vigor and in the education of mind and hand, or else its rapid physical and mental deterioration. It meant less for the nation at large that in towns like the Paris of the eighteenth century the death-rate was always higher than the birth-rate, for the reason that the urban population was in those times small in comparison with the rural. But if such a condition were prevalent in our day, the con- sequences would be too dreadful to contemplate. Yet it is true that without urban improvements of the kind that the French people first instituted, the yearly number of deaths would now considerably exceed the yearly number of births in all large centers of popu- lation. It is marvelous to note the ceaseless operations of the transforming energy derived from the Revolution. Rather inconspicuously placed in a hallway of one of the buildings in which the municipal authorities of Parisian the capital made their extraordinary display at the tions. Exposition of 1889, was a map that had a fascinating interest. It was a street map of Paris, showing by different colors the periods in which the great boule- vards, avenues, squares, and other visible improve- ments had been constructed. No change in the higher government had seemed to check the mighty impulse. Everything that lay in the way of the broad, straight swath of a new avenue was razed unmercifully, and the street system of the old inner metropolis was made to conform to the systems of the splendid new quarters PAEIS: THE TYPICAL MODEEN CITY 5 that were springing into existence, especially toward CHAP. i. the west. In the days of the Revolution the site of the pres- ent Place de la Concorde, where the guillotine was then so active, was upon the very western outskirts of Paris, while the prison of the Bastille whose destruction in July, 1789, opened most significantly that long course riesofmo. of wholesale Parisian demolition, in order that free- dom, science, and sunlight might replace the oppres- sion, ignorance, and gloom of the old regime was then on the eastern limits, and beyond it lay the open country. North of the inner line of boulevards, which had been already laid out, there was practically no Paris; and south of the H6tel des Invalides and the Luxembourg, beyond which the vast city now stretches so far, there were in those days fields and a farming population. It should not be inferred, however, that these new parts have since arisen upon a ground-plan wisely pro- vided in advance. To some extent, it is true, such has been the case, and in the newest quarters of Paris Nature of n T- -XT IT i suburban de- ior instance, in Passy, Neuilly, and other suburbs be- veiopment. yond the gates on the west the magnificent avenues have been laid down upon the open fields, and the ex- ercise of forethought will have saved all the cost and trouble of subsequent reconstruction. But even in Paris, since the Revolution, there has been some of the improvidence that prevails elsewhere ; and while the inevitable municipal plow has been cutting its stupendous furrows in one direction, new quarters have been allowed to form themselves improperly somewhere else, with the result of costly reconstruc- tion when the time comes for extending to them the main arterial system of the metropolis. Perhaps if parts of this Parisian transformation had been delayed until a later period, certain causes would i* G MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. i. have operated to make it less thorough. At the close of the French Revolution, and for some decades there- after, there was in Europe no sentiment for old archi- tectural monuments, and especially none for medieval churches. This sentiment now pervades all Europe ; and the most affectionate preservation, with cautious, faithful restorations, is the order everywhere. Such a spirit was lacking in the generations imme- diately preceding our own, and nowhere was its ab- sence more complete than in the French capital. The religious orders had built their great monastic houses and their splendid churches everywhere in Paris. Destruction They were a privileged caste and a heavy burden. churches. The Revolution had no mercy upon them or their beau- tiful architecture, and the new street system plowed through their churches as relentlessly as through shabby tenement rows. Scores of examples of the most beautiful ecclesiastical structures of the middle ages were obliterated to make room for broad, straight avenues, open squares, and new, regular buildings. Nowadays such sacrilege would not be tolerated. It is fortunate, therefore, for the Parisians that their central street reforms were chiefly accomplished before the rise of the new appreciation of church architec- ture. There are enough old churches remaining throughout France, if not in Paris itself, to represent adequately the beautiful art and workmanship of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The narrow old Parisian streets of the last century wound in and out among these venerable piles in a manner that modern traffic could not have endured. To have spared them would have been to deprive Paris forever of an ade- quate street system. It was far better to sacrifice them and to make the city uncompromisingly modern. The population in 1789 was about 600,000, and in 1889 it was 2,500,000, including that of the immediate sub- was the "vandalism" justifiable ? PARIS: THE TYPICAL MODERN CITY 7 urbs. And with the fourfold increase of population CHAP. i. there was at least a tenfold increase of traffic and of daily pressure upon the accommodations of the main street system. These facts, to my mind, fully vindi- cate the wisdom, redeem the " vandalism," and justify the immense cost of the modernization of Paris. It was the mission of France to teach the world a lesson of order, system, and logic, of emancipation and icono- clasm. Paris was made the visible embodiment of of J^P 8 ^ the revolt against the iniquities of the old regime, and new era. of the creative vigor of the new era. We would not wish to see Rome modernized in any such spirit ; and, indeed, the great reforms now progressing there, of which I shall write in a subsequent chapter, proceed upon the principle of preserving with the greatest veneration and care all important archaeological re- mains and all worthy specimens of ecclesiastical archi- tecture. But it was for Paris to sacrifice everything to the modern ideas of symmetry, spaciousness, and regu- larity, and to build the great opera-house as a central feature, and as a suggestive symbol of the new spirit. Louis XIV. and Louis XV. had not been without improve- ments under magnificent ideas for Paris, and they had left improve- ments palaces, royal pleasure-grounds, boulevards, churches that make a considerable array when put into a list ; but these things, done to gratify the royal pride, had been of almost no benefit to the people, and had not affected materially the medieval condi- tions. The absolutism of these monarchs could never have availed to cut the Grordian knots of a thousand claims, prescriptive rights, and intolerable immunities that the nobles, the religious orders, the old guilds, and various other corporate and private interests tena- ciously asserted. Only a revolution, sweeping every- thing away and beginning anew upon simple princi- ples, could have effected any radical improvement. 8 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. i. The work of remaking Paris, after the Revolution, was begun upon the lines of a general plan for the cutting of new streets, prepared by a so-called " Com- mission des Artistes." The plan included 108 distinct street re- proiects. Although political changes interfered with forms from -i 1790 to 1850. the full execution of this particular plan, the work of reconstruction did not cease. Under the great Na- poleon the rues de Rivoli, Castiglione, des Pyramides, and various other modern thoroughfares were created. To the fifteen years of the Restoration a further con- siderable list must be credited, including, among others, the rues de Chabrol, du 29 Juillet, Lafitte, and those of the Quartier de 1'Europe. And under Louis Philippe (1830-48) the rues de Rambuteau, de la Bourse, de Lyon, du Havre, de Mazagrau, and others were opened. But it was in the period from 1852 to 1871, under Louis Napoleon, that the most comprehensive and magnificent work was done. A huge scheme was laid out, under the supervision of Baron Haussmann as prefect of the Seine, for the binding together of all the quarters of Paris by a system of grand avenues of general communication. The reforms immediately following the Revolution had dealt almost exclusively with the astounding con- gestion at the very heart of Paris. Nobody but the student could now believe the whole truth about the changes that have been wrought since 1790 in the vi- cinity of the Louvre. The original Paris, ancient Lutetia, was nothing more than the island in the Seine upon which the Cathedral of Notre Dame stands. This lie de la Cite, as it is still called, contained at the period of the Revolution a great number of small streets, fifteen or twenty churches, and a population of twenty thousand or more. Those who visit it to- day find the island given over to a few great public The Hauss- mann scheme. Beconstruc tion of the lie de la Cite. PARIS: THE TYPICAL MODERN CITY buildings the Central Courts of Justice (Palais de Justice), an immense hospital (Hotel Dieu), the Prefec- ture of Police, the Tribunal of Commerce, and two or three other public establishments. It is flanked by broad, smooth stone quays, is symmetrically laid out with open squares and a few spacious streets, and not more than, perhaps, one tenth of its area is occupied by private buildings. Thousands of small, ancient houses were cleared away, and the modern lie de la Cite", with the restored cathedral, the splendid quays, the massive public edifices, the new bridges, the flower- market, and the morgue, made its appearance. A like transformation was wrought in that central por- tion of Paris lying between the Louvre and the Hotel de Ville (City Hall), covered as it was with ancient huddled structures, among which narrow passages wound bewilderingly, and where culs-de-sac were found by the score. And thus also an examination of the maps and the historical monographs prepared by scholars who have restored for our knowledge the Paris of 1789, would show that the other innermost parts of the metropolis were boldly and ruthlessly dealt with in the decades following the upheaval. The task that the Emperor Louis Napoleon set be- fore himself related not so much to the inner Paris of the old-time bounds although his scheme also em- braced prodigious reforms in the central area as to the great town that had spread itself beyond the inner boulevards, and that lacked a main circulatory sys- tem. Not only did the outlying arrondissements need broad avenues of communication with the center and with each other, but the very fact of their existence, making a heightened traffic-pressure upon the old streets of the inner district, demanded the amplifica- tion of facilities at the core. With a bold and sympa- thetic spirit like Baron Haussmann as prefect of the CHAP. I. Demolitions in the Louvre vicinity. Projects of the Third Empire. 10 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. i. Theremak- metropolis, The system Department of the Seine (in effect the Emperor's ap- pointed and permanent mayor of Paris), and with no authority to obstruct the rapid execution of his mag- nificent plans, Napoleon proceeded to reconstruct Paris as a Pullman Company creates a model town, or as the director-general of a universal exposition lays out his spacious grounds and arranges his showy edifices. Haussmann held his post from 1853 to 1870; and in that period he had created gigantic boulevards and avenues by the hundred; had laid out great num- bers and large areas of open squares, parks, and plea- sure-grounds; had erected public buildings in all parts of Paris; had with equal energy developed a sewer system and created a water-supply; and had given the people a scheme of public services far in advance of any other great city of that period. The plan of the new Paris is by no means so geo- metrical and easily understood as that of Washington (which, it should be remembered, was laid out by a French engineer, who had brought to America the impulse and the ideas of the Parisian Commission des Artistes), but it is none the less a philosophical and practical arrangement. Originally the narrow streets and lanes of Paris were either parallel with the Seine in general direction, or were at right angles with the river. It became necessary to give the new Paris main thoroughfares broad enough and straight enough to accommodate traffic through the heart of the city along these original lines. Further, it was deemed necessary to construct a great number of diagonal avenues and boulevards directly connecting important localities. Still further, new lines of engirdling boule- vards were found desirable; and finally, there were important reforms to be instituted in the suburban street systems. The net public expenditure incurred between 1852 and 1870 in carrying out the Hauss- PAEIS: THE TYPICAL MODERN CITY 11 mann-Napoleon project of new boulevards and ave- CHAP. i. nues was in excess of 1,200,000,000 francs. The gross outlay was much greater, but large amounts of the original investment were recovered from time to time by the sale of building sites, the municipality having, by condemnation proceedings in every case, acquired the properties through which in part a new street would pass. After 1870 the work naturally proceeded with less energy, on account of military reverses, political changes, and heavy expenditures in other directions. But a number of important new projects have been carried out since 1875, and each year sees some addi- tion to the main street system. Private individuals private have been obliged to conform strictly to the plans P controUed. y and regulations of the municipality in building up the new frontage, and thus there has resulted that mar- velous regularity elegant and impressive rather than monotonous which is the characteristic of Parisian street architecture. The period since the war with Germany has witnessed a greater fidelity in matters of detail, a higher degree of artistic taste and skill, and a stricter and more businesslike financiering. For nearly twenty years (from the war till his death Aiphandand in about 1893) the distinguished administrator M. cent street Alphand, as director of the public works of Paris, gave his unceasing and comprehensive attention to all the problems that belong to the street system, the public architecture, the water-supply, and the drainage of a great city, and the list of his achievements -would fill many pages. Under his supervision the Avenue Avenue de de 1'Opera was constructed, with brilliant financial success, involving the renovation of the Butte des Moulins, one of the worst of surviving slum quarters. To this period belong the boulevards Saint-Germain and Henri IV., and many another great thoroughfare. 12 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. I. Reforms under the Third Republic. Magnitude of recent operations. In the summer of 1891 ; on the occasion of the formal opening of the new Avenue de la Republique, the pre- fect remarked: "Important as this avenue publicly opened to-day may be, it merely adds one more to the network of highways of communication which within twenty years has given a new physiognomy to the capital. The misfortunes of war retarded for a time this movement of transfiguration; but as soon as France had regained possession of herself, Paris set herself to the task. Works of general utility rapidly succeeded one another, with tangible results that have been augmented a hundredfold by the concurrent activity of private enterprise, and the confidence of private capital in the public projects of development." The prefect goes on to recount the directions in which the work of public improvement has accomplished most since 1871 ; and he makes a very impressive summary. Indeed, the public works that have been executed in the twenty years from 1875 to 1895 have in all likelihood cost a larger sum in the aggregate than those carried out in the twenty years following the coup d'etat of July, 1851. The Haussmann trans- formations were begun when Paris had only a million people and an area of only thirteen square miles. Their scope was enlarged when in 1861 the boundaries were extended to the girdle of fortifications and made to include thirty square miles, with a total population of 1,700,000. But in 1875 the authorities had to provide for nearly two million people, a number that in 1895 was fast approaching three millions. These last two decades have witnessed transformations less preten- tious and not so widely advertised, but touching more closely and deeply the lives of the people, and minis- tering more perfectly to the best demands of modern civilization. Services of education, of cleanliness and of health, on a vast and varied scale, have occupied PAEIS: THE TYPICAL MODERN CITY 13 CHAP. I. Social ser- vices now take first rank. the administrative machinery that was once so en- grossed with boulevards and architecture. These out- ward aggrandizements have had attention too, and the public works have been carried to perfections of detail that Napoleon's officials could hardly have an- ticipated. But greater stress in the period of the third republic has been laid upon the less palpable but no less important social services that enlist at once the best efforts of engineers, architects, sanita- rians, sociologists, educators, artists, and philanthro- pists; and thus municipal Paris to-day, as never before, is equipped for the positive promotion of the well-being of all its people, old and young. In Paris before the Revolution there was, as Mr. Frederic Harrison has said, " a chaos of competing authorities, a tangle of obsolete privileges, and a nest of scandalous abuses. Anomalous courts jostled and scrambled for jurisdiction; ancient guilds and cor- porations blocked every reform; atrocious injustice and inveterate corruption reigned high-handed in the name of king, noble, or church." This, indeed, does The old-time not tell us what the mechanism of the municipal gov- regime. ernment was, but it shows us well enough its spirit and its results. For our purpose it suffices to add that the city, so far as it was centrally governed, was administered by a provost, or mayor, deriving author- ity directly from the king; and that various old, sur- viving local bodies shared, in an anomalous way, in the minor affairs of the municipality. The liberal legislation of 1789-90 gave Paris, with the other communes of France, a fully constituted, autonomous municipal government. The city was divided into forty-eight sections, each of which elected two common councilors, in addition to which a body of thirty-two councilors of higher rank, or aldermen, The home- rule system as adopted in 1790. 14 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUEOPE CHAP. I. Changed by the Direct- ory in 1795. How Napo- leon gov- erned Paris. The master- ful prefect. The elective council of 1830. were elected, while the executive work was intrusted to a popularly elected mayor and sixteen administra- tors, so called. The whole body of 145 governed the city, the mayor presiding over the council and direct- ing the active administration. In the fact of the pop- ular election of the mayor this constitution resembles those of our American cities. The councilors and ad- ministrators were elected for two-year terms, half of the places being filled annually. It was a fairly ac- ceptable form of municipal government. But the Directory, in 1795, with its theory of cantonal adminis- tration, consolidated the smaller communes of France and cut up the larger ones. Paris was divided into a dozen municipalities, with some sort of central admin- istrative bureau, which the Directory constituted and managed in its own interest. The work that the Di- rectory began, Napoleon completed. He abolished absolutely the central mayoralty, and created the sem- blance of a central communal council, all the mem- bers of which were his own appointees. In each of the twelve sections, or arrondissements, as they have since that time been called, he established a so-called mayor, with assistants. But these officers were sim- ply the local agents of the prefect, and were in no usual sense municipal authorities. The real governor of Paris was the prefect of the Department of the Seine a department including Paris and some sub- urban communes. All administration was in his hands. In the levying of taxes and the planning of public works he had the advice of the municipal council of Paris and of the council-general of the department, all the members of which were the appointees of the central power. The revolution of 1830 improved mat- ters to the extent of giving to Parisians of certain electoral qualifications the right to choose the munici- pal council. But the central mayoralty was not re- PARIS: THE TYPICAL MODERN CITY 15 vived, and the prefect, with his subordinates, and CHAP. i. with the appointive officers of the arrondissements, governed the city still. As in the country at large, so in Paris the brilliant revolution of 1848 restored for a brief interval the brieflyr"- y autonomy of communities. Paris again had its elected s i848. m municipal council, its own chosen mayor and execu- tive staff. But the empire of Louis Napoleon took the city completely out of the hands of its inhabitants metkods^e- and restored the system of the first empire. The na- yi im] n tional assembly of 1871, after the downfall of the empire, restored to Paris its elective council, but stopped there, promising that further concessions to the principle of self-government should be made at concessions some subsequent time. Since then the suffrage, which smee 1871> was virtually universal, has been made entirely so. But Paris is still actively governed, as under Louis Napoleon, by the prefect of the Seine and his col- league, the prefect of police, both of whom are ap- pointed by the general government and are amenable directly to the Minister of the Interior. In the smaller communes of France the police power is now confided to the municipal authorities, and is exercised actively by the mayors. In the larger ones a purely domestic police authority is exercised by the municipal officers, while a general control of police is vested in the pre- fect and his sub-prefects. But Paris is deemed too vast for the union of ordinary business administration and police administration in the hands of the one prefect of the department; and the police authority, covering a wider range of functions than the simple authority. organization of the police force and the management of the police courts and station-houses, is put in the hands of a separate official, the prefect of police. Paris has now for many years been subdivided into twenty arrondissements, and in each of them there is 16 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. i. a central building called the "mairie," in which is _ , , the bureau of an officer called the "maire" (mayor). The twenty v J ' He is assisted by three adjuncts. These men, who are appointed officers of the general government, and are, in fact, simply the agents or delegates of the prefect of the Seine, with a staff of clerks and assistants, attend to a vast amount of routine business for the higher authorities and for the city so far as the population of their several arrondis- sements is concerned. They make the registration centers of lists for election s. They record births, deaths, and local admin- ..... , . ., . istration. weddings, and perform the civil ceremony of mar- riage. They receive taxes, have to do with matters of elementary education, render " assistance publique," *. e., administer the poor laws in their respective districts, enroll under the army-service acts those liable to military duty, and perform various other routine functions. These twenty Parisian centers of local administration are admirably organized and conducted, and under any scheme whatsoever of a reconstructed municipal government they would be allowed to remain. The municipal council of Paris consists of eighty . , members, four from each of the twenty arrondisse- The munici- pai council, ments. Each arrondissement is subdivided into four quarters, and each quarter elects a municipal coun- cilor. They are elected for three years, and all retire together. The municipal council of Paris, plus a few representatives of the outlying communes of the De- partment of the Seine, constitutes the council-general of the department. Since these outlying communes suburban (grouped in the two arrondissements of Sceaux and cov6rniii6nt the DC- Saint Denis) are, in fact, the immediate suburbs of these". Paris, there seems to be no good reason why the city's jurisdiction should not be made coextensive with that of the department, so that the business of the municipal PARIS: THE TYPICAL MODERN CITY 17 council and that of the council-general might be merged. The communes outside the fortifications of Paris have their elective councils and distinct muni- cipal organizations, but all come under the common executive control of the two prefects. Ever since 1871 there has been a constant demand upon the part of Paris, as represented by its muni- cipal council, for a restoration of its central mayor- alty and a release from its alleged position of tute- lage. The situation of the council is declared to be humiliating and unsatisfactory. Its champions as- sert that it is dominated by the prefect, who has the right to attend its sessions and to take the floor whenever he pleases, and who is absolutely unac- countable to it for his management of the city's busi- ness. The council has, it is true, large discretionary power over finances and taxation, and indirectly con- trols most of the departments of administration, and the construction of public works, through its hold upon the purse-strings. But the complaint is made that it is, at best, hampered and restricted. The pre- fect is in theory accountable to the Minister of the Interior : but the prefect has not only to administer the affairs of the city, but also to act as the political representative of the government of the day ; and in fact it is in his character as the political agent of the government, we are told, that he is held account- able. French ministries are too short-lived, and too busy with interests more vitally affecting themselves, to permit the Minister of the Interior to hold the prefect of the Seine to a frequent and careful ac- counting for the ordinary administration of the af- fairs of Paris. Such is the argument of the Parisian autonomists. There is some reason to believe that Paris may ultimately be given its own elective mayor and ex- CHAP. i. A central mayoralty demanded. i^ 6 autono- mist argu- 18 MUNICIPAL GOVEENMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. I. A proposed new consti- tution for Paris. Election of mayor and adjuncts of council. ecutive corps, but there is no immediate prospect of such a change. The question has been much con- sidered by the municipal council. A few years ago a council committee of which Sigismuud Lacroix was chairman reported an interesting scheme of muni- cipal organization for Paris. Nothing serious ever came of it, and reforms on paper are too numerous in France to be remembered from one season to the next. Nevertheless, Lacroix's plan possesses for our purposes a certain illustrative value because it em- bodies French views of municipal organization for a great city. It provided for a council consisting of at least four members from each arrondissement, but with additional representation for the larger ones, increasing the total body from eighty to one hundred and nine members. The councilors were to be elected for three years, one third retiring annually, as in England, and the elections were to be upon a general arrondissement ticket a great improvement upon the present plan of "uninominal" election in quar- ters, which necessarily tends to fill the council with obscure men. It was provided that this council should be free from the present possibilities of sus- pension and dissolution by the higher authorities. Paris is the only French city that is without its own mayor, Lyons having recently been allowed to resume a full-fledged municipal government after years of tutelage similar to that of Paris. The La- croix proposition authorized the council to elect from its own membership a mayor and eight adjuncts, forming an executive corps. Each of the adjuncts was to be assigned to the leadership of a municipal department, for which he should be responsible to the council, while the mayor was made accountable in a general way ab chairman of the executive corps. The mayor and the adjuncts were to keep their seats PARIS: THE TYPICAL MODERN CITY 19 in the municipal council, with power to speak and to CHAP. i. vote. In all the other French cities the mayor is TO have also the presiding officer of the council; but Lacroix's "^Smcu. committee held that in the case of Paris it would be advisable for the council to relieve that functionary from the routine duties of the presidency, and to name another member of the council for the task of the speakership of the municipal parliament. The ex- ecutive corps i.e., the mayor and his eight adjuncts was invested with the appointing and removing power for all employees and agents of the municipal administration, upon the initiative of the adjunct whose particular department was concerned. To do the routine work now done in the mairie buildings of the arrondissements, it was provided that four or five officials should be appointed by the mayor's corps as " delegates of the mairie/' to render the services now performed by the agents of the prefect. The council was to have full control of taxation and finance, but A dmmistra- could not borrow money without the direct ratifica- ^luce. tion of the voters at a popular election. The muni- cipal authorities were to have entire management of the educational system, primary, secondary, and higher. Apart from the peculiar conditions under which Paris is placed, these propositions, as it seems to me, embody an excellent municipal constitution. Its har- An excellent mony and simplicity are not the least of its merits, firework. Although it was an unrealized project, it is worthy of notice as an indication of what current European judg- ment and experience would pronounce a good frame- work of municipal organization. It must not be supposed that all elements in Paris are clamorous for a larger degree of municipal au- The conser- tonomy. The educated and propertied classes, as a vative sen- rule, prefer that the general government should keep Paris. its strong hand upon Parisian administration. They 20 CHAP. i. are somewhat distrustful of the municipal council, which they regard as radical and socialistic in its ten- dencies. There is very much to be said upon both sides. Paris has always, except for the brief inter- vals of the first and second republics, been administered by the central authorities. The change of prefects has at times been frequent as ministries have risen and fallen ; but the skilled administrative heads of the various municipal services, together with their corps of trained civil servants, have been practically >ral ment! rn permanent. It has been possible to carry out great policies of public improvement, and there has been a high and well-ordered efficiency in the execution of all kinds of municipal functions. If the municipal council had been all-powerful, it is possible that pub- lic business would have been less effectively prose- cuted, and also that public works would have been upon a less magnificent scale. Upon the other hand, it is possible that the real welfare of the masses of the Parisian people would have been more carefully guarded in some respects, and that the burdens of taxation would have been lighter. These are con- troverted questions, and I am not able to answer them. The municipal council certainly contains a number of able and honest men ; but as a whole it is open to the charge of being a body of men mediocre and un- character of known, and the primary reason for this is plain enough. members. Each member is elected in a separate district, eighty in all. The opportunity for what we in America call " ward politics " is altogether too favorable. It is not, of course, legally requisite that the councilor should be a resident of the quarter he represents, but in prac- tice he is likely to be. Candidate A placards the quar- ter with gaudy posters declaring that as a resident he can represent the people far more satisfactorily than PARIS: THE TYPICAL MODERN CITY 21 candidate B, who lives in an arrondissement at the CHAP. i. opposite end of the city. "Whereupon candidate B Effector issues a manifesto in which he promises to obviate s Ticts! s " the difficulty by taking a residence in the quarter if he is elected. Such a system does not tend to fill the council with men known to Paris at large. Election upon a gen- eral arrondissement ticket, as proposed in the Lacroix draft, and as harmonizing with the general municipal system of France, would result in greatly improving the average quality of the council. I am inclined to the opinion that it would be still better to elect a por- D Tekctioif tion of the council upon a general ticket for the whole ^ickets? 1 city, with the idea of securing men of acknowledged note and standing for candidates. While, then, I must confess some sympathy with the idea of greater mu- nicipal autonomy for Paris, I can also appreciate the reasons which actuate conservative Parisians, re- membering the horrors of the communal uprising of 1871, in clinging to the strong arm of France. I would not for a moment have it inferred that the council of Paris as at present constituted is not a more intelligent and efficient body of men than the average council or aldermanic board of a large American city, standing of the Paris If it had somewhat more control over the executive council. administration, and if it were elected upon a less mi- nutely local plan, I believe that it would soon become a magnificent assembly to which it would be a great honor to belong superior, possibly, in distinction to the councils of Berlin and Vienna, and equal to the new council of metropolitan London. Such positions should have no emoluments, or else should have large ones. A Paris councilor is not supposed to draw a salary, but he has been accustomed to allow himself 4000 francs a year for expenses. In view of excep- tional demands, he increased this allowance for the 22 MUNICIPAL GOVEENMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. I. National claims upon Paris. Reasonable- ness of na- tional parti- cipation in Parisian government. Exposition year 1889 to 6000 francs ($1200), and he has since neglected to reduce it. To understand aright the municipal system of Paris, one must bear constantly in mind the relationship that the capital city bears to the nation. The citizens of Marseilles have comparatively little interest in the municipal affairs of Lyons. Local institutions in the provinces concern only the localities or the provinces individually. France as a whole has ordained a cer- tain uniformity in the type of local government, and has retained from the Napoleonic era a centralized system of executive oversight; but in ordinary mat- ters France has no disposition to interfere with mu- nicipal and communal self-government. The case of Paris, however, is wholly exceptional. The great capi- tal city is regarded as belonging not alone to its citi- zens but also to all the people of France. Its mag- nificence has been attained in large measure at the cost of the national treasury, through many decades and under different dynasties and forms of govern- ment. The French nation at large is not conscious of any feeling of hostility toward Paris, and has no other policy for the capital than one of ambitious lib- erality. The aggregation of national establishments at Paris is something without parallel in any other country. The central government continues by yearly subventions to bear a considerable portion of the cost of various departments of the municipal administra- tion. Inasmuch as the governmental organs of -the French republic are all of them centered in Paris, a municipal government carried on by a prefect who is directly accountable to the national rather than to the municipal chamber does not of necessity result in friction. Upon its face, the demand for a mayor to be elected by the municipal council of Paris would seem at first to be reasonable; but a more careful PARIS: THE TYPICAL MODERN CITY 23 study of the situation, both theoretically and praeti- CHAP. i. cally, has led me to the conclusion that as satisfactory results are probably obtainable through the present system, which unites national and local authority in the government of Paris, as would flow from one which would seem to give the citizens a higher degree of autonomy. Certainly the government of Paris at first seems to divide responsibilities in a manner likely to produce constant friction, and to interfere most distractingly with the accomplishment of large plans requiring harmony and foresight. The municipal council, The sphere elected by the votes of all the citizens of the eighty council quarters, meets in its sumptuous hall in the Hotel de Ville almost every day to debate all points of municipal policy and outlay. In its hands rests the all-essential power to vote supplies or to withhold them. Its eight or ten large standing committees are at pains to acquaint themselves with all the de- partments of practical municipal activity. But this municipal council has no immediate authority over the administrative machine. The prefect of the Department of the Seine, who owes his appointment to the general government, and whose immediate superior is the Minister of the In- The sphere terior, is in fact the mayor of Paris, with complete prefect executive authority ; that is to say, his authority is complete within the sphere assigned to him, and is incomplete only to the extent of those municipal tasks the management of which has been confided by law to the prefect of police. For limited and well-defined purposes, the prefect of police may also be regarded as mayor of Paris. In theory, it is somewhat difficult to draw the line that separates the jurisdiction of these two high officials. In prac- tice, however, that line has been well demarcated, 24 CHAP. I. The prefects as mayors in colleague. Functions of the police prefect. Relation of prefects to council. MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE and each understands where his own responsibility ends and that of his colleague begins. In case of any actual disagreement, the disputed question is re- ferred to the Minister of the Interior, whose decision settles the immediate issue and also forms a prece- dent. It would be entirely possible to make the prefect of police a great bureau chief subject to the prefect of the Seine as his superior; but, with the general government near at hand to reconcile all differences, the plan of a dual mayoralty does not work badly in practice. It grows, moreover, out of very ancient Parisian customs. In general, the prefect of the Seine has control of most of the great regular departments of municipal administration; while the prefect of police, although some of his functions have from time to time been transferred to his colleague, retains control over the ordinary police administration, is the strong right arm of criminal justice, and has charge of various services relating to the safety and convenience of traffic in the streets, the protection of life and property, the enforcement of sanitary regulations, and several kindred matters. The municipal council elects its own president and has its own interior organization for its work. The two prefects have the right of the floor in all meetings of the municipal council, and may always demand a hearing. They may also bring with them their important assistants and heads of working de- partments. The prefects, with the aid of their bureau- cracy of subordinate executive officials, make up the provisional budgets, and assist in the discussion of all financial questions in the sessions of the muni- cipal council. As regards parts of the budget, in- cluding the police estimates, the law requires that the council vote the sums asked. PARIS: THE TYPICAL MODERN CITY 25 Inasmuch as French cabinets rise and fall with CHAP. i. proverbial frequency, there is the constant possibility of a change in the offices of the two prefects who T^^^ administer Paris. Naturally the government of the toapenon- nel of gov- day would wish to be certain of the loyalty to itself eminent. of the great administrative heads of the capital city. With the complete renewal of the entire municipal council every three years under a system of univer- sal suffrage, and with eighty small districts electing each a single member, there is always practical cer- tainty of a considerable number of new councilors. There are numerous quarters, it is true, that have reflected their councilor for several successive terms; nevertheless, no one can deny the palpable fact that the municipal council of Paris is a radical rather than a conservative body, and that, while possessing a good average of intelligence and personal character, its tendency is towards doctrinaire innovations. Over against this rather strenuous and high-keyed chamber of eighty councilors who certainly have much less of bourgeois caution and of instinctive respect for the large taxpayer than corresponding municipal councils in England and Germany the observer finds a great administrative organization completely in the hands of a government prefect* supplemented by a colleague of like rank who exer- cises police jurisdiction. When, as a foreign in- quirer, I have sought to learn whether the prefect or or council the council really dominated Paris, I have found uate? much conflict of opinion. The majority of the mu- nicipal council themselves, together with the host of advanced Parisian radicals and the growing army of socialists, declare that the prefect is dominant, and that Paris is thereby deprived of its appropriate measure of municipal self-rule. They demand an organization like that of any other French city, 26 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. I. Depends upon the point of view. Harmony of motive. Council sub- ject to little undue in- fluence. whereby the mayor and the executive government may be evolved out of the bosom of the popularly chosen municipal council. On the other hand, the prefects themselves, and the great majority of those citizens who call themselves conservative and mod- erate in their political views, declare that through its hold upon the purse-strings the municipal coun- cil exercises a sufficiently dominating local control over administration, and that the constant presence of the prefect on the floor of the municipal chamber, where he is subjected to the full moral influence of every debate, brings him into such intimate and vital relationships with the representatives of the citizens that the average result is not discordant. It must be remembered that the French cabinet is the creature of the Chamber of Deputies, that the chamber itself is keenly sensitive to the influence of Parisian public opinion, and that all political ele- ments and interests are in general agreement upon the proposition that the splendor of Paris must be maintained and increased, and that its municipal ser- vices must be conducted with the highest attainable degree of administrative probity, efficiency, and tech- nical skill. The municipal council, certainly, cannot be accused of any apathy with regard to the munici- pal aggrandizement of Paris. Being relieved of all direct responsibility for the actual handling of the public revenues, the councilors are subject to com- paratively slight temptation. They have no contracts to let, no departmental offices at their disposal, and in short the least possible chance to use their power for private gain. But, with a natural jealousy of the prefect, who is not of their own creation, and who is not directly accountable to them, they are at liberty to watch his administration with the utmost keen- ness. In the exercise of their control over the bud- PARIS: THE TYPICAL MODERN CITY 27 get, they are naturally eager to scrutinize all expend!- tures, with no motive for passing over anything that could be deemed questionable. On the other hand the ministry of the day, con- scious of the precariousness of its tenure and aware that any detected unfaithfulness on the part of its important agent the prefect of the Seine might easily cause its own downfall, has every motive for keeping in that important post, as well as in the cor- responding post of police prefect, a man of tried and approved personal character and administrative efficiency. Thus the existing system, which involves , , . . a certain measure of rivalry between the municipal council on the one hand and the prefect's executive organization on the other, does not of necessity dissi- pate responsibility. In this particular instance, in- deed, it appears to stimulate good behavior on the part of both. The council has the more time to consider and debate general questions of municipal improve- ment, and to scrutinize every phase of the adminis- trative government, while the prefect on his part must endeavor at once to satisfy the requirements of the general government and to maintain a good modus vivendi with the municipal council. But the most essential factor in the municipal life of Paris is not the prefect who wields the executive authority, or the municipal council with its power to control policies and to pass upon the details of a mi- nutely analyzed financial budget. There can be no comprehension, however faint, of the government of Paris which does not take into account the superb permanent organization of the civil-service machine. It is to this tertium quid that one must look if he would discover the real unity and continuity of the administrative work of the Paris municipality. Pre- fects may come and go, ministries may change with CHAP. i. Goodbe . rivalry of zeal for Paris. The civil- 28 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. i. the seasons, and municipal councils may debate and harangue until they make the doings at the Hotel de Ville a byword for futile and noisy discussion. But the splendid administrative machine moves steadily on. Herein lies the explanation of much that puzzles many foreign observers, who cannot understand how to reconcile the seemingly perfect system of French administration in all matters of practical detail with the rapid and capricious changes in the highest ex- ecutive posts. The administrative machinery of Paris is complex but unified. At the head are the offices of the two prefects, highly elaborated with divisions and nentadmin- bureaus for the oversight of each main department machine, of the executive system. Thus there is a department of records and accounts methodically and perfectly organized; the municipal finances have their expert and permanent machinery; the assessment and col- lection of taxes, the management of the octrois, all come under the control of permanent bureaus. The public works of Paris are carried out under the supervision of a director of public works (Dlrecteur des Travaux de Paris), who is aided by a splendid ser- vice of architects and engineers, and whose depart- ment is subdivided into various bureaus, and con- ducted with all that talent for method and system in these matters which the French have shown them- selves to possess in so high a degree. Public instruc- tion is organized on similar lines of thoroughness and permanence. And the same thing may be said of all the other departments which belong to the prefect of the Seine. The prefect of police has under him, in like manner, a system minutely organized from top to bottom. While the prefect for the time being stands at the head of the great administrative structure, it in no PARIS: THE TYPICAL MODEEN CITY 29 sense belongs to him. Nor does it belong to the mu- CHAP. i. nicipal council; for councils come and go almost as rapidly as prefects and cabinets. It belongs rather to the community and the country. This wonderful machine, which includes policemen, firemen, school- teachers, street-cleaners, bookkeepers, civil engineers, architects, and even artists, is altogether out of politics. In j? e P??l? en 1 t France might to-morrow accept the sway of a mill- change. tary dictator; but this need not involve a single change in the personnel of the tens of thousands of men who make up the administrative organization of Paris, with the bare exception of the two prefects. On the other hand, the most extreme of the Parisian socialists and communists might have their way, and the result would be a single mayor elected by the municipal council to replace the two prefects. But otherwise there would be no occasion for any changes in the administrative machine, except by way of en- largement on account of the increased range of direct municipal undertakings which would soon follow the triumph of the radical contingent. As matters now stand, every element in the national political life that centers at the capital, and every party or group in the municipal council or in the citi- , . ., , -i . , The common zenship of the town, has an equal interest in mam- interest m a taining a perfect administrative system for Paris. There may be much strife and contention for the privilege of dominating that machine ; but there can be no wish in any important quarter that the machine should be otherwise than admirable and efficient. It must not be forgotten that a similar permanency be- longs to the organization of the departments of the French general government. Thus, when Parisian municipal affairs are referred for decision or for in- dorsement to the Minister of the Interior, it is proba- bly not the minister himself in nineteen cases out of 30 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUEOPE But it is equal to its tasks. CHAP. i. twenty who passes upon them, but the permanent bureau officials to which such appeals are always re- ferred, and who have had vast experience in dealing with them. The administrative organization of Paris cannot, of it has some course, be wholly free from the faults that pertain inevitable ' J ^ faults. everywhere to such systems. Bureaucratic methods, supernumerary officials, mechanical and perfunctory service, insidious abuses here, petty favoritisms there, all mar the ideal perfection of the structure. But when this is said, it remains true that the execution of the varied municipal business of the French me- tropolis is in the hands of a marvelously well-trained and faithful body of public servants, through whom the general government by its prefect on the one hand, and the municipal council on the other, can carry out most satisfactorily whatever lines of policy may be determined upon. If the water supply is to be extended, if public buildings are to be erected, if new bridges are to be constructed, if a new boulevard is authorized, it matters not whether the public work be ordered and paid for by the general government, by the municipal council, or by contributions from both treasuries, in any case the execution of the project is committed to the prefect, who in turn assigns it to the director of public works, at whose command is a highly specialized working organization, equal to make the highest American comparison to the engineer corps of the war department, or to the con- struction bureau of the naval department. Nor must it be understood for a moment that this tertium quid, this permanent administrative organi- zation, is merely passive and obedient. As a practi- cal matter of fact, it is full of men of genius and en- thusiasm, zealous for the advancement of Paris along the lines of their own special departments of admin- the public service. PAEIS: THE TYPICAL MODEKN CITY 31 istration. These men have abundant opportunity to CHAP. i. present their views to the prefect and, in one way or in another, to the municipal council. Thus, for ex- ample, if one should propose to assign individual credit for the modern transformation of Paris, it would be as necessary to recognize the immense value of the labors of the late director of public works. M. * The director Alphand, for the period since the Franco-German war of public works as an as to recognize the influence and energy of Baron instance. Haussmann as prefect of the Seine in the preced- ing period. I have already spoken of M. Alphand's career as director of public works for some twenty years. He filled that post with a supreme devo- tion and ability, and with untiring solicitude for the adornment of Paris, the perfection of its public services, and the honesty and good quality of its en- gineering and architectural constructions, whether below the street surface or above. And what has been said of the high credit due to this distinguished public servant might also be said of men who have occupied themselves with the development of the magnificent school facilities of Paris, or with other departments of municipal life. The popular educational system of Paris, with its almost unrivaled adaptation to the demands of real life, as feedersof furnishes a constant stream of suitable applicants for service. 1 places in the lower grades of the various municipal and civil services. All admissions are based upon ap- propriate and impartial examinations. Promotions are made upon approved principles from within the ranks. The system is not so mechanical as to pre- clude the recognition of special talent, but it affords scant opportunity for injustice or favoritism. The higher grades and branches of the public service draw upon the splendid series of municipal and national technical and professional schools, which train men 32 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. I. Retirement pensions throughout the system. Permanence of the arron- dissement lines. for every special department of municipal activity. Removals from the service are not made upon arbi- trary grounds. Political considerations have nothing to do with municipal employment. Faithful continu- ance in the service is rewarded ultimately by retire- ment on life pensions. There is every incentive to fidelity. The red tape and circumlocutions of so elabo- rate an administrative system are only minor objec- tions. Where the work to be performed is so enormous in its dimensions, and so varied in its details, no sys- tem less firmly coordinated, and less perfectly elabo- rated, could in the long run produce efficient results. The twenty arrondissemen ts of Paris are not bounded by temporary lines, nor are they mere electoral divi- sions like American city wards, or units of represen- tation like our congressional and legislative districts. They are not subject to rearrangement in order to equalize their population. Some are much more pop- ulous than others, and the municipal council, there- fore, with its four members from each arrondissement, does not represent the population with mathematical equality. But it will be found by far more convenient to assign additional members to the more populous arrondissements than to recast the lines in order to create districts of equal population. The arrondisse- ments are designated by numbers from one up to twenty ; but they are also named, and the names are suggestive of much neighborhood history and local tradition. 1 Inasmuch as the centralizing administra- 1 The twenty arrondissements of Paris bear the following designations : I. Louvre. II. Bourse. III. Temple. IV. H6tel-de-Ville. V. Panthfeon. VI. Luxembourg. VII. Palais-Bourbon. VHL tilysfce. XIV. IX. Opera. XV. X. Enclos Saint- XVI. Laurent. XVII. XL Popincourt. XVIII. XII. Reuilly. XIX. XIII. Gobelins. XX. Observatoire. Vaugirard. Batignollea. Butte-Montmartre. Buftes-Chaumont. Menilmontant. PAEIS: THE TYPICAL MODERN CITY 33 tive tendency is so exceedingly strong in Paris, it is CHAP. i. highly fortunate in every-day practice that the twenty arrondissements should have gained each its own sense of permanent neighborhood identity. It is true that the people of the arrondissement have no local elective body. Nevertheless, there is a neighborhood life that * . . . Neighbor- Centers in the commodious mairie building of each ar- hd fe rondissement. These twenty divisions make it easy themairies. to distribute and apportion the numerous administra- tive tasks that bring the government into contact with the people. Thus the arrondissement becomes the ready and natural unit for the administration of the school system. Moreover, instead of dealing with the central authorities of the prefecture at the H6tel de Ville, the people have only to go to the familiar mai- J How the rie of their own arrondissement to report births and arrondisse- deaths, and to conform with all the rules and regu- government lations touching the record of vital statistics. It is people. here, as I have already remarked, that the civil cere- mony of marriage is performed by the maire of the arrondissement. Here the registration of voters is made and kept, election arrangements are made, and jury lists are selected. It is here, also, that the youths of the arrondissement are registered for pur- poses of military obligation. From the mairie of the arrondissemeut proceed the assessment and col- lection of all taxes. For minor licenses and privi- leges it is sufficient to make application at one's own mairie. Through this agency the wonderful popular loans of the municipality and of the state reach the small investors of Paris. The mairies form ideal li- Themairies as social brary centers, and they contain the reading-rooms and centers. the branch reference and circulating libraries of the municipality. Obviously, the arrondissement forms the local center for all work of public relief and charity. It will be found to contain its local branches of the 31 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. i. municipal savings-bank system, and also its branch of the mont-de-piete the great municipal loan agency, or pawnbroking shop. Thus the arrondissement of Paris is the local ad- ministrative unit. It is the institutions thus cen- tered in the twenty districts that come into contact with the daily life of the people. The maire and his three adjuncts are appointees of the central pre- fecture, and are regarded as the prefect's local agents. But they are not capriciously removed or shifted influence of about, and they grow into the exercise of a very ^facial" 6 strong neighborhood influence and authority, with every motive for faithfulness to the welfare of the people with whose affairs, from the cradle to the grave, they are so intimately associated. With no conscious interchange of ideas or methods, the best administrative minds of London and Paris have come The " sub- to a similar conclusion touching the principle of what idea iii I have elsewhere called " sub-municipalities," as local centers for a very large part of the practical govern- ing business of a great metropolis. In London it is now proposed 1 to give a mayor and an elective council to each one of these sub-municipalities, and to confer upon them under the control and super- vision of a great central council and mayoralty a very considerable range of executive work and au- thority. The genius of the Paris system is different. All discretionary authority and all deliberative func- tions belong to the government of the metropolis as a whole. But the carrying out of as large an amount as possible of the executive work is assigned to the agencies or bureaus which the central authorities have established in each one of the sub-municipali- 1 See report of Royal Commission on London Unification, as discussed in my volume on "Municipal Government in Great Britain," pp. 257-62. See also Appendix III of same volume. London and Paris. PAEIS: THE TYPICAL MODERN CITY 35 ties. The title of maire, conferred upon the chief CHAP. i. functionary at the mairie building of every arron- dissement, is well calculated to emphasize the dignity and permanence of the neighborhood regime, and the lasting identity of the arrondissement's territorial bounds. Upon no Parisian topic does the foreign questioner encounter opinions more diametrically opposed to each other than upon that of the police administra- The police tion. In the scheme of Lacroix and his colleagues, vertedtopic. to which I have made reference as fairly typifying the perennial projects of the Parisian radicals, it was proposed that the so-called odious prefecture of po- lice should be abolished altogether, and that the police authority should be invested in the mayor and municipal council in accordance with the Parisian constitution of 1790, as also briefly revived in 1848. The prefecture of police for the department of the Seine has been described as the masterpiece of Bona- parte's administrative system. It was reconstituted -in 1853 by Louis Napoleon as an indispensable part of his centralized government ; and the third repub- poHce e pre- lic which clung tenaciously to the principle of cen- maintained. tralized administration, although willing to grant much to localities on the side of elective councils retained the police prefect for the metropolis and its environing department of the Seine, continuing to employ him as the direct agent of the general government. The functions of this police prefect are varied and extensive. He controls not only the ordinary police that patrol the streets and keep order, but also the Functions of detectives and officers who constitute the "police department. judiciaire," and who work up criminal cases. Be- sides these, he is master of the political police, 36 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. I. A censor with vast authority. The police prefect as viewed by his critics. the government's secret agents, and he has in his hand a secret-service fund to spend unaccountably except as regards his immediate superior, the Minister of the Interior. His department covers the main- tenance of order everywhere in streets and public places, the punishment of misdemeanors, the inspec- tion of weights and measures, the organization of important life-saving and sanitary services, authority to permit or to forbid public spectacles, licenses of numerous sorts, such as omnibuses and cabs and river steamers, the regulation of certain trades and callings, and, in general, the control of a num- ber of services that affect the security of life and property, the public health, and the convenience of a great community. It belongs to his functions to know who comes and goes, what persons are regis- tered in the hotels and boarding-houses, what meet- ings are held, what public utterances are made, what things are said in print. In Paris, naturally, every form of offense against the laws, from anarchist plots to common swindling, finds its center so far as France is concerned. And the whole tendency of the century has been to strengthen rather than to weaken the concentrated authority of the police prefect at Paris, for the prevention and detection of crime, and to hold in check the elements of social disorder. The municipal autonomists have been accustomed to declare that the police prefect is at once the most unaccountable and the most powerful man in France. They make the charge that in all this varied array of business he has practically to please nobody besides himself. They place much emphasis upon the fact that when his annual budget which is distinct from the budget of his colleague the prefect of the Seine goes to the municipal council, the law makes it obli- gatory upon that body to allow it in sum total, ap- PAEIS: THE TYPICAL MODERN CITY 37 propriating the funds demanded without subtraction CHAP. i. at any point. They assert, moreover, that he is in fact held accountable nowhere for the expenditure of the vast sum that he draws from the municipal trea- sury every year. To continue the argument in the vein of these opponents of the police prefect, his function is declared to be one of darkness and mys- tery, a fit creation of such rulers as the Napoleons, but with no proper place in a republican form of government. Engaged as he must be in the secret service of politics, promoting the aims and ends of the men who for the day hold the reins of national power, he is not the suitable person, we are told, to administer the ordinary police government of a city. This controverted subject has, however, another and a very different mode of approach. According to the French theory, the police power of the state is divisible only for purposes of administrative conven- T^ French ^ r r . theory of po- lence. The prefects of the eighty-seven departments ce power, of France are the direct, appointed agents of the cen- tral government ; and each is in exercise of a general police supervision over his region. The departments are divided into arrondissements, in each of which a sub-prefect is stationed, who in turn exercises a more minute supervision over the police affairs of his smaller territory. The primary divisions are the communes and municipalities ; and in them it is true that the ordinary police authority has been committed to the mayor and municipal officers. But every French mayor is regarded as at once an agent of the state and the chief executive officer of his town. It is in his capacity as an agent of the state that he exercises police authority. Now, returning to Paris, the friends of the present system would explain that even if Paris had its own popularly chosen mayor, with police au- thority invested in him and his assistants, the French 3* 38 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. i. system as a whole would make it necessary that a departmental prefect representing the state should exercise a large contingent measure of supervisory authority over his conduct, particularly as regards matters of police. But inasmuch as all the political Reasons for an d judicial mechanisms of the French nation find their direct con- " troi at Paris, central embodiment within the compact territorial limits of Paris, the national authorities of necessity have a paramount interest in the maintenance of a trustworthy local police service. So inextricably, it is held, are national and local interests blended, and so indispensable is the requirement of a perfect under- standing and an unbroken harmony between the gen- eral machine of national administration and the local machine of Parisian administration, that the simplest solution lies in the direct, prefectoral government of Paris, without the intervention of any such citizens' representative as a mayor. The municipal council, it is true, must vote to the prefect of police the whole sum that he demands. But it is not compelled to act blindly. The prefect brings in to the council a very elaborate printed budget, in which he sets forth with much detail his itemized The police budget, estimates for the coming year, comparing the esti- mates with the corresponding items for the year that is current. The council is in a position to acquaint itself with all that is being done, and is able, in point of fact, to secure the enlargement or the modification of the prefect's policy at various points. On the other hand, the police policies and expenditures are subject to the Ministry of the Interior, which is so organized that permanent and expert officials are able to hold the prefect to a severe accounting. Still further, the municipal council, which is compelled to vote the tax- payers' money for a police establishment that it does not control, may always find some solace in the fact PAEIS: THE TYPICAL MODEEN CITY 39 that the general government pays something for its CHAP. i. retention of police authority. The annual subvention * . Police sub- Out of the national treasury toward the police of vention . * from nation- Fans amounts to more than ten million francs a year, ai treasury. or in round figures to one third of the entire budget of the police prefecture, and to nearly or quite one half of the cost of the police service strictly speaking. So long as the police system is reasonably efficient, the citizens of Paris might well prefer national con- trol with the national subvention, rather than the more or less empty privilege of municipal control with the whole bill payable out of the municipal treasury. The prejudice against the police prefecture is to a large extent traditional. Under arbitrary Napoleonic I * j j- ,1 i, AT. v Additional rule it is easy to understand how the police system prejudice. could have been used as an instrument of oppression and tyranny. Theoretically, it is always susceptible to use as a political instrument. But under republi- can institutions there exists only to the most limited extent either the motive or the opportunity to employ the police power for any other than legitimate ends. No minister for many years past has held his seat firmly enough to attempt any seriously objectionable use of the Parisian police system for improper politi- cal purposes. The dark and mysterious police power which a certain type of French novel has long ex- ploited seems to be quite obsolete in Paris. Neither the Chamber of Deputies nor the Senate would tol- erate the police system as it exists to-day, with its obligatory budget, if it were not in fact an orderly and efficient system manned from top to bottom by An orderly . ' and excel- officers who have entered the service upon examina- lent service. tion -for fitness and have been promoted for merit. The ten or twelve thousand officials who are upon the pay-rolls of the prefecture of police constitute a body 40 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. i. of men organized as methodically as an army. Nothing could be much further from the truth than to assume that the great power vested in the prefect means any looseness or corruption in the ordinary administration of the police system. The peace and good order of the metropolis are well maintained; the courts of justice are ably served by that portion of the police system which makes up the police judiciaire; and the special municipal services of inspection and oversight committed to the care of the prefect of police are ad- mirably conducted. The fact that prefects, though accountable to the Minister of the Interior, nominally hold their commissions of appointment from the Pres- ident of the Republic, tends to give both the prefect of the Seine and the prefect of police a higher degree of stability in office than the minister himself, who is at the mercy of every shifting mood of the Chamber. The ordinary or municipal police service of Paris was modeled in 1854 upon the metropolitan police Th6 T>ollC6 force as or- system of London. At that time there were in all ga Ts54. m Paris only four hundred and fifty policemen assigned to patrol work. Three hundred other members of the municipal service had special duties to perform. The city was kept in hand by military rather than police control. Small garrisons of soldiers were dis- tributed everywhere throughout the metropolis. The Emperor wisely determined to remove most of these objectionable squads of soldiery, and to create a po- lice force similar to that of London. The number of ordinary policemen then called sergents de ville, and afterward, as now, entitled gardiens de la paix was at once multiplied to nearly three thousand. Under the police prefect was appointed a chief of the municipal police service, and under this chief were head officers for each arrondissement. A central post or police station was established in each arron- PARIS : THE TYPICAL MODERN CITY 41 Patrol system. dissement, and a sub-station in each quarter. The CHAP. i. police force for every arroudissement was divided into three brigades, and each of these was further subdivided into four sections corresponding to the four quarters of the arrondissement. The three bri- gades were arranged upon the principle of an aver- age active service of eight hours a day for each bri- gade and for each individual policeman. Each quar- ter was further subdivided into Hots, or beats, and it was a part of the plan to assign the same policeman always to the same beat, in order that he might know thoroughly his little circumscription. At night two policemen were to make their rounds in company, and thus to guard two adjoining ilots. From time to time the number of patrolmen was increased. On the extension of the municipal limits in 1860, the po- lice force was fixed at 4616 active men. The number became 5768 in 1867. After the war, in 1871, the military regime was promptly abandoned in favor of a reorganized police force of 7756 men, which is now nearer 9000. There has been no material alteration in the practical workings of the system. Its recogni- tion of the distinct and permanent character of the arrondissements and of the quarters as local divi- sions adds much to its value to the citizens on the one hand and to the higher authorities on the other. The honesty and faithfulness of these policemen are matters of common testimony. The discipline of the service is strict and the duties are arduous, while the pay is exceedingly modest. Nevertheless, there are thirty or forty candidates for every vacancy; and the places are filled with young men who must be Discipline of at least twenty-one years old while not more than new men. thirty, and who must pass thorough examinations to test their physical, intellectual, and moral fitness. Once admitted on probation, the novitiate is Sub- Numerical strength of the force. 42 MUNICIPAL GOVEENMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. L jected to severe training for a number of months be- fore he is allowed to appear alone in uniform as a gardien de la paix. In this period of tutelage he has been obliged to master thoroughly the laws, rules, and regulations that affect his duties: and his dis- The period . 1 ... ' . of tutelage, cipline includes military drill, gymnastic exercises, and whatsoever else is thought likely to make him a more valuable public servant. He is taught fidelity to duty, and is warned that to take the smallest bribe or gift may cost him his place and deprive him of his prospect of a pension. After twenty-five years of service, he may retire upon a pension that will suffice to keep him in decency for the rest of his life. Such a police system as I have thus described is familiar enough, as regards its modus operandi, to the denizens of all large English-speaking communi- ties. I am inclined to believe, however, that the en's "long Parisian organization identifies the individual police- tenure of his , J11 ',1 ' 1 "beat." man more permanently and closely with a particular neighborhood than is customary in any American city, and that there is some advantage in this fact so long as the gardien de la paix is indeed upright and faithful, terrorizing evil-doers, befriending the unfortunate and helpless, and fulfilling in all re- spects the mission which his title implies. But there belongs to the police service of Paris another localized institution which is at once peculiar and highly interesting. I refer to what is known as The ponce the commissariat. In every quarter of Paris there is MBy. established a functionary known as the police com- missary. He is a man of legal education as well as of experience in police affairs. He exercises an au- thority which would suggest, to an American or an Englishman, now a justice of the peace, now a police judge, now a coroner, now a sheriff, now a truant officer, and now a censor of public morals. The com- PARIS: THE TYPICAL MODERN CITY 43 missary's office is said to be a survival from very CHAP. i. ancient times, when his lineal antecedent was chosen by the people of each parish as an arbiter in neigh- once a borhood affairs, and a dispenser of ready justice in hood 8 arwter. cases of petty offense. He is now an appointee of the government, and practically, if not nominally, a creature of the police prefect. Nevertheless, he has the presumption of stable tenure, and is appointed after competitive examinations which are intended to make certain his fitness for the peculiarly discretion- ary business that comes before him. Such is the sphere of his tasks that he contributes, perhaps more than any other official, to the bringing of government and administration home to the people in their very neighborhoods. When an arrest is made by a police- man he must proceed at once with his prisoner to the nearest commissary. The routine work of the com- missary's office is in charge of a secretary, who must be an intelligent and experienced man, and who is himself in the line of promotion. He is further as- sisted by several inspectors, who are ready men equal to clerical office duties, and also capable of such out- r . Now an m- side work as serving papers or otherwise represent- tennediary *-, between the ing their chief, the commissary. It should be under- ponce and stood that the commissary is not a judge in the true courts, sense, and that his function in cases of crime or mis- demeanor is a preliminary one. He makes inquiries, commits to a place of detention, and makes prompt and full report to the central offices of the police pre- fecture. The patrolman, through his direct superiors at the arrondissement post, also makes his indepen- dent report, and the case is thus passed along to the criminal courts to be dealt with in accordance with the established procedure. It is easy to see that the resort to a commissary, which is prompt and impera- Must sane- tive, is at once a safeguard to the citizen and a relief "arcestt ry 44 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. L to the patrolman making an arrest. A commissary is always present at every performance in every theater. One is always on duty at the Bourse, and U ofthe r several others are specially deputized to serve the commissary, public convenience at points where men are wont to gather in large numbers. Thus, in case of any dis- order or disturbance the policemen on duty may in- stantly bring the person accused of an offense before a functionary whose capacity is essentially magis- terial. If the accused person is to be detained for trial, it will be upon the order of the commissary, whose business it becomes to prepare the complaint for the trial judge. The relief thus afforded to the ordinary policeman is obviously of a kind which tends to promote rather than to diminish his efficiency. In matters of family dispute, and in petty contentions of many kinds, the commissary is readily accessible for informal services that make him an invaluable promoter of the neighborhood well-being, especially when he happens to add common sense and kind- heartedness to his exercise of authority. Besides the local or arrondissement service of the Other tranches of police, there are a number of central brigades assigned t)olic6 scr- vice. to duty in special ways to markets, parks, and pub- lic buildings, to oversight of cabs and carriages, to inspection of lodging-houses, to various inquiries and investigations, and finally to detective work. More- over, the indoor organization of the various bureaus of the central prefecture, with the marvelous system of records touching the personal history or the move- ments of hundreds of thousands of people, is not to be forgotten. As an administrative structure, the police system of Paris must arouse the admiration of all who study it, whether they approve or not in all respects. The so-called Parisian police des mceurs is entirely distinct, in its organization and work, from the patrol system ; and apart from the maintenance of a state of PAEIS: THE TYPICAL MODEEN CITY 46 good order and decency on the streets and in public CHAP. i. places, the ordinary policeman of Paris is not con- cerned with those phases of the life of great cities which have in American cities so frequently involved the corruption of police departments. It is interesting to note the differentiation of public services and functions, as municipal life attains the higher stages of development. Thus, one by one great ^l^f municipal departments have grown out of what were payments. originally the mere incidents of police administration. One of these incidents was street lighting. What we call health administration now one of the most im- portant separate departments of city government was everywhere at the outset a very subordinate de- tail of the police branch. It is not difficult to under- * Public light- Stand how the illumination of streets and public places ing origi- nally a should have been first undertaken rather to assist the police meas- police in preventing crime and disorder than to pro- mote merely the convenience of the citizens. Under this theory, the control of public lighting in Paris re- mained in the hands of the prefect of police until about the year 1860, when its natural evolution had reached such a stage that the police idea had been completely outgrown. It was then transferred to the general sphere of the prefect of the Seine, and to the particular management of the director of public works, in whose great systematic department it be- Transferred .. ,. , , & J f ' to director came coordinated as one of a series of engineering ofpubuc services. The immense transformations of the Hauss- W i8r>i agent. private individuals. The company was given a fifty years' interest in the proceeds of the water business, its charter running from January 1, 1861, to January 1, 1911. The company has nothing to do with the fixing of the rentals or price schedules, and no voice, however feeble, in any question having to do with the supply. From time to time the municipal author- ities readjust the scale of charges, and determine the rules and regulations. The company makes house PARIS: THE TYPICAL MODERN CITY 69 connections, and attends to the domestic details. It CHAP. i. is allowed a commission of twenty-five per cent, upon its collections in excess of three million six hundred thousand francs up to six million that is to say, a contract. commission of one fourth upon two million four hundred thousand francs. Its percentages grow less as receipts increase. Upon the seventh, eighth, and ninth million francs its commission is twenty per cent.; upon the tenth and eleventh millions it is fif- teen per cent.; upon the twelfth it is ten, and upon all collections in excess of twelve million francs it is five per cent. Thus, the receipts from private con- sumers having reached, let us say, fourteen million francs in 1895, the company's aggregate commission would be one million seven hundred thousand francs. The company's interests naturally make for vigilance in collections; and the scale of charges is so ar- ranged that the company, though not directly af- fected by the cost of supply, is an active opponent of waste. The best quality of water has always been scarce enough in Paris to inculcate a gaged and measured economy in its distribution that has per- haps at times sacrificed the social to the commercial aspect of a water-supply. But the prices charged to the poor are not very high, though they are not so low as English and Scotch prices. The lowest annual water-rates. water-rate in Paris is twenty francs a year, based upon an estimated average consumption of one hundred and twenty-five liters a day. In view of the conditions under which, in 1860, the company was accorded its present functions, it cannot be said that its capital of twenty million francs is unduly re- munerated at the public expense ; nor do its services seem to be otherwise -than meritorious and efficient. Its collections in gross are paid into the public treasury every week, and its commissions are repaid to it at 70 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. I. Ultimate fate of the company. Free supply for public purposes. Early drain- age system. First mod- ern sewer in 1851. stated intervals. It is hardly probable that the city will find any sufficient reasons for continuing to em- ploy the company after the year 1910. It may be added that the company has no concern whatever with the system of pipes that distribute water for public uses, and that the municipality de- rives some income from non-municipal institutions which use water for public purposes. The municipal revenue that accrues from private users easily pays interest and sinking-fund charges upon all that is invested in the water-supply system, together with all the costs of maintenance and operation, and leaves some surplus profit. The chief municipal benefit, obviously, lies in the free use of half or more of the entire supply for the public service of streets, parks, sewers, fire hydrants, and the like. A certain type of French fiction has given many readers the impression that the famous sewer system of Paris possesses considerable antiquity. In point of sober fact, very little had been done in the con- struction of that system before 1860. Open ditches had served all purposes of Paris drainage until 1750, when a little stream into which many of these ditches had emptied their foul waters was covered over, chiefly in order to make more building space. Grad- ually it came to be used as a trunk sewer, and a number of covered ditches were subsequently drained into it. But this was not a modern sewer, and not until 1851, in connection with the making of the Rue de Rivoli, was a modern main sewer tunnel built, its point of discharge into the Seine being just below the bridge at the Place de la Concorde. Meanwhile a number of small street sewers had been conducted directly into the river, and the waters and banks were becoming most seriously polluted. At this time M. Belgrand devised his magnificent PARIS: THE TYPICAL MODERN CITY 71 plans for the drainage and water-supply of the trans- CHAP. i. formed Paris, and in 1856 his scheme for a network New system of sewers was adopted, and he was authorized to be- isso. gin construction. Several years had elapsed, how- ever, before much actual work had been accom- plished, and in 1860 the annexation of the suburbs gave the task a larger though not a different char- acter. The topography of Paris suggested three great trunk sewers, or collecteurs (as Belgrand well called them), which should have capacity to carry off the aggregate outflow of the entire sewerage net- work, and which should empty it all into the Seine at some distance below the city. One of these collec- teurs was designed to intercept the sewers that ap- proached the river on the north or right bank, and to serve the central parts of Paris. A corresponding The great one, following for some distance the left bank of the trunk sewers river, was given such dimensions as to be able to receive the flow of the entire ramification of sewers south of the Seine. A third collecteur, at a higher level, was designed to carry off the rainfall and ordi- nary sewage of the more elevated arrondissements of the northeast part of the city. These three huge trunk sewers, opened by Bel- grand, have remained the basis of the system, al- though since his time a number of additional secon- dary collecteurs of formidable size have been built, and the network of street sewers has been doubled in extent, while great improvements in the operation of the system have been inaugurated. The collecteurs are great subterranean galleries of arched masonry, shaped like a horseshoe, with a diameter of not less than fifteen feet, and in some . Forms and cases nearly twenty teet. The sewage ordinarily dimensions. flows in a deep gutter at the bottom, with a foot- path projecting on either side. This gutter has an 72 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. i. average depth in the great mains of four or five feet, and the footpaths are from twenty inches to two or three feet wide. The ordinary street sewers are egg- shaped, elliptical conduits, with a vertical diameter of about six or seven feet, and with the small end of the ellipse at the bottom. As a rule, there is a project- ing footpath on one side, at twelve or fifteen inches from the bottom. According to the law of 1856, when the system was instituted, every street of less than twenty meters' width must have one of these sewers under the center of the roadway, while every street of more than that width must have two, one being under each sidewalk. The sewers are of dif- ferent sizes and proportions according to the varying circumstances, and are classified under fifteen types. They have been planned not merely to carry off the drainage from streets and houses, but also to serve various subway purposes to which I shall refer here- after. It was about the year 1881 that the sewer system, the development of which had been inter- rupted by the war in 1870, was taken in hand again with extraordinary energy. In no other way Recent de- , _ J T_ v n veiopment. can the vast amount of new work be so well appre- ciated as by study of a sewer map, showing in one color the lines that had been constructed before 1880, and in another color those that have since been com- pleted. The mileage of well-built conduits seems to have increased by at least one hundred per cent., and the recent work pertains to every locality in the metropolis. Just before the outbreak of the war of 1870, Paris had begun in a small and tentative way the experi- ment of sewage disposal by means of irrigation. The sewage- The spot chosen was in the plain of G-ennevilliers in a ueviiiiers. n the great bend of the Seine north of Paris, this re- gion being in the general direction of the outfall PAKIS: THE TYPICAL MODERN CITY 73 point of the collecteurs, and possessing various ad- CHAP. i. vantages of soil and topography. The experiment grew by degrees until in 1892 there was an area of eight hundred hectares (2000 acres) under actual irrigation, and thirty million cubic meters of sew- age per annum was purified by natural filtration. The tests of the laboratory, moreover, showed that the affluent passing from the Gennevilliers drains into the river contained scarcely a dozen microbes to the cubic centimeter, whereas the pure Vanne drink- ing-water contained 62 per cubic centimeter, the purification. Seine water at the Bercy pumping-works contained 1400, and the unpurified sewage itself contained 20,000. The Parisians are now thoroughly converted to the theory and practice of sewage disposal by means of land irrigation, and are greatly extending the system of sewage-farms. They have obtained from the gen- eral government a portion of the St. Germain forest, which lies five miles west of the city limits, in one of a ge- e ferm7n the series of immense horseshoe curves which the main forest! Seine describes after it leaves the heart of Paris. The large plans upon which the administration has entered have led to the expectation that the close of the year 1900 may witness the treatment of the en- tire volume cf Paris sewage by means of irrigation. The Gennevilliers experiment has been brilliantly successful from the agricultural point of view, the crops having been quadrupled, while the population of the neighborhood had nearly doubled in ten years, and the community was a model for healthf ulness. There remain to be set forth certain changed con- ditions which give the problem of sewage disposal a new importance. The Paris* sewage has hitherto held a comparatively small amount of solid matter in solution. Its discharge into the Seine has on that account been the less objectionable. From times MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. I. The fosse system. The vidan- geurs. Old meth- ods aban- doned. immemorial every house in Paris has been provided with its fosse, or vault, for the reception of fecal material. "When Belgrand entered upon the con- struction of the new sewer system, he favored the adoption, so far as possible, of a direct discharge from water-closets into the sewers. But, unfortu- nately, not many of the existing sewers had a suffi- ciently steep fall, and many difficulties were in the way. The fixed pits, or fosses, had at an earlier period been a frightful source of danger, disease, and death; but great improvements had been intro- duced, both in their construction and in the methods of emptying them, which had lessened their evils quite appreciably. The vidangeurs, or night-men, who emp- tied the cesspools, were licensed and brought under the strictest public regulations. The material was conveyed in air-tight receptacles, and carried to several great depots, where it was converted into an inoffensive dry fertilizer. Many Parisians contended that this system of fosses fixes was more to be desired than the oppos- ing system known as that of " tout a legonV (" every- thing into the sewer"). But tout & 1'egout is the system that modern sanitary science elsewhere has pronounced best; and Paris has at last decided to adopt it. The change has been a gradual one. It was ushered in by a system of nitration apparatus which drains all liquids into the sewer, leaving only solid matter in the fosse, and reducing the bulk of the material for the vidangeur to a small fraction. From five thousand in 1871 these filters had in- creased to thirty-five thousand in 1891. In 1886 it was provided that houses connecting with certain sewers which were suitably constructed might 'avail themselves of the tout a 1'egout system; and in 1891 about five thousand connections of this kind had PAKIS: THE TYPICAL MODERN CITY 75 actually been made. In 1892 it was determined to make the modern system obligatory wherever the sewers could be adapted to it; and since that year the transformation has been proceeding rapidly. In 1871 there were in Paris more than eighty thousand cesspools, and in 1896 this number will perhaps have been reduced to fifty thousand. The flushing of the sewers, in which the ordinary flow is too sluggish for the proper scouring away of sludgy sediment, is accomplished by the establish- ment in connection with them of a system of small reservoirs de ckasse, so called, which are filled and discharged automatically at regular intervals, and which emit enough expulsive force to drive every- thing in the sewer to a point beyond the next reser- voir. Soon after the beginning of this system of expulsive reservoirs, as many as fourteen hundred of them had been placed in the sewers. Several thou- sand will ultimately be needed, and they will draw heavily upon the public water-supply. Nothing in the recent sanitary administration of Paris is more significant than the abandonment of the ancient cess- pool system in favor of the best new methods, to- gether with the relief of the river Seine through the adoption of comprehensive plans of sewage disposal by means of irrigation. As I have already remarked, the Paris sewers were designed with reference to their use as general sub- ways. Supported along the walls near the top of the gallery one finds not only the water-pipes of the dou- ble supply system, but also the telegraph and tele- phone wires; the pneumatic tubes which facilitate the collection and distribution of letters; the pipes of the compressed-air service that furnishes motive power for small users, and that maintains a system of CHAP. I. Disappear- ance of cess- pools. Reservoirs for flushing sewers. The sewers as subways. 76 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUEOPE CHAP. i. Revenue from wires and pipes in cewers. pneumatic clocks; and perhaps one or two other kinds of pipes or wires. The gas and electric light companies are otherwise accommodated under the sidewalks, but they are the only exceptions to the rule of the use of the sewers as conduits for all the servi- ces that require pipes or wires. The telephone system of Paris is operated by the national government in connection with its department ofpostes et telegraphes; and while it pays nothing for its placing of telegraph wires and pneumatic tubes in the sewers, it pays lib- erally for its telephone accommodations. Numer- ous private telegraph and telephone wires also pay at the same rates (from fifty to thirty francs a year per kilometer of line), and the municipal treasury from these sources, together with the payments from the compressed air company, is in receipt of a revenue approaching a million francs. I have already men- tioned the payments exacted from the gas and electric light companies for their privileges under the streets. In nothing is the municipal thrift and close atten- tion to financial details better illustrated than in the Privileges exploitation of small privileges and concessions in the tout in streets and in the public parks. One of the distinct streets and j* T j.- i parks. sources or Parisian revenue aggregating a yearly income of 3,500,000 francs is summed up in the offi- cial budgets under the chapter heading, "Locations sur la voie publique et dans les promenades publiques" In this category are included hundreds of newspaper kiosks, refreshment stands, luminous advertising pil- lars for theatrical notices, chalets de necessity (public lavatories), and urinals to the number of perhaps two thousand, the walls of which are used for advertising purposes. In the Champs-Ely sees, the Bois de Bou- logne, the Bois de Vincennes, and various other parks, squares, and gardens, there are almost innumerable privileges and concessions leased to individuals for PARIS: THE TYPICAL MODEEN CITY 77 sums which help to make up the grand total of CHAP. L 3,500,000 fraiics. Nor can it be considered that any of this money comes by way of indulgence for the permission of nuisances. The newspaper kiosks, ad- An instance vertising pillars, refreshment stands, and other loca- ^"thrift tions concessiontes, all contribute towards the conven- ience of the people, and they are not permitted to be unsightly. The revenue from these sources is almost entirely a net income, and it aids materially in the cost of maintaining streets and open spaces. The parks of Paris are entitled to some special men- tion, although for the purposes of the people the broad and well-cleaned avenues with their rows of shade-trees are to be deemed the most important pro- vision for out-of-door life and recreation. On all the as parkways, streets having a width of twenty meters or more there are rows of shade-trees, and most of the broad thor- oughfares have also a middle strip, planted with trees, grass, and flowers. Benches are everywhere provided under the trees, and thus in some sense the whole city may be considered a park. The river and the quays form the most valuable of the breathing spaces of Paris. There are nearly a hundred thousand trees along the chief streets ; and this is a great number shade trees when account is made of the compactness of the city, avenues. The avenues and boulevards are, indeed, considered as a part of the park system, in so far as they are planted with trees and provided with gardened strips ; and the whole service of "promenades et plantations" falls under the supervision of the same engineer-in- chief who, as head of a branch of the public works The park ad- department, is also in control of street illumination and of concessions on the vote publique and in the parks. The grouping of these tasks is a felicitous one. The same oversight thus controls (1) the public parks and gardens (2) the streets in their aspect as parkways, 78 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. I. The Bois de Boulogne. Advanta- geous finan- ciering. The Bois de both streets and parks in (3) all matters of illumination, and again in (4) everything that concerns the erection of booths or kiosks, or the granting of other privileges on the sidewalks or in public squares and gardens. Esthetic harmony is thus assured, and much economy of administration results. Naturally enough, when the transformation of Paris was determined upon in 1852, the question of parks was not omitted. It was determined to make the Bois de Boulogne, lying immediately west of Paris, the great pleasure-ground of the new dispensation, and to provide grand approaches to it in connection with the new boulevard system. The Bois had survived as part of an ancient forest owned by the state. But it was not improved, nor was it easy of access. In 1852 the state granted it to the municipality of Paris on condi- tion that it should be developed as a modern park with- out delay. Fourteen millions of francs were soon ex- pended upon it, the larger part of which was recovered by advantageous sales of adjacent building sites. As finally adjusted this noble pleasure-ground contains 873 hectares (about 2250 acres), and as the city's suburbs expand it becomes constantly more accessi- ble to a large population. The opposite end of Paris was similarly recognized by the acquisition from the state in 1860 of the Vin- 1-1 cennes forest, upon which even greater sums were expended. The Bois de Vincennes now contains 943 hectares (about 2,400 acres), and its conversion to its present attractive character involved an outlay in the years 1860-66 of nearly 24,000,000 francs. The original grant was larger, but by permission of the state the municipality sold 125 hectares to private builders for about 13,000,000 francs, and thus mate- rially reduced the cost to the Parisian taxpayers of a park that is now worth many scores of millions. PARIS: THE TYPICAL MODERN CITY 79 "Within the city limits the parks were few in earlier CHAP. i. times, although the people had some access to several old royal pleasure-grounds, chiefly the gardens of the T i 4.1 rn -i j ru nu iSi / Other Paris- Luxemburg, the Tuileries and the Champs Elysees. ian parks. There are now nearly a hundred squares, parks and gardens open to the people, most of which are muni- cipal property, though a few belong to the state. The largest and most picturesque of these is the Pare des Buttes-Chaumont in the northeast of Paris, with an extent of 62 acres, which was completed among the last great works of the Haussmann period and opened in 1869. The Pare de Montsouris in the south of Paris, which contains perhaps 45 acres, was opened somewhat earlier. The later endeavors of the admin- small parks istration have been directed toward the multiplication "grounds. of small parks and playgrounds in the poorest and densest quarters of the city ; and since the beginning of the third republic there has been no endeavor to add to the number of large parks. The operations of the municipality as florist and gardener are neces- sarily on a vast scale ; and one is tempted to dwell Mnnicipai- upon the great establishments in the Bois de Boulogne, Icai gardener, where the nurseries and green houses are concentrated and where youths from all lands are sent to learn floriculture from the accomplished gardeners and bo- tanical experts in the service of the Parisian " prome- nades et plantations." The use of the voie publique of Paris for purposes of transit by means of street railways and otherwise is a topic of increasing interest, and one that is so Transitand closely related to that of the housing system and of housing. the territorial distribution of the inhabitants that both may well be considered together. Paris in the past centuries has grown by concentric accretions, military defenses having determined from time to 80 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. i. time the municipal metes and bounds. As in many another European city, the encircling boulevards re- veal historic lines of bastioned wall and moat, aban- doned in favor of a new, outer cincture. Any boldly outlined street map of Paris shows readily, by the division lines of the arrondissements, the more impor- tant successive perimeters. Originally beginning with Historical the " He de la Cite " in the Seine, which still lies at e ofarea. en the heart of the metropolis, Paris became in 1180, under Philip II. Augustus, a round, walled city on both banks of the river, with an area of 252 hectares (a hectare is 2.4711 acres). In 1370 Charles V. built a new wall on the north side, and this was further ex- tended on the west, some three hundred years later, so that the city then included 567 hectares. Louis XIV. and Louis XV. made considerable annexations, but it remained for the government of Louis XVI. in the years 1784-91 to fix a new line enclosing the more generous space of 3370 hectares ; and this re- mained the limit of the Paris municipality until 1860. The Paris of the Bourbons was nearly round, and Paris under was almost equally divided by the river one way and th bons! ir by the Boulevards St. Michel and de Sebastopol at right angles with the river, being encircled by what is now known as the inner line of Boulevards, with the Bastile at the extreme east, the Madeleine, Place de la Concorde, and Hotel des Invalides at the extreme west, and the Mont Parnasse and Port-Royal Boule- vards marking the southern curve. Louis XVI.'s great annexation included chiefly the districts lying on the north side of the river between the inner and outer lines of boulevards, an accretion veiy distinctly indicated on the map. This area remained without cations, and change until January 1, 1860. The government had . constructed after 1841 the present girdle of fortifica- tions, and it wag inevitable that this should sooner or PARIS: THE TYPICAL MODERN CITY 81 later become the boundary line of the city. The new limits were established by the law of 1859. At that time the existing limits of the arrondissements were fixed, the old area being divided into what are known as the ten inner arrondissements, and the annexed districts, or "faubourgs," with adjacent parts of the inner city, into the ten outer arrondissements, each one being given a name and a number. At the same time each arrondissement was divided into four quar- ters, each of which was named. The Paris of 1790 contained a population of 600,000, the area now comprised in the outer ten arrondisse- ments being rural, with only ten or fifteen thousand people. At the time of the annexation in 1860, as shown by the census of 1861, the inner ten divisions had more than 900,000 people, and the outer ten more than 700,000, a total exceeding 1,600,000. It is ex- tremely interesting to follow the subsequent develop- ment of population. The inner ten divisions actually lost more than 30,000 people in the decade from 1861 to 1871, a period in which great demolitions and street improvements were made ; and in the same de- cade the outer ten divisions gained more than 200,000 people. From 1871 to 1881 the inner ten gained 116,000, while the outer ten gained 300,000. From 1881 to 1886 the inner ten lost 18,000 and the outer ten gained 94,000. The net result of the twenty-five years from 1861 to 1886 was a gain of 64,845 for the inner ten arrondissemeuts and of 611,850 for the outer ten, the one half having 1,010,970 people, and the other 1,330,580, a grand total of 2,344,550. By the census of 1891, the total population was 2,447,957 a gain in five years of 103,407, practically all of which must be credited to the outer ten. Obviously the inner divisions have reached their maximum inhabitancy. "What we may call the old CHAP. I. Growth of population in the old limits. Rise of the outer zone. 82 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. I. Progress of the new suburbs. The actual defenses of Paris. Area of the department of the Seine. Paris has for fifty years had a population averaging about 1,000,000 ; and there have been added 1,500,000 more people, occupying the belt of arrondisseinents inside the fortifications, the Paris of to-day having more than 2,500,000 inhabitants. Meanwhile the suburban population outside the fortifications has been growing rapidly. The little communes of the department of the Seine, outside of Paris, are grouped in the two arrondisseinents of Saint Denis and Sceaux. Altogether this exterior belt had a population of about 255,000 in 1861, which had grown to more than 600,000 in 1886, was nearly 700,- 000 in 1891, and will within a few years have reached a full million. It only remains to tear away the line of fortifica- tions, and to fill up the great ditch, in order to permit the city to expand freely under the impetus of the modern suburban tendency. The real military defen- ses of Paris now take the form of two lines of en- trenched camps and forts, one of which is at an average distance of three or four miles outside the wall of cincture that forms the city limits, while the other and more formidable one is yet several miles further distant. The existing Paris covers 19,275 acres, orab out thirty square miles, within which are housed more than 2,500,000 people. The average dis- tance from center to circumference is only three miles. The department of the Seine, at the center of which Paris lies, contains nearly 184 square miles, including Paris, and its outer edges lie at an average distance of only seven or eight miles from the center of the metropolis, or from four to five miles beyond the ex- isting city limits. Inasmuch as the whole department is already under the administrative direction of the two prefects who administer Paris, while the council- general of the department consists of the Paris PARIS: THE TYPICAL MODERN CITY 83 municipal council with the addition of a handful of men from the two extra-mural arrondissements, noth- ing would seem easier than a complete assimilation of the government system. And since the cincture de- fenses are obsolete for military purposes, every sound argument demands their removal, to be followed by annexation of the whole suburban belt to the munici- pality. Such a project is under consideration, and its accomplishment is only a question of time. The line of fortifications will afford a magnificent opportunity for effective boulevards and public gardens, while also permitting the sale of several hundred million francs' worth of building sites. This improvement, accom- panied as it would inevitably be by a development of improved transit systems and the rapid up-building of the suburbs, will quite probably be decided upon by the state and the municipality as the closing and crowning event of the century in the history of the grands travaux de Paris. The metropolitan London houses a population of 4,230,000 (census of 1891) within an area of 123 square miles an average of 34,400 to the square mile, while within the 30 square miles of Paris there are 2,500,- 000 people, or 83,300 to the square mile. This is a high degree of density, although it does not follow that the people of London, living in houses of two or three stories, with an average of eight persons per house, are better housed or less crowded than the Parisians who occupy large tenement houses of four or five stories, with an average of 30 persons to the house. In Manhattan Island (New York City), accord- ing to the census of 1890, the density per square mile was 73,300. But for several of the most crowded wards of New York the density averaged more than 300,000 per square mile, which is far in excess of any- thing to be found in corresponding areas of Paris or CHAP. I. Reasons for amalgama- tion of de- partment and city. An oppor- tunity for additional " grands travaux." Parisian den- sity com- pared with London's. Compared with that of New York. 84 MUNICIPAL GOVEENMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. i. London, where there is a comparatively even distri- With bution throughout the municipal area. Brooklyn in Brooklyn's. 1890, in a municipal territory of 26 square miles, (somewhat less than that of Paris) accommodated 806,000 people, or about 30,500 to the square mile. Chicago, with 160 square miles and a population in Chicago's. 1890 of 1,100,000, could boast an average of only 6850 to the square mile. But Chicago's central wards have nearly ten times that density, and may be regarded as accommodating from 60,000 to 75,000 people per square the heart of mile, while Philadelphia and Boston, as well as Brook- Philadelphia . . * . ' . and Boston, lyn, are housing in their densest districts a population that averages 100,000 to the square mile. The re- markable fact about the Parisian density is its high average for the entire city, in which regard it has no equal. It is a marvelously compact system of hous- ing that provides for 2,500,000 people within a circle whose radius is only three miles. All these considerations bear vitally upon the ques- tion of transit. The people of inner Paris have not, Relation of as a rule, far to be transported from their work. Very transit. many of them live on the etages above their shops and business places. Instead of taking street cars or omnibuses to go home, they simply walk up-stairs ; and similar statements might be made for the major part of the population of the outer arrondissements. Every quarter of the city is at once a business quarter and a residence quarter. Nevertheless, as the city grows in its outer districts, and as population rapidly increases in the suburbs beyond the gates, there is an enhanced regular daily movement to and from the New impor- J . tance of central arrondissements where the principal business Paris. operations are massed. Thus the transit question assumes constantly increasing importance in Paris, as in the other large cities of the world. There are two kinds of municipal transit that must PARIS: THE TYPICAL MODERN CITY 85 be recognized, just as there are two kinds of streets CHAP. i. in the great European cities. These cities have (1) their network of minor streets, and (2) their system of great thoroughfares and boulevards pertaining to the metropolis as a whole. Analogously, they have their systems of strictly local street transit, by cabs, street railways, and omnibuses, and their more rapid system of what may be called metropolitan transit. It is this latter system that great cities are most ear- tan systems nestly discussing in the closing years of the century. tran?it. ger In London it takes the form of the underground rail- ways and of innumerable suburban trains on all the great railway lines. In New York and Brooklyn it has its beginning in the elevated railway system, and is to have great extensions in the early future, in part by means of underground electric roads. In several American cities the surface lines of cable and electric street railways are made to answer temporarily the double purpose of local and metropolitan lines. But Paris, thus far, has developed no metropolitan system Y et to be at all except the belt line, the Chemin de Per de d ?or el the ed Ceinture, The density of its population and the Parisians - prevalence of high houses, as I have shown, sufficiently explain the tardiness of this great capital in such matters. The local systems of transit, by cabs, omni- buses, and tram-cars, have had a steady development in Paris, however, and for a number of years the public authorities and skilled engineers have been anticipating the necessity of a metropolitan rapid transit system and have given the subject a vast amount of study and discussion. The consequence is that important beginnings seem about to be made, and after an account of the existing transit arrange- ments I shall refer to these new proposals. All kinds of passenger transportation in Paris have always been strictly supervised by the authorities. 6* 86 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. I. History of omnibus system. Terms of franchise. Introduction of street railways. Payments to municipal treasury. The omnibus system of the metropolis became im- portant early in the century. In 1854, by arrange- ment with the administration, fifteen existing omnibus lines became absorbed in the Compagnie Generate des Omnibus, to which an exclusive franchise was given for thirty years upon condition of large annual payments to the city a franchise that was renewed after the enlargement of the city in 1860, and was then extended to the year 1910. Under the plan of 1854 the company was required to pay the city 640,000 francs a year, with additional sums for each vehicle exceeding 350. By the arrangement of 1860, which is still in force, the company agreed to pay 1,000,000 francs a year (which was at the rate of 2000 francs apiece for 500 vehicles), and to pay in addition, for every omnibus used beyond the number of 500, an annual fee of 1000 francs until 1871, to be increased to 1500 francs from 1871 to 1886, and thereafter to be fixed at 2000 francs. Thus the present payment is 2000 francs each for every omnibus in use, and the number actually in use for a number of years has somewhat exceeded 600. After 1873, street railways were introduced, and those of inner Paris were con- structed and operated by the Compagnie Gen6rale des Omnibus as an added part of its business, its street- railway franchises also extending to the year 1910. The company pays into the city treasury 1500 francs per year for each tram-car on its lines, and it has about 300 in operation. There are also two other street-railway companies operating in the newer and suburban parts of Paris, one system on the north side and the other on the south ; the southern system pay- ing the city 1500 francs a year for each car, and the northern system paying 750 francs per car. The omnibuses and street cars of Paris are absurdly large, ponderous, and slow, but they are operated PARIS: THE TYPICAL MODERN CITY 87 upon the most methodical system in the world. The routes and halting-places are precisely denned, and along each route is a series of neat stations built upon the sidewalk. Everything pertaining to the size and construction of the vehicles and the station-houses; to the style of rails and placing of tracks ; to the ar- rangement, change, and addition of routes; to the prices charged and the transfers given ; and to almost every other imaginable detail affecting the business, is prescribed by the public authorities. Upon the principle employed in dealing with the gas company as a chartered monopoly, the city has a right, after prescribed dividends and all public charges and pri- vate expenses are paid, to one half of the surplus prof- its of the Compagnie des Omnibus et des Tramways', but thus far little has been realized from contingent profits. The Compagnie G6nerale transported in its omnibuses in 1893 more than 126,000,000 passengers, and in its tram-cars more than 86,000,000. Its busi- ness had grown from 108,750,000 passengers in 1872 to 215,000,000 in 1889. The other two tramway com- panies transported some 27,000,000 passengers each in 1893, making a grand total for Paris of 126,000,000 passengers carried by omnibus and 140,000,000 car- ried by street railway. These are not large figures when compared with corresponding ones for American cities; but it is worth while to remind American readers that the Parisian transit companies pay more than 2,000,000 francs a year to the city treasury as a rental for the privileges they enjoy on the streets. Nearly all the cabs and public carnages of Paris belong to one great company, the Compagnie Generate des Voitures de Pan's, which has about 8000 vehicles in use. For the use of the public cab- stands, and their license to do business, each carriage must pay an annual license fee of 365 francs a franc CHAP. I. Details strictly regulated. Half the sur- plus profits go to the city. Volume of business. Control of cab system. 88 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE A costly withdrawal. CHAP. i. per diem. In 1855, following the example of the Cornpagiiie Generale des Omnibus and the fusion of the gas companies, monopolies being the fashion, special privileges were accorded to a great cab com- A monopoly pany that was formed to absorb numerous small pro- cfll) frSiii- cinse. prietorships; and in 1862 this company obtained an exclusive franchise for the use of cabs and public carriages throughout the enlarged municipality, upon the basis of a payment to the city of one franc per day for each vehicle, and of a division with the city of the surplus profits, as provided in the contracts with the gas and omnibus companies, the patrons being protected by a fixed scale of charges and a minute code of regulations. But this monopoly was not deemed advantageous, and the exclusive privilege was revoked in 1866. To the surprise and indignation of the city government, the cab company obtained a judi- cial award of damages to the amount of 300,000 francs per year for each of the remaining forty-seven years of the original fifty-year grant. That excessive award has of course given the company an advantage over all competitors, and it has steadily grown. Since 1866 the cab business has been free to all applicants, sub- ject to the laws regulating the details of the service, and the fee has remained at 365 francs a year. There are about 10,000 public carriages in Paris, of which four fifths belong to the Compagnie Generale des Voi- tures. The annual receipts of the city from cab licenses reach 3,700,000 francs ; and the total receipts under the head of voitures publiques (the street-railway and omnibus payments being included) amount to about 6,000,000 francs. In the past ten years, therefore, Paris has received nearly 60,000,000 francs as rentals and license fees from companies and individuals using the streets for passenger transportation. Undoubt- edly for a number of years past the city council has Total re- ceipts from public vehicles. PARIS: THE TYPICAL MODERN CITY 89 not been especially friendly to the great monopoly companies of Paris, and it would be more than willing to have some of them superseded by a system of direct municipal operation. But conservative public opinion prefers the existing arrangements, and assur- edly they are not disadvantageous. What is espe- cially needed in transportation facilities is a very' great extension of the street railways and omnibus lines, with the introduction of small vehicles and a far more frequent and rapid service. The existing system of licenses, that puts a penalty upon an increase in the number of tram-cars and omnibuses, is clearly a wrong one. But in addition to these facilities for local transit, Paris needs a metropolitan system. I have referred to the belt railway. It follows the perimeter of the city just inside the fortifications. It is primarily a line for the connection of the great railways entering Paris. Only one of these roads has its passenger station conveniently near the center of the city, and the transfer of goods and passengers has been ex- tremely inconvenient. The girdle line also serves, however, for a considerable amount of ordinary local transportation of passengers, and may be deemed part of a system of metropolitan rapid transit. For the completion of such a system several elaborate plans have at different times been worked out under the auspices of government and municipal engineers. Some have been plans for underground and others, for elevated lines. But all have involved great expen- ditures, and called for heavy subsidies or guaranties.. It is probable that the final judgment will be given in favor of an electric underground system connect- ing the chief railway-stations and combining an inner- circuitous line, following the boulevards, with lines across the city from east to west and from north to CHAP. I. The Paris system of monopoly companies. The girdle railway. A. probable electric underground system. 90 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. I. The building regulations. Height strictly limited. Harmony required. Houses and health. south. The abolition of the present municipal limits will be the signal for a new transit system, for a re- duction of the density of the existing city, and for a rapid overflow of population into the broad outer zone to be annexed. Allusions have already been made to those laws governing construction which have secured for Paris- ian street architecture its air of regularity. The height of buildings had always been a matter of pub- He regulation, but it became necessary in the Hauss- niann period very greatly to revise the entire code of building rules. Many buildings were destroyed in the terrible weeks of the siege and commune (1871), and the building laws were again revised and improved in 1872 to meet the exigencies of a period of unusual activity in construction. Buildings of great height have never been tolerated in Paris. The avenues, boulevards, and principal streets have been lined with houses under rules which fixed the maximum height of facades at 20 meters (65 feet), which have pre- scribed the number of stories, and which, above all things, have compelled private builders to observe for any given street, in the language of the law, the " raccordement et 1'harmonie des lignes de construc- tion." The laws also require the periodical repair or repainting of all fa9ades, to assure the neat and fresh appearance of every street. If in the earlier part of the Napoleon-Haussmann era it was the outward aspect of the city's houses that was chiefly regarded by the administration, there came a gradual recognition of the necessity for care- ful regulation of interior construction, particularly from the point of view of the public health. For, to speak sweepingly, all houses are tenement-houses in Paris, and unquestionably it belongs to the genius of Parisian administration to regulate minutely the PAEIS: THE TYPICAL MODERN CITY 91 arrangement and the occupancy of such structures. CHAP.I. The remaking of Paris streets, and the acquisition of the lie de la Cite and other central areas for public buildings, resulted in the clearing away^of many an- Clearanceof cient and unwholesome slum houses ; and the whole slums. spirit of these modern reforms has been favorable to an improvement of the housing conditions of the masses. Nevertheless, there have survived in Paris great numbers of objectionable houses, against which the health authorities have had to make unceasing war. The methods pursued in this administrative crusade against unsanitary conditions of every character in the homes of the people have been too little known in the English-speaking countries. They have been re- markably efficient. For several decades there has existed a permanent special body of experts charged with the constant supervision of this one subject. It is entitled the Commission des Logements Insalubres. It is composed of thirty members, ten of whom are appointed every two years by the municipal council, the term being six years, and reappointments natu- rally being the rule. The members of this commis- sion, apart from the prefect of the Seine, wh,o is ex- officio president, are not public functionaries, but are as a rule well-known citizens physicians, architects, engineers, and men who, for one reason or another, are especially qualified to pass upon questions relat- ing to the hygiene and construction of houses. The commission usually meets weekly. Its members live in various parts of the city, and look promptly into all complaints. They do not make investigations except upon receipt of complaints, because there exist various and ample agencies of official inspec- tion in all the arrondissements, and because all ten- ants are instructed that they may at any time send by The " com- mission des logements insalubres." Expert membership. 92 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE Operations in twenty years. CHAP. i. mail an unsigned complaint calling attention to the condition of the building in which they live. The Methods of .. -, , -. . . -. . , , the board, commission acts upon all complaints, decides the na- ture and extent of repairs that should be made, or designates as uninhabitable the houses that are be- yond reclamation. Its reports go to the municipal council, which as a rule confirms all its recommenda- tions. The owner has a right to be heard, but the judgments of the commission carry prestige, and are seldom reversed. In the twenty years from 1872 to 1892 the commis- sion had secured sanitary improvements in the case of about fifteen thousand houses, and it must be re- membered that most of these were buildings lodging a number of families, so that nearly half a million people were more or less immediately affected. The members of the commission are not paid salaries, but receive an attendance fee of ten francs for each meet- ing, and a further fee for each written report that they make upon houses in their respective districts. The salutary results of such an organization, always ready to act, can hardly be overestimated. But .this commission on unhealthful houses is an executive body devoted to a single feature of sanitary administration. The great central source of scien- tific authority upon all the questions that relate to the public health is the Conseil d'Hygiene et de SaliibriU. It is a board of health of the highest possible pres- tige, which dates from the year 1802. The prefect of police presides over it, and besides some twenty-four life members who are specially appointed for their high attainments, and who must be confirmed by the general government, there are ex-officio seats in the council for such men as the dean of the faculty of membership, medicine in the University of Paris, the professors of The sanitary council. PARIS: THE TYPICAL MODERN CITY 93 hygiene and legal medicine in the same faculty, the CHAP. i. director of the college of pharmacy, the president of the army sanitary board, the director of Parisian public works, two chief engineers holding high official posts at Paris, two members of the municipal council, the head of the veterinary health service of the de- partment, a chief architect, and several high police officials. The ex-officio membership gives assurance of much special and expert talent, while in point of fact the life appointments are also made as marks of high honor for eminence in the world of professional and four life scientific knowledge. This magnificent Council of Pub- lic Health is an advisory rather than an administra- tive body. It sets the standards, and affords the actual . An advisory administrative authorities the best attainable enlight- body, enment upon methods and principles. It is consulted upon the treatment of epidemics ; upon the organiza- tion of medical relief; upon questions of health re- lating to workshops, schools, and various institutions; upon the best ways to prevent adulteration of food supplies ; upon the sanitation of new public buildings, " . , ., ,. , V Wide range and the principles of sanitary construction to be ob- of its topics. served in private buildings ; upon the scientific aspects of water-supply, drainage, and cemetery management ; and, in short, upon every question as it arises that pertains in any general sense to the health of the community. The body assembles twice a month, and the life members receive an attendance fee of fifty francs, only ten francs being paid as a jeton de presence to the ex-officio members. This central health council has the important ad- vantage of the cooperation of twenty local boards of The twenty health (commissions d'kygtene) established in the ar- rondissements. Here, again, one finds that recogni- tion of neighborhood life which I have already dwelt upon as so characteristic a part of the administration MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. i. of Paris. The maire in each arrondissement presides over the local health board, which must meet at least once every month to consider the sanitary condition of the district. Nine members, appointed for six years (three retiring every two years), constitute the board, with the maire as tenth member and president. The board itself proposes three names for each va- cancy, and the prefect of police selects a man from the list thus offered. Each of these arrondissement Qualifies- health boards must contain at least two physicians, tionsfor , . , . ' membership, one pharmacist, one veterinary surgeon, one archi- tect, and one engineer or technical head of a manu- facturing establishment. The boards are in position to know familiarly the general state of health in their own divisions of Paris, and are of immense service in all times of emergency, their most important work having to do with measures against the spread of epidemic diseases. They are also active in the work of reporting unsanitary houses to the central commis- sion on logements insalubres. They have assigned to them important duties of statistical inquiry and col- lation, and they make frequent reports to the prefect of police, who in turn refers everything to the central health board, under the auspices of which the health statistics of the city as a whole are compiled. There is a central sanitary bureau in the prefecture of police, which supervises the active administration of all the health laws, by means of numerous active agents belonging to the special service of sanitary police. Since 1884 there has been a rapid develop- ment of the municipal disinfection service, which is organized for the prompt cleansing of domiciles in which there have been cases of infectious disease, and Disinfection . . . , ... -, n , , service, which also maintains a series of disinfecting stations provided with modern ovens and other appliances for the thorough treatment of articles brought in sealed Sanitary police. PARIS: THE TYPICAL MODERN CITY 95 CHAP. I. Epidemic hospitals. vans from infected homes. The removal of cases of infectious disease to special hospitals is not so general in Paris as in some other cities, although it is becom- ing more frequent. The epidemic hospitals of Paris are not managed separately as a part of the sanitary administration, but belong to the general system of hospitals controlled by that distinct branch of admin- istration known as assistance publique, that is to say, poor relief, or public charity. There are historic reasons for the existing arrangement, but plain logic and the highest efficiency would seem to require that hospitals for the isolation of epidemic maladies should be wholly removed, in management as well as in loca- tion, from the ordinary hospitals of public charity and private beneficence. Few problems closely related to the health and welfare of the community have been more difficult The problem for Parisians to solve conclusively than that of the teries. cemeteries. Habitude and prejudice increase tenfold the perplexities which would in any case be formida- ble enough. Paris is a very ancient city, and many millions of people have died within its narrow limits. Custom of the most obstinate sort, about which many institutions and observances have grown up, has re- quired the interment of the dead within easy walking distance. A long time ago it was ordained that ceme- teries must be closed within the city limits, excepting as Pere Lachaise and several other well-known bury- ing-grounds continue to be used by families who hold perpetual concessions in them. But all attempts to solve the problem by the acquisition of a very large new cemetery at some distance from the city, to be reached by a special railway, were futile because the people would not change their customs. The ceme- teries in the immediate vicinity of the municipal limits have been somewhat extended, and the same plots of Persistence of custom. 96 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. I. The munici- pal crema- tory. A report on relation of cemeteries to public health. Funerals an ecclesiastical monopoly. ground are used over and over again every five years, in a manner not pleasant to contemplate. A few years ago, after many previous refusals, the French chambers enacted a law permitting cremation in Paris, and the municipal council at once established a crematory in the Pere Lachaise cemetery. An elab- orate system of regulations has been devised, and cremation is constantly growing in favor. Perhaps three thousand cremations a year would be as high an average as could be claimed for the years from 1890 to 1895. The municipality is disposed to en- courage this modern innovation so far as possible; and when the popular prejudice against it has yielded somewhat there can be little doubt of its rapid gain. Meanwhile the health board had begun exhaustive scientific inquiries into the effect of the existing ceme- teries upon sanitary conditions; and it has made a report that is unexpectedly lenient and optimistic. The cemeteries are wholly municipal, and the service is a thoroughly organized one, with a central business bureau in the prefecture of the Seine, and a chief coniroleur of the service. It is well managed from the financial point of view, and productive of net revenue. The whole conduct of funerals in Paris has been assigned to the churches as a monopoly under the control of a central board known as the Conseil d 'Ad- ministration du Service des Pompes Funebres. The vestries of the Catholic churches elect ten members of this board, the two leading Protestant communions have each a representative, and the Jewish synod has one. The Archbishop of Paris appoints a vicar-gen- eral as a member, and the chief municipal inspector of funerals has a seat. This ecclesiastical monopoly deals in all the paraphernalia of funerals, from the simplest to the most elaborate ; maintains, for instance, PAEIS: THE TYPICAL MODERN CITY 97 a vast stock of coffins, and collects its bills in accor- CHAP. i. dance with a minute scale of charges that has the sanction of law. A large amount of money is in- vested in a wholesale stock of funeral goods by the syndicate of the vestries. This monopoly arrange- Itgb ment was established in 1878, and it has a collective methods. income of perhaps three million francs a year, a small part of which is paid to the municipality to meet the expenses of the official service of funeral inspection, while the rest is divided pro rata among the con- stituent churches and parishes. Whatever criticisms may be brought against the system, there may be j * * 4.1? 4. * 1, *i. *. f 1 -4. Meritsofthe said in its favor that it has the merit or regularity system, and uniformity in method and in charges ; that it helps to protect the poor against extortion ; and that for the community as a whole it probably insures a more dignified and appropriate conduct of obsequies at a smaller average expense than could be expected from private entrepreneurs if the monopoly were abol- ished. But with or without this ecclesiastical man- agement, there would continue to exist the strictest municipal oversight and control, because for centuries strict it has in France been deemed a public duty to regulate control. everything having to do with the disposition of the dead. Under the old regime at Paris the interference of state and of municipality in the business of food-sup- ply went much further than an ordinary control of Government markets, with an inspection of meat and drink, of supply. bread, fruit, and all sorts of alimentary substances and products, in behalf of the public health. It com- pletely denied every principle of commercial liberty, proceeding upon the doctrine that the appro visionne- ment of a great capital required governmental initia- tive or interposition at every point. The regulations 98 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. I. Public regu- lation of trades. Existing agencies of supervision. The public- health motive. The central market. that governed the exercise of trades connected with the food-supply, and that prescribed prices, were so enforced as to bring butchering, baking, wine-selling, and other trades into the position of semi-public mo- nopolies. The spirit of all this regulative system has gradually changed. The administration continues to exercise large supervision, but commerce has been un- shackled, and the natural laws of trade are relied upon to secure for the Parisians a constant supply of food and drink at normal prices. The existing muni- cipal agencies seem to me to be highly commendable. Taken together, they comprise a large property in- vestment, and a series of elaborate and skilled admin- istrative services ; and they form a considerable source of municipal revenue. Whereas the ancient motive that governed public policy was to make sure of a sufficient and cheap food- supply, the present motive is to exercise an oversight for the public health and welfare. This surveillance de Talimentation is made comparatively easy by the municipal ownership of all markets, cattle-yards, and slaughter-houses, together with great entrep6ts, or storage-houses, chiefly used for wines and other drinks, and by the further fact of the octroi sys- tem, which makes possible a preliminary inspection of food-supplies from the health standpoint when at the city limits or in the railway stations they are ex- amined by the revenue officers of the municipal customs service. The market system of Paris is undergoing almost constant extensions, to the great benefit of the people. The Halles Centrales, a huge covered market of about twenty-two acres in the heart of the city, is the nucleus for the wholesale distribution every morning of the food-supplies that arrive in the night from all parts of France and from neighboring countries. In PAKIS: THE TYPICAL MODEEN CITY 99 due time this market will be served by an under- ground railway connecting with the belt lines. It has retail as well as wholesale pavilions, and is probably the greatest market in the world. It stands where pub- lic markets have for centuries been concentrated ; but the present buildings belong to the era of the Hauss- maun aggrandizements. The plans were adopted in 1854, and 50,000,000 francs were spent in carrying them out. The basements are great storage ware- houses. But the municipality also maintains cov- ered retail markets in all parts of the city, which are in daily operation, besides a number of open-air markets, with two or three market-days every week. The existence of nearly a hundred public markets, great and small, does not prevent a large number of magasinSj or private shops and stores, from dealing extensively, at wholesale and retail, in all kinds of alimentary supplies; but it is readily seen that the market system is a most wholesome regulator of prices, and that it benefits at the same time the work- ing-people of the metropolis and the gardeners and farmers of the vicinity. From concessions in the market places the city has an annual income of more than 8,000,000 francs. The concentration of the slaughtering business in a series of municipal abattoirs was a policy adopted early in the century, five such establishments superseding the hundreds of private slaughtering-sheds in which each butcher prepared his own beeves, sheep, and swine for the shambles. In this enlightened policy, as in so many others, Paris led where Europe and the civilized world have followed. The annexation of the suburbs in 1860 necessitated the suppression of pri- vate slaughter-houses in the new arrondissements ; and accordingly there was built in the Villette quarter, at the north of Paris, the immense abattoir general, in CHAP. I. The present buildings. A hundred other mar- kets. Municipal income from markets. Public abattoirs. 100 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. i. which since 1870 almost the entire business of slaugh- tering the metropolitan meat-supply has been con- centrated. Two of the five earlier abattoirs have a limited patronage, but La Villette holds the almost exclusive monopoly. Adjoining the huge abattoir are the municipal cattle-yards and markets, with accom- modations for scores of thousands of animals. Lately cattie-yards. there has been added a large establishment called the Sanatorium, in which animals subject for any reason to suspicion of infectious disease (particularly sheep from eastern Europe) are held in quarantine pending examination. The cattle trade is admitted to the use of the stock-yards on payment of moderate fees, while all butchers in like manner have access to the abat- toirs, subject to the proper regulations. This con- centration of the meat-supply, it need not be said, facilitates prompt and complete scientific inspection by the municipal health officers who are detailed to that particular task. It would not, of course, be poli- tic to exploit an abattoir monopoly for large public revenues. The average income from this source has for some years been about 3,000,000 francs, which is amply remunerative. The service of food inspection, which has its out-of- door staff stationed in the Halles, markets, and abat- toirs, or detailed to visit the bakeries, milk-shops, and various places where supplies are sold, is directed and supported in its work by a great chemical and bacteriological laboratory, which within a few years has grown into a position of prime importance in the administrative work of Paris. The city had been early to employ the best available engineering, archi- tectural, and other technical talent, and its discovery of the many valuable uses to which a modern scien- tific laboratory may be put was sure to come in due time. Until nearly 1880 the prefecture of police had Inspection facilitated. The muni- cipal labora- tory. PAEIS: THE TYPICAL MODERN CITY 101 maintained a force of so-called dfyustateurs, tasters, CHAP. i. as we should say, whose duty it was to go from boutique to boutique, from milk-shop to bake-shop, and The oid- fashioned from butcher to green- grocer, tasting and smelling "tasters." and prying in order to find adulterations or un- wholesome conditions. These tasters were the sub- jects of derision, violent abuse, petty bribery, num- berless complaints. The laboratory has substituted exact science for unreliable guessing 1 . Thousands of 4. 1 u ^-u A Replaced by specimens every year are taken by the department or chemists. submitted by individuals for analysis. When the milk examinations began in earnest in 1881, it was found that more than fifty per cent, of the specimens analyzed showed adulteration a most appalling cir- cumstance in view of the relation that pure milk improye- bears to child-life in a great city. In 1891 the milk miik supply. adulterations had fallen to less than ten per cent. The value of this improvement in the milk-supply is almost beyond computation. If the laboratory had done nothing else, this would have justified its crea- tion and cost a hundred times over. But the bread- supply, so essential to the Parisian poor, who al- ^ebake" most live upon the long loaves of the bake-shops, sh P 8 - has also been rendered very much more wholesome by the discovery, thanks to the municipal chemists, of various deleterious substances and processes. As for the wine of common consumption, its adultera- tion was found to be almost universal before 1880; but thousands of analyses, followed by swift ap- of wines. prehension of offenders, have quite transformed the character of the supply. In a hundred ways not at first anticipated, the municipal laboratory has come to the service of honest trade and to the protection of the consuming public. At a moderate price it is ready to make a prompt and authoritative analysis for any private applicant. As a rule, the irnperfec- 102 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUEOPE Favorable effect upon death-rate. CHAP. i. tions in food articles discovered since 1890 are of a far less serious nature than those found ten years earlier. Harmful substances are not often found to- day in the Parisian confections, whereas in 1880 such General ser- adulterations were usual. The laboratory makes hun- vices of the * laboratory, dreds of water analyses yearly, gives scientific aid to the practical service of disinfection, in several ways contributes to the work of improving the methods of sewage disposal and treatment, and, in short, lends itself quite indispensably to one phase or an- other of the work of almost every department of the municipal administration. Some of the most far-reaching measures for the promotion of the public health have not yet had time to accomplish results strikingly apparent in the statistics of the Parisian death-rate. The completion of the double water-supply, of the work of cesspool extinction, of the sewage-farm system, and of some other sanitary reforms, must, however, within a few years have a clear effect upon the bills of mortality. A very remarkable decline of typhoid fever has already followed the measures of sanitary ameliora- tion that have been pursued, so that the deaths from this cause in the decade from 1882 to 1892 were not nearly half as many as in the preceding decade, while in the most recent years the typhoid scourge has seemed to be nearing the point of extinction. Public charity, centrally administered as one vast, unified department under the name of U Assistance The work of Publique d Paris, has absorbed and systematized al- charity. most every important form and agency of relief and succor. The charitable work of ecclesiastical and benevolent societies and of private individuals, large as it must be in the aggregate, lies in the back- ground without much pretense of organization or Decline of typhoid fever. PAEIS: THE TYPICAL MODERN CITY 103 thoroughness, and is carried on with fewer establish- CHAP. i. ments and institutions than one finds in English or American cities. To the Assistance Publique, with a (( scope of large council of administration and a single executive head, belong (1) the great hospitals of Paris ; (2) the homes, asylums, and retreats for the aged poor, the orphaned or friendless children, and special groups of the defective and dependent classes; and (3) the supervision and support of outdoor or domiciliary relief, whether in the form of medical attendance, temporary succor with money, food, or fuel, or regu- lar and permanent aid at home in lieu of support in an institution. Overlapping of charitable work is prevented by this unified administration, and there results a more prompt and more universal alleviation of distress than could otherwise be secured, with a minimum of extravagance or abuse. This huge consolidation of relief work is the out- growth of several centuries of varied experience, and it reached its completed form in about the year 1850. consoiida- The laws of the Revolutionary period had transferred 16 the administration of hospitals and public charity from semi-ecclesiastical to purely civil and secular auspices. But hospitals and asylums remained for a long time under a management quite distinct from that of the ordinary distribution of alms or medical succor to the poor in their homes or at local dispen- saries. The law of 1849 united all these forms of public relief in one general administration, although the various services are highly differentiated. Under the control and surveillance of the central Assistance Publique there exists in every arrondissement a The '' 1 ?"" ^ " reaux de bien- Bureau de Bienfaisance, with headquarters in the faisance." mairie building; and in this bureau is concentrated the practical work of poor relief for the arrondisse- ment concerned. Attached to it are the neighbor- 104 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. I. General or- ganization. A great char- ity board. Membership of the body. Represent- ative sys- tem. hood visitors, who know the people and are known by them, and through whom the deserving poor are likely to find prompt assistance. But I shall mention more particularly the bureaux de bienfaisance after describing the organization of the central Assistance Publique. The entire administration is under the authority of the prefect of the Seine and his superior, the Minister of the Interior, and is actively exercised by a single responsible director, who is nominated by the prefect and appointed by the minister. But the director is guided in all important matters by the advice of a council of surveillance, which is required by law to meet as often as once every fifteen days, and which may be called together as frequently as occasion re- quires. In the hands of this great board of public charity rests the policy that expends a yearly revenue of perhaps thirty million francs. The composition of the board is highly characteristic of the Parisian system. It has twenty members, including the pre- fect of the Seine and the prefect of police by virtue of their offices. The prefect of the Seine is president of the board. Of the remaining eighteen, thirteen are delegates from other bodies, and five are directly appointed from without. The thirteen must include two members of the municipal council, two naaires or adjoint-maires of arrondissements, two representa- tives of the local bureaux de bienfaisance, one repre- sentative of the Council of State, one of the Court of Cassation, a hospital physician, a hospital surgeon, a professor of the faculty of medicine, a member of the chamber of commerce, and a member of one of the councils of prucPhommes. These various bodies pre- sent lists of candidates when places are to be filled, and the selection is made by the President of the Republic on recommendation of the Minister of the PARIS: THE TYPICAL MODERN CITY 105 Interior. The five remaining members are directly CHAP. i. appointed. Membership in all cases (except those of the two prefects) is for a term of six years, and one third of the eighteen retire every two years, with indefinite reeligibility. The high character of this board is thus assured by the very nature of its com- position. Under its enlightened surveillance every feature of the work of public charity makes steady progress, and every new scientific or sociological development finds just recognition. It does not belong to my account of organization and of method to give a list of the splendid series of general and special hospitals, hospices, asylums, and retreats that are maintained by the Assistance Pub- lique. But I may verv properly remark upon the , . * c , . Hospitals great expansion and improvement of the series in and asylums the period since 1872. All in all, they contain ac- commodations for about thirty thousand patients and inmates. One of the chief innovations of recent years has been the gradual but rapid transformation of the hospitals from a religious to a secular basis. The nurses and chief attendants until after 1881 were supplied by various religious orders. The j^^ municipal authorities have preferred to substitute the service. their own regularly trained professional nurses for the members of the religious sisterhoods. Several training-schools were opened in connection with the great hospitals, and one by one the institutions have been completely laicized, until the religieuses are left only in a few places where their presence is expressly required by the terms of bequests and donations. The medical and surgical services of the hospitals and asvlums are of the highest repute, and it greatly Medical and - . A- -L. A. j surgical or- enhances a professional reputation to be connected with the hospitals. Admission to these services is based upon competitive examination, and the physi- 106 MUNICIPAL GOVEENMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. i. Outside re- lief work. "Medical secours a domicile." cians and surgeons are content to receive very small pay. A great number of special laboratories are maintained in the hospitals, and every encouragement is given to the professional staff to make researches ^at w ^ a( ^ to the world's knowledge of diseases and their treatment. To this end, also, a remarkable series of medical libraries is maintained, and a yearly appropriation is made to subsidize members of the staff who are detailed to pursue investigations in other countries. The instruction given in the schools for nurses is especially complete and thorough, and in a variety of ways the hospital administration lends itself to the advancement of professional skill and knowledge, and to the progress of scientific surgery, medicine, and hygiene. The minute organization of the charity depart- ment makes it easy in practice to ascertain through prompt inquiries what applicants are entitled to free hospital treatment, what applicants are able to pay, what persons are entitled to free medical aid in their own domiciles, and so on. In general it is the ac- cepted policy to admit to institutions none who can be cared for outside. For nearly all the purposes of this outside relief work, the Assistance Publique avails itself of the cooperation of the several bureaux de bieufaisance of the arrondissements. Each arron- dissement has its corps of resident physicians at- tached to the service of medical secours d domicile. It is held to be an honor and a mark of professional prestige to serve the community in this capacity, and when a four years' appointment is to be made, the practising physicians of the arrondissement are all called together to elect a candidate by ballot. It is enough to remark of this system that it tends to secure for the poor in their homes an attentive and skilful ministry of medical relief. Midwives, in like manner, appertain to each bureau de bienfaisance. PARIS: THE TYPICAL MODERN CITY 107 The maire, it has been explained, sits as chairman of the arrondissement charity board, or bureau de bienfaisance, which has its offices in the raairie build- ing, accessible to the whole neighborhood. Besides the maire the bureau is composed of twelve adminis- trateurs, half of whom are appointed by the prefect and half by the municipal council, and who are re- eligible on expiration of their two-year terms. These official members of the bureau associate with them- selves an indefinite number of well-disposed men and women willing to aid in household visitation of the poor ; and these are known as commissaires de charite" and dames de charite. For purposes of poor relief the arrondissement is divided into twelve sections, each one of which is assigned to an administrateur, who in turn may command the aid of several of the dames or commissaires de charite. Still further, in each arrondissement there are several so-called maisons de secours (houses of relief), which are headquarters of sisters of charity who minister to the sick and carry- on at still closer quarters much of the practical work of the bureau de bienfaisance. I have endeavored to make it clear that the whole structure of the twenty Parisian bureaux de bienfaisance is so designed as to render it reasonably certain that in the actual relief of the poor the unpaid services of trustworthy neigh- bors may be secured, rather than those of perfunctory officials. It is also intended that the small districts may insure complete supervision and intimate know- ledge of conditions. In recent years no part of the work of assistance publique has been more carefully developed than that which relates to the rescue, maintenance, and proper instruction of friendless children. It is possible that the low birth-rate in France has had something to do with the awakening of a special- solicitude for every child of French parentage a feeling that has be- CHAP. I. The "bien- faisance " system. Volunteer members. Neighborly ministra- tions in small dis- tricts. Care of friendless children. 108 CHAP. 1. The city's wards in country homes. Sources of charitable income. Tax on theater tickets. Municipal appropria- tions. Emergency services. MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE come embodied in public policy. In the case of every unfortunate child, the State, as represented by the Assistance Publique a Paris, aims to be very much more than a grudging stepfather. Its efforts are destined to produce some interesting results in the field of the physical and mental training of children. Besides thousands placed in industrial schools and otherwise provided for, many thousands more are every year sent to country homes, where the au- thorities maintain a general surveillance over them. Thus, in any given year the Paris officials in charge of enfants assistes have on their active lists some thirty thousand children distributed as apprentices to farmers. The Assistance Publique a Paris has through lega- cies and gifts acquired a considerable endowment, and its income from invested funds is several million francs. It is also the recipient almost every day of new bequests or donations available for some part of its current expenditure. Many of the particular bureaux de bienfaisance also have endowment funds of their own. Moreover, there are certain special sources of revenue set apart for the charity adminis- tration, one of them being a tax of ten per cent, on the cost of all theater tickets and on the gross rev- enue of all places of amusement. This particular source yields a yearly charitable income of from three to four million francs. The municipal council votes annual appropriations, averaging about twenty million francs, to make the revenues of the Bureau of Assistance Publique equal to its necessities. In a remarkable variety of ways the Parisian mu- nicipality has in very recent years attempted to play the r61e of prompt friend and servitor to its people in times of emergency and special misfortune. The PARIS: THE TYPICAL MODERN CITY 109 stations along the river and canals, and elsewhere in the central districts, for life-saving services and in- stant succor in cases of drowning or street accidents, form a well-known instance. Much less known, but far more important, is the service of night medical and surgical relief, organized in every neighborhood of the metropolis, and responding each year to a rapidly increasing demand. Municipal lodging-houses have in the past been no part of the Parisian policy ; but an experimental be- ginning was made in 1886, and there are now three institutions in service, two for men and one for women, with the prospect of a further development of the system. These Parisian lodging-houses (refuges de nuit) are absolutely free of all charge to their guests, French policy in this regard being entirely different from that of the British cities. Care is taken not to admit vagabonds or unworthy charac- ters, the intention being to afford shelter to hon- est laborers who are seeking work. Such men are permitted to come for three successive nights. None are admitted who have not been residents of Paris for some time. The two establishments have a capa- city of perhaps six hundred per night. Their facili- ties for laundry work and disinfection are complete, and each guest is provided with a change of clothing while present. Soup is served at night, and bread is given to every one in the morning. All possible as- sistance is lent in the quest for employment. Thus, in the course of every year the city dispenses hospi- tality to thousands of honest men in temporary need. The lodging-house for working-women is of a dif- ferent character, inasmuch as it allows necessitous women to bring children with them, and affords them shelter and care as long as the exigency requires, the average sojourn being nearly a month. Until CHAP. I. Night medi- cal relief. Municipal lodging- houses. A generous hospitality. A transient home for working- women. 110 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. I. Subventions to creches. Advance of rent-money. An agricul- tural colony. The policy to be ex- tended. they can obtain employment elsewhere they are given something to do in the lodging-house. Those who enter this place are, in good faith, women who are ac- customed to earn their own living by honest labor. By subventions from the municipal treasury the city council aids in the maintenance of the numer- ous creches which render free service to so many working-women of Paris. Another interesting form of aid which the city council promotes very liberally is the advance of rent-money in cases where worthy families, through illness or other misfortune, have been evicted by their landlords, and have no means with which to engage a new domicile. This, ob- viously, is a kind of charity that calls for great dis- cretion. But through the minute and thorough organization of the bureaux de bienfaisance it is quite possible to render such aid, as a temporary loan in deserving instances, and to withhold it where its application would be unwise. From fifteen to twenty thousand families each year are helped in this way. In 1891 the municipality began the experiment of an agricultural colony on a farm that it had acquired at Chalmelle, in the department of Marne. It had found among Paris paupers a considerable element of men who had come to the city from the rural districts, and had gone completely to the wall. The agricultural colony is proving to be the best place for such men, and the experiment is to be extended so as to embrace families (single men only have here- tofore been admitted), and separate cottages with gardens are to be allotted to such families. It is expected that the farm colony will serve as the door- way through which many men that have failed in the city can be successfully reabsorbed into the agri- cultural life of France, or else equipped for a new start in one of the French dependencies. PARIS: THE TYPICAL MODERN CITY 111 Free bureaus of employment are now maintained in the mairies of most of the arrondissements of Paris, and the municipal council votes a subven- tion each year toward their support. Private citi- zens who have the time and means, and who are generously disposed toward the workingmen of their neighborhoods, give much voluntary, unpaid service to the management of these local labor ex- changes. The results are beneficent in various ways. As a crowning evidence of its devotion to the cause of labor, the Paris municipal council determined, in 1886, to establish a great Bourse du Travail, or central labor exchange. This institution was completed and opened in 1892, about two mil- lion francs having been expended upon it. It became at once the headquarters of all the trades-unions and labor bodies in Paris, not less than eighty -two trades being represented through the appointed agents of their societies. The municipal council votes fifty thousand francs a year toward the maintenance of the institution, and it is believed that the Bourse will prove in many ways promotive of the well-being of Parisian artisans, and of the industrial and commer- cial progress of the metropolis. Such an official recognition by the municipal gov- ernment of the organized workingmen's bodies, it should be remembered, grows out of a French policy the roots of which sink deep into the practices of the middle ages. Under the old regime all matters affect- ing wages and industry were settled by the tribunals of the trades guilds and merchant bodies. These cor- porations disappeared in the vortex of the great Revolution ; but, as to some of their attributes and functions, they were virtually reestablished in the early days of the present century in the form of tri- bunals of commerce and covtseils des prud'hommes. In all large towns the municipal government became CHAP. I. Free em- ployment offices in the mairies. The central labor ex- change. Municipal subvention. Government and labor unions. 112 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. I. Councils of " prud'- hommes." Organization at Paris. Trades unions may bid for pub- lic work. The public pawnshop. responsible for the support of these special tribunals for the prompt adjustment of differences arising in the course of trade and industry. In the conseils des prud'hommes the employers and the workingmen are allowed exactly equal representation. The sys- tem inevitably encourages the organization of distinct trades and crafts in unions. The prud'hommes in Paris are in four distinct councils, one of which be- longs to the building trades, one to textile industries, one to chemical and kindred manufactures, and one to metal industries and miscellaneous crafts. From twenty-five thousand to thirty thousand cases are brought before these Paris prud'hommes every year, most of the cases relating to differences about wages, and the great majority are promptly ad- justed by conciliation without appreciable cost. It would seem likely that the erection of the new labor bourse would tend to the strengthening of such com- mendable agencies as the conseils des prud'hommes, and that it would also contribute toward the solu- tion of the problem how to prevent strikes. It is worth while to mention the fact that the mu- nicipal council several years ago voted to allow asso- ciations of workingmen to make bids for public work let by contract, thus in a still different way recogniz- ing the labor organizations, while offering encourage- ment to cooperative efforts. No department of local administration has entered more thoroughly into the customs and the life of the common people of Paris than the Mont-de-Pttti, or public pawnshop. It is a venerable institution, for it was first established in 1777. But it has so adapted its methods to changing conditions that no one would think of considering it obsolescent or antiquated. On the contrary, it was never so strong or so vital as PAEIS: THE TYPICAL MODERN CITY 113 in these last years of the nineteenth century. The services that it renders the great Parisian commu- nity are exceedingly creditable to the humane instincts and sound business sense that have made modern French administration superior in its conservation of the popular wealth. The mont-de-pie'te was established to protect the people from the usurers. Private pawnbroking was obviously a public evil, an aggravation of poverty, and too often an ally of all sorts of crimes against property. At the outset the new venture was placed under the auspices and control of the hospital and charity administration. It was signally useful dur- ing the period of economic disturbance that attended and followed the great Revolution. Its plan from the first has been to receive interest-bearing time de- posits, somewhat like a savings-bank, and to use the money thus obtained in loaning upon chattels. Its object has not been to earn net revenues, although it has always allowed a safe margin of profit, and has thus accumulated ample reserve funds, besides pro- viding itself with suitable buildings and appliances. Besides a great central establishment and three large auxiliaries, the mont-de-piete possesses twenty branches, in different parts of Paris, for the conve- nience of the people of the various quarters. The number of articles upon which loans were made for the year 1892 was 2,276,149, and the amount loaned was 60,765,917 francs. Thus the public pawnshop, upon the average, makes a loan each year of about 25 francs to every man, woman, and child of Paris. Formerly the loans were made at the rate of 9 per cent, per annum, with a small added charge of ap- praisal, etc., and 4J per cent, was paid upon yearly deposits. But beginning with 1885 there have been gradual reductions until borrowers have now to pay CHAP. I. Objects of the mont-de- piete. General method. Branches, and volume of business. Rates for loans and deposits. 114 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. I. Benefits to small bor- rowers. Profits only on large loans. Removal of maximum. only at the rate of 6 per cent., with a fixed charge of 1 per cent, to cover insurance upon the articles pledged and certain other expenses. The mont-de- piete is able to secure all the money it requires at 3J per cent, upon yearly deposits, and 2 or even 2 per cent, upon deposits for shorter periods. A great advantage to the poor that arises from the public monopoly of pawnbroking is the low rate upon small loans. Obviously, at the 6 per cent, yearly rate all very small loans (and the mont-de- piete lends as small a sum as 3 francs) are made at a loss to the institution. That is to say, if it were not for the profit upon the half -million largest loans, it would be impossible to make the remaining two mil- lion loans at the existing rate. Loans smaller than 22 francs are made at a loss, even though they are outstanding for years. Loans of 85 francs are profit- able, even if they are made for only one month. Some profit is made on all loans of a larger amount, no matter how short the time. But since the average of all loans is from 25 to 30 francs (the average vary- ing year by year), it is evident that the great majority are made at a loss, and that the mont-de-piete is thus a boon to the poor. Formerly there was a limit fixed upon the amount that could be borrowed by any one person ; but this limit has now been removed, experience having shown that the institution is financially strong enough to meet all possible demands, and that the increase of large loans makes it the easier to give advantageous terms to the small borrowers. This removal of the maximum has greatly increased the usefulness of the institution to merchants and business men. In 1892 an innovation was adopted which has al- ready been attended with the most satisfactory results. This was the loaning of sums not to exceed 500 francs PAEIS: THE TYPICAL MODERN CITY 115 upon stocks and bonds. To appreciate the significance CHAP. i. of this step it should be remembered that public loans in France are issued in bonds of small denomination, Loans on which form the favorite investment for the savings shares. of employees, artisans, small shopkeepers, and thrifty servants. Many people of this class, for example, own one Paris municipal bond or Credit Foncier bond of 400 or 500 francs. The Bank of France had always adhered to the rule of making no loans smaller than Usefulness 500 francs. Private money-lenders could not always vatum. be relied upon to deal equitably with the borrower of small sums on shares of stock. The mont-de-pietS now grants loans on this class of securities at 6 per cent, to a grateful constituency. As an illustration of the service rendered by this new department of the mont-de-piete, let us suppose that Jacques owns one share, or titre, of Paris muni- cipal stock, and that he has further accumulated 300 HOW it 7 works in francs in the municipal savings-bank at a time when practice. a desirable new loan is issued by the municipality, in which Jacques has a laudable ambition to invest. Such is his aversion to the high rates and devious ways of private money-lenders that he would not have ventured to hypothecate his precious titre in order to obtain 100 francs. But he has perfect confidence, as every Pari- sian has, in the mont-de-piete. He deposits his titre, borrows his 100 francs, withdraws the 300 from the savings-bank, goes to the mairie of his arrondissement, and secures his new 400-franc city bond. As soon as he has saved 100 francs he redeems the pledged titre ; and the accommodation has cost him only half a franc per month. Obviously, this arrangement is promotive of private thrift on the one hand, and stimulative on the other hand of the popular market for municipal bonds and various public or quasi-public securities. This public monopoly of pawnshops, far from abet- 116 MUNICIPAL GOVEENMENT IN EUEOPE CHAP. i. ting theft, has proved a chief agency in helping the police authorities to detect and prevent stealing. It infrequency j s said that about 360,000 watches are received as of stolen pledges every year by the Paris mont-de-piete, and that only about 250, or 7 in every 10,000, prove to have been stolen. This is an amazing record j yet it is further true that the mont-de-piete receives three times as many stolen watches as all other stolen ar- ticles put together. These figures express the results of a system of vigilant and painstaking cooperation between the mont-de-piete and the police authorities that would require pages for any detailed description. The mont-de-piete is under the responsible manage- ment of a single director, with an elaborate organiza- tion of subordinates. Its affairs have the surveillance Make-up of themont-de- of a council of administration of which the prefect of cu. the Seine is ex-officio president, the prefect of police being also a member. Besides the two prefects, there are nine others, of whom three must be members of the municipal council, three must be connected with the Assistance Publique or the bureaux de bienfaisance, and the remaining three must be citizens of Paris, and may or may not be holding other official positions. The appointments are for six years, three members retiring biennially. Vacancies are filled by the Min- ister of the Interior, who designates his choice from a list of three names presented by the prefect. The ac- tive director is selected in the same way. The council, as constituted in practice, is thoroughly representative of the official municipal life of Paris, and the mont-de- piete is thus kept in close and harmonious relation- ship with the central authorities of the Hotel de Ville and with the neighborhood administration of the ar- rondissements and the mairies. A good system of savings-banks is much more than a convenience to the prudent and economical of a PARIS: THE TYPICAL MODERN CITY 117 community. It is a powerful promoter of thrift, CHAP.I. and a constant enemy of extravagance and improvi- dence. The multiplication of savings-banks through- The savings- out France municipal and private systems as well as France. the branches of the national postal system is a fac- tor of prime importance in the conservation of the na- tional wealth. Paris is elaborately served by a series of branches belonging to this national system (Caisse d'fipargne Nationale); but it has also a distinct muni- cipal system of earlier date and of still greater local TWO sys- irnportanee. The Caisse d'fipargne et de Prevoyance fans, de Paris, as the local system is called, is managed by an appointed board of directors who serve without pay of any kind, and who are chosen from among the most distinguished financiers of Paris. Besides its great central establishment in the Rue Coq-Heron, it has branches in the mairies of the different arrondisse- . 1 lip l^alSSG ments and in the suburban communes. It has, in all d ' E .? ar s i * e ? and its forty forty places of business, for the convenience of the branches. people of the greater Paris. The number of individual accounts increases every year. There were 582,000 at the beginningof 1890, and this number had increased to nearly 630,000 at the opening of 1893. Thus one per- son in every four of the population keeps an account in the Caisse d'fipargne. The total amount deposited was nearly 160,000,000 francs on January 1, 1893, and the average credit was 250 francs. Nearly half, how- ever, of the depositors had accounts of less than 25 francs. These statistics do not include the business of the Paris offices of the national savings-bank system. National This branch of the postal administration is compara- h^ba^ks tively young. In 1882 its total deposits at Paris were only seven million francs, while in 1892 they were, in round figures, sixty-eight million six hundred thousand francs. The average credit of each deposi- 8* 118 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUEOPE CHAP. I. A million Parisian depositors. School branches of the munici- pal savings- bank. tor in this national postal system, which uses the branch post-offices of Paris as depositories, is much smaller than in the municipal system, but the actual number of patrons is about as large. Thus it would appear to be a very conservative reckoning to place the number of individual Parisians who have savings- bank credits, under one system or the other, at more than a million. The funds are invested for the most part in public securities; and the interest paid to depositors, which was formerly at a higher rate, is now generally at three, three and one fourth, or three and one half per cent. As long ago as 1875 the savings-bank feature was introduced into the elementary schools of Paris; and since that time about two hundred and twenty-five different schools have, through their teachers, taught practical thrift by means of pupils' branches (fipargne Scolaire) of the Caisse d'fipargne de Paris. The sums that poor children at school can deposit in savings-banks are almost infinitesimal, and the sys- tem is carried on for the educational value it seems to possess. Nevertheless, the fipargne Scolaire now collects about one hundred and fifty thousand francs a year; and from 1875 to 1893 it had paid over to the main institution about two million francs of children's deposits. Though it is only a minor incident in the work of the Parisian school system, the Epargne Scolaire is Education significant as pointing to the exceedingly practical mos^teskof relation elementary instruction is made to bear in Paris toward the part that the citizen must play in life. Indeed, if I were asked what, upon the whole, I considered the largest, most modern, and most es- sentially characteristic of all the departments or undertakings of the Parisian municipal authorities, the Paris municipal- ity. PAEIS: THE TYPICAL MODEEN CITY 119 schools. I should be inclined to ascribe first place to the work CHAP. i. of public instruction. The new policy began with the present republic, at the end of the Franco-Prus- sian war. In 1873 five or six per cent, of the young Parisians examined for military duty were absolutely illiterate. In 1893 the illiterates had fallen below one per cent. Elementary instruction before 1870 was, for the most part, under ecclesiastical auspices, and it was ill supported and wholly inadequate. The religious orders still maintain their separate educa- tional work, and there are also many private schools ; but the regular system of secular municipal public schools has vastly outgrown all rivals. Education, between the ages of six and fourteen, has been abso- lutely compulsory in France since 1881, and also per- fectly free. Not only is instruction given without charge, but books and all other materials are freely supplied. For the smallest children there exists a system of so-called maternal schools (ecoles maternelles), which nai schools. are, in effect, kindergartens. Attendance is not com- pulsory, but it is free; and these schools are so de- lightfully conducted that they are an inexpressible boon to the families of the poor. There are about two hundred of these free maternal schools in Paris, with from fifty to sixty thousand little pupils under six years of age. To bridge the somewhat abrupt transition from the tender and indulgent methods of the mistresses of the e"coles maternelles to the more formal and rigid system that prevails in the enLntnes." S regular primary schools, it has been found well to establish a system of so-called enfantile schools for children between six and eight. These are only for the more timid, sensitive, or backward. They serve an admirable purpose for thousands of children every year. 120 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. i. Of course the main feature of the school system is the series of primary schools. For the year 1892 The regular there were more than one hundred and fifty-six thou- schoois. sand children in these primary schools, of whom eighty-five thousand were boys and seventy-one thou- sand were girls. The number of schools was approxi- mately four hundred, of which half were for boys and half for girls ; and besides some four hundred prin- cipals, almost equally divided between men and women, there were more than two thousand six hundred teachers, of whom half were men and half women. In private schools, clerical and otherwise, there were 91,500 children. Thus, including the ecoles inaternelles and the public and private primary schools, there were attendance, nearly 310,000 children enrolled in the Paris schools in 1892, not counting those in the secondary, special, and higher institutions. More than 61,000 of the scholars attending private schools were girls. The gain of the public schools has been constant, and the parochial institutions, conducted by the religious or- ders, seem destined to decline from year to year. The strictly educational aspects of the work and methods of the Paris schools are certainly worth at- tention, but their detail does not belong to my present theme. Since, however, these schools are the prime solicitude of the municipal council, and deemed by all the local authorities as at the very heart of the work of the municipal government, I may properly note some of their special features. And first it may be explained that the schools of each of the twenty ar- organization rondissements fall under the general care of an ar- of school _ . . i i , i -I i system, rondissement commission, over which the local maire presides, the other members being appointed by the municipal council, excepting that the Academic has a representative. The whole system is held together PAEIS: THE TYPICAL MODERN CITY 121 and assimilated under a scheme of governmental in- spection and management. It is enough to say that the municipal council, the prefectoral administration, and the national ministry of education provide all the necessary oversight ; while in the arroudissements and the school districts themselves there are local organiza- tions that bring the citizens and the parents into close and active relations with the public schools. Under these circumstances it has been easy to carry out a series of very interesting innovations. One of these new things is an elaborate service of medical inspection. Perhaps one hundred and fifty physicians are connected with this service, and they visit all schools regularly and frequently to report upon general sanitary conditions, to watch for cases of con- tagious disease, and to care for any children needing medical attention. Medical school dispensaries have now also been recently established in most of the ar- rondissements, as an extension of the earlier service of attendance and inspection, and school baths have in a number of instances been opened. A particularly attractive and humane experiment, begun in 1889, has proved itself a bright success. This is the system of garderies, or classes de garde, for small children whose parents are employed away from home during the day. In many cases the instances were numbered by the thousand young pupils were released at four, while their parents could not return from their work for two hours or more. Such chil- dren are now kept in custody by some one connected with their school, are allowed to play under safe con- ditions, and are sent home at the proper hour. In some arrondissements the garderies assume charge of such children in the morning as well as at night ; and they are always responsible for the safe-keeping and the happiness of their infant clientele on each Thurs- CHAP. I. Various in- novations. Medical in- spection of schools. Dispensaries and baths. The " gar- deries " ex- periment. 122 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE at school. CHAP. i. day holiday. In 1891 there were 72 of these garderies, with 4318 children under their care 5 and the num- bers have much increased since that time. A far more expensive experiment, though not less firmly established as the result of experience, is that of providing a warm noon meal at school for the Warm meals * benefit of poor children who would otherwise have little or nothing to eat during the school day. Many children go to their homes for the noon meal, but the majority remain at school. The cantines scolaires provide warm meals gratuitously to those whose pa- rents are not able to pay, and charge others at the rate of ten centimes (two American cents, or one English penny) for each meal. A uniform ticket system is used in such a way that the children themselves can- not recognize any distinction between those who are fed gratuitously and those who pay. The system was begun in 1882, and it has grown steadily in favor and support. In 1891 there were between eight million and nine million meals served, considerably more than half of them (nearly sixty per cent.) being gratuitous. The plan rests too firmly upon common sense to be abandoned. Physical as well as mental development is the object of the schools, and in any case free text- books and good instruction would be wasted upon a poor child suffering from the bitter pangs of hunger. Obviously, the teachers could not manage all these extra services without much outside assistance. In point of fact, the cantines scolaires, or school restau- rants, are in charge of auxiliary organizations known as caisses des fooles (school treasuries). Originally the caisse d'ecole was an informal association of the adult friends of a particular school, each member of which contributed a few francs a year for prizes, for acts of charity to poor children, and for various pur- poses promotive of the excellence of the schools and An established success. The school treasury organiza- tions. PAEIS: THE TYPICAL MODERN CITY 123 the well-being of the children. But so valuable did they prove themselves that they were some years ago recognized and established by law. The municipal council subsidizes them heavily, and makes them re- sponsible for a constantly increasing number of ser- vices. The governing board of each caisse contains several ex-officio members, including the local maire and other functionaries ; but the members themselves elect from their own body a controlling majority of the board. It is through the caisses des e"coles that parents of school-children, and all other friends of elementary education, find their best opportunity to come into contact with the life and work of the schools. Each regular member contributes a fixed yearly fee, usu- ally ten or fifteen francs ; while an order of life mem- bers, called founders (fondatewrs), includes those who have paid in advance a specified sum, usually rang- ing from one hundred to two hundred francs. Then there are the donateurs (donors), who subscribe from year to year without being held to any definite amount. The sum total of the fees, together with the amounts that are raised by concerts and enter- tainments of various kinds, gives each caisse a consid- erable fund of its own. The managers of the caisse are able to ascertain accurately the circumstances and home conditions of every child in the district. Out of their fund they see that shoes are provided for those who need them, and, in fact, that all school- children are comfortably and decently attired. They~ possess the knowledge which is required for a wise distribution of the free meal tickets. They are also in a position to determine what children require the- kindly attentions of the garderies. Moreover, in many instances the good offices of the school caisse are car- ried into the homes of poverty to relieve sick parents. CHAP. I. Established by law. Sources of income. Their vari- ous good offices. 124 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. I. Municipal promotion of children's sports. School va- cation trips and camps. Boarding- schools as a new feature of the sys- tem. Rapid in- crease of the " internals." Upon this excellent foundation other social services to poor and deserving children have been undertaken by the Paris municipality. Thus, a number of direc- tors of sports are regularly employed, and on holi- days in the parks and playgrounds the young Pari- sians are now being officially inducted into the kinds of outdoor games and exercises that only a few years ago they knew so little about. Every year the city council votes a handsome sum of money to pay for the management of school vacation trips into the country; and an important system of school camps and colonies has been established, its object being to send a large number of sickly children of the work- ing-class into the country in summer. In 1882 the year from which date most of the recent developments and innovations in the French school system it was determined to introduce the boarding-school feature into the Paris schools, for the benefit of widowers or of other parents or guardians whose occupations made it difficult to maintain a suitable home environment for small children. Six hundred francs a year was found to be the cost of boarding and clothing a child in one of the internats primaires, and the municipality consented to pay the remainder if thirty-five francs per month were ad- vanced by the parents or guardians. In 1892 this payment was reduced to ten francs or twenty francs, according to the pecuniary circumstances of the persons responsible for the child. At the beginning of 1893 there were seventy-five of these internats, giving homes to about a thousand school-children between the ages of six and thirteen. Under the new ten-franc and twenty-franc monthly rates, the num- ber has increased very materially, and in 1894 the municipality appropriated approximately one million francs to pay its share of the cost of placing some two thousand children in the internats primaires. PAEIS: THE TYPICAL MODEEN CITY 125 The municipal council and the educational author- ities have recognized the necessity of regular physical culture as well as of outdoor sport and recreation ; and they have made the gymnasium, under professional instruction, a universal feature of the Paris schools. Manual training, also, in the use of common tools has been recognized for its educational value and for its practical bearings, and there are nearly 150 ateliers or workshops connected with the boys' elementary schools, in which regular instruction is given. Mean- while, the girls receive corresponding instruction in needlework and the domestic arts. An attempt is made to give very special attention to music in all the elementary schools. But it is the sys- tem of instruction in drawing and design that is most noteworthy. No effort or expense is spared to awaken the art instinct and to develop some degree of tech- nical skill in the future artisans of Paris. But it is in the continuation schools that the practical purpose of the municipal authorities is most plainly evident. Manual training, the rudiments of design, familiarity with common tools, these can be taught in the primary schools; and Paris since about 1880 has expended many millions of francs in establishing these new departures in elementary education. From the primary school the pupil may at thirteen go into a trade as an apprentice, and provision is made for the continuance of his studies either in half -day classes or in night-schools. If he is destined for a scholar, for a place in the civil service, or for a calling that requires further intellectual training, he may go into one of the ecoles primaires suprieures, or public high schools. These are admirable institutions, which need no de- scription here. But if, on the other hand, the pupil be destined for a skilled trade, there is ready for him a series of magnificent ecoles professionnelles munici- pales, which furnish technical education of the most CHAP. I. The gymna- sium in all schools. School work- shop for manual training. Music and drawing. The high schools. 126 MUNICIPAL GOVEENMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. I. Technical education. The special trade schools. Kelation of these schools to Parisian prosperity. desirable character, adapted directly to the trades that are prosperously domiciled in Paris. One of these schools (Ecole Diderot) is devoted to the group of trades that pertain to the working of wood and iron ; another (Ecole Bernard-Palissy) to the decorative arts i. e., to the application of fine arts to industry ; still an- other to the trades that rest upon applications of chem- istry and physics ; another to the furniture and uphol- stering industry; another includes all such callings as printing, lithography, bookbinding, photography, photogravure, and the many new mechanical branches of the reproductive arts; and there are still others. Besides the group of technical schools for boys, there are several for girls, in which dressmaking, millinery, and various other industrial arts, as well as the do- mestic ones, are thoroughly taught. American and English visitors at the Exposition of 1889 will remember the remarkable display of the Paris industrial schools, especially in lines of deco- rative manufacture and art. It is in these schools that Parisian dressmakers, milliners, artificial-flower makers, furniture designers, house decorators, skilled workers in metals, and handicraftsmen in scores of lines of industry are educated to do the things that keep Paris prosperous and rich. The Exposition of the year 1900 will have much more to present; for these technical schools are constantly improving un- der the fostering care of the municipal government. It is public money wisely spent that maintains such an educational system. I need not refer to the higher schools of science, of classics and literature, and of engineering. All the flowers of civilization are en- couraged by the Paris municipality. No complete impression of the extent to which in- struction in the practical arts is carried by the Pari- sians could be given without some mention of the great PARIS: THE TYPICAL MODEEN CITY 127 number of popular societies and non-governmental agencies which are engaged in furthering the scientific, commercial, and industrial education of adult workers. Some of the largest of these societies for example, the Association Philotechnique are subsidized by the city council. This particular association, founded in 1848, enjoys in its free night courses the unremuner- ated services of more than five hundred accomplished professors drawn from the various higher educational institutions that are centered at Paris. The state and the municipality give the use of school buildings, and various public bodies make grants and donations to aid the cause. More than ten thousand adult workers are taught every year in the admirable special courses of the Philotechnique. Then there must be mentioned the Association Polytechnique, which is more indepen- dently conducted by the workingmen themselves, and which has about twenty-five sections in Paris, with more than four hundred courses, taught by talented men of all callings and professions, who are glad to give their services. The Union Franchise de la Jeu- nesse, a third of these associations, enjoys official aid and recognition, and carries on several hundred classes in Paris every year. And besides these there are scores of smaller societies whose educational work in the ag- gregate counts for a great deal. Thus, scores of thou- sands of the working-people of Paris are enjoying some measure of instruction that tends to improve the ar- tistic and technical character of their products. In many industrial neighborhoods of Paris there have been opened, since 1886, special workingmen's libraries of industrial art. Lecture courses are pro- vided in connection with these libraries, and costly works are loaned to artisans for home study. The experiment is accounted a most satisfactory one in its results. It is under direct municipal management. CHAP. I. Voluntary societies for technical in- struction. Association Philotech- nique. Association Polytech- nique. Other kin- dred move- ments. Libraries of industrial art. 128 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUEOPE CHAP. I. Activity in the library movement. The school libraries. The sixty-six municipal libraries. Central li- brary bureau. Indeed, in few directions has the municipality of Paris been more active during the past decade than in the promotion of libraries. Paris happens to con- tain, besides the national library, two or three great reference collections of books ; and the recent move- ment has not been so much in the direction of central- ized aggregations as in that of convenient small libra- ries, with reading-rooms, scattered throughout the city. The schools are all supplied with their own libraries, of which more or less use is made by parents as well as scholars. In every school building there is a collec- tion of the reference books that teachers are supposed to need ; then a second collection embraces works of reference for pupils, while a third department of the school libraries includes carefully chosen books to be lent to the pupils for home reading. But the notable thing has been the development of the system of free municipal libraries for popular use in all the quarters of Paris. In 1878 there were about a half-dozen municipal libraries kept in the mairie buildings of as many different arrondissements. But they were little known and scarcely frequented at all. It was in that year that the central municipal author- ities determined to make Paris a city of public libra- ries. In a year or two each arrondissement had be- come an active library center, and the policy of opening additional public libraries and reading-rooms in the school buildings was then adopted. In 1883 these mu- nicipal libraries numbered twenty-six, while in 1893 they had grown to the remarkable number of sixty- six. They are open in the evening and at other hours convenient for working-people, and they have become a powerful factor in the educational and home life of the Parisian people. A central bureau exercises general oversight, and keeps the library system in harmony; while local PAEIS: THE TYPICAL MODERN CITY 129 boards in every arrondissemeut exercise ordinary CHAP. i. control, select the books to be purchased, and pro- mote the general usefulness of the libraries of their own district. The local maire, his adjuncts, the four members of the municipal council from the arron- * Arrondisse- dissement, certain school and other officials, and a mentboards. group of appointed citizens form the arroudissement library board. There are, besides the municipal libraries, about twenty useful free public libraries under the auspices of a private association, which are partly supported by yearly grants from the municipal treasury. Thus, Library 8 ys- _ J J J . e i ' i i . tern summed including the libraries of industrial art, which are up- under full municipal control, the Paris authorities are in possession of a system of about one hundred small but exceedingly useful free lending libraries, domiciled in every part of the city. These have by no means begun to approach the maximum of their influence, for the Parisians are only now forming the habit of library patronage ; but they are lending more than two million volumes a year, of which less than half are works of fiction. The policy of municipal Paris for the promotion of the fine arts might well be studied by the practical administrators of other countries. It has not been easy for English cities, and it has been still more Parisian P oi- difficult for American municipalities, to perceive the thefine W arts. immense commercial benefits that may accrue from a generous cultivation of the esthetic arts. The na- tional French government maintains its world-famed art-schools ; the Parisian local authorities patronize art in a variety of ways; the greatest artists and most accomplished connoisseurs are brought into the service of the national or the municipal government as members of commissions which supervise art in- struction, pass upon plans for the architecture and 9 130 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUKOPE CHAP. I. Preeminence iu art sus- tained at small ex- pense. The fine art fund. Mural de- signs for civic build- ings. decoration of public buildings, award prizes in art competitions, select pictures for public galleries, and pass judgment upon designs for public monuments or statues. The appearance of great activity in all these mat- ters has naturally enough created an impression in the minds of foreign visitors that French public expenditure on account of the beaux-arts must be upon an extremely lavish scale. This impression, however, is wholly erroneous. It is a very moderate demand, comparatively, that art makes upon the pub- lic revenues. The conspicuous results are due to the fact of a continuous policy, which is so wisely ad- justed that a yearly minimum of cash outlay results in a maximum of encouragement to art, and suffices to turn the balance in favor of Paris as the art center of the world. Before 1870 the municipal credit of 250,000 francs a year for the encouragement of art was, for the most part, expended upon pictures or other adornments for the great churches of Paris. But since the es- tablishment of the republic a broader policy has been pursued. Especially since 1880 there has been a wonderful outburst of enthusiasm and of genius in the painting of appropriate mural designs for the series of civic buildings. The mairie buildings of the twenty arrondissements in which, as I have already explained, the administrative tasks of the municipality have their working centers have, for the most part, been rebuilt or enlarged since 1872 ; and the fine-art fund has secured for them many noteworthy mural paintings of historical or allegori- cal significance, the subjects being suggested by the local surroundings, or by the uses of the rooms deco- rated. In like manner the school-buildings are re- receiving noble decoration, and every worthy phase PAEIS: THE TYPICAL MODERN CITY 131 Mode of ex- penditure. of the life and history of Paris, ancient and modern, CHAP. i. is finding expression on the walls of public buildings. The artists are commissioned under circumstances which, while helping many a rising young artist to gain position and prestige, also secure the largest possible amount and variety of work for the sum that has been set aside. Of course the greatest of the French painters have been glad to put their ser- vices at the command of the authorities, for very modest compensation, to aid in decorating the new Hotel de Ville, the new Sorbonne, and other of the chief public buildings. The sculptors have been no less constantly recognized, by similar methods. A certain sum is always expended every year by the municipal authorities in the purchase of new works from the various salons and exhibitions. It was in 1816 that the municipal service of the fine arts was established, and in 1875 it was deter- A municipal mined to prepare and publish an inventory, or ex- planatory catalogue, of the works of fine art of all kinds that had been accumulated by the municipality. That catalogue had, up to 1892, cost more than one hundred thousand francs, and it still calls for a yearly appropriation. A number of magnificent vol- umes have appeared in the series, and an inspection of them would convey some faint idea of the mar- velous wealth of art objects and architectural monu- ments that has accrued to the Parisian community through a policy of encouragement and acquisition intelligently followed for eighty years. This willingness to spend some thousands of francs to record the history of the fine-art development of Paris is, indeed, characteristic of a general policy that was entered upon some years ago. The service known as that of the Travaux Historiques was begun in the decade before the war with Germany. But it art inven- tory. The "Tra- vaux His- toriques." 132 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. I. Carnavalet museum. Commemo- rative tab- lets. The " Gen- eral History of Paris." Magnitude of the under- taking. was not until after the war that it took its present form as one of the regular branches of the municipal administration. This service comprises three princi- pal parts. First, it maintains the Carnavalet museum and library, devoted to the preservation of objects of archaeological value, and to the collection of manu- scripts and books pertaining to the history of Paris. Second, it has charge of the preparation and erec- tion of commemorative tablets, of which a hundred or more have been placed since 1879, to mark his- torical spots like the site of the Bastille, or to designate houses or localities associated with the names of fa- mous men. Third, it promotes investigations in spe- cial fields of Parisian history and publishes the results. It is this third function of the historical service that is most noteworthy. I have endeavored, in my account of the work of the Paris municipality in the period since 1873, to make it clear that its devotion has not been solely or chiefly to ostentatious material projects, to boulevards, ornate facades, or showy monuments. But nothing, as it would seem to me, more satisfactorily illustrates the thorough and gen- uine quality of the civilization that dominates these Parisian circles of government than the faithful sup- port for more than twenty years given to the scholars and savants who are preparing L'Histoire Generate de Paris." Especially to be praised are their noble vol- umes devoted to the Paris of 1789, so invaluable in their preservation for future ages of the facts con- cerning the streets, buildings, and manifold condi- tions of the city at the beginning of the Revolution. But many elaborate studies relating to earlier periods in the history of Paris have also been published, and each year adds two or three new ones to a collection that now numbers perhaps fifty volumes. From 1873 to 1896 the municipal council had appropriated about PARIS: THE TYPICAL MODERN CITY 133 two million francs for the carrying out of this scheme CHAP. i. of historical inquiry and publication. The money has not been extravagantly spent, and the project has been creditable to the Parisian sense of muni- cipal dignity and historical pride. These historical labors are, for administrative pur- poses, brought under the auspices of the same bureau that is charged with the service of fine arts. The general chapter-heading of "Architecture and Fine Arts" in the yearly budget includes outlays for a number of services that are grouped together in the practical organization of the prefect's executive staff. Under this category falls the yearly outlay of 300,000 outlay for francs for the celebration of the national holiday, honday. 1 * July 14 ; a subvention for the encouragement of musi- cal compositions is also included ; and to indicate the wide and catholic range of the municipal patronage, it should be mentioned that through this bureau is expended the 70,000 francs which the council votes every year as its contribution toward the encourage- " . . . ~ Subscription meut of horse-racing, most of this sum being devoted ( tothe to the well-known Grand Prix de Paris, to which the p r S!" municipality has subscribed since 1872. The value of a thoroughly-organized statistical ser- vice can be appreciated, perhaps, by some practical minds which would hesitate to approve the expendi- ture of municipal funds upon recondite historical ,,.., T -i T 116 statisti- inquiries. The statistical office of Paris until recent cai bureau. years was not as highly developed or as well sup- ported as it ought to have been ; and even yet it does not occupy so conspicuous a position in the adminis- trative life and work as, for example, that of Berlin. But it has attained an excellent standing, and its reports are admirable examples of statistical com- pilation. A distinguished specialist is chief of the statistical office, and he is supported by a commis- 9* 134 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. i. sion whose members appreciate the important rela- tion that statistical science must henceforth bear to progress in every field of public administration. 1 As the foregoing description of municipal develop- ments and activities has proceeded from one point to another, it has been made plain that immense finan- cial operations were involved. The projects which have been reviewed in these pages could not have been accomplished without the accumulation of a vast municipal debt. Nor could the current expenses of so elaborate an administration be met without the collection of a very generous yearly revenue. It re- mains therefore for me to give some account of the financial condition and methods of the Parisian municipality. The debt of Paris amounts at the present time to A debt of nearly two billion francs. This huge obligation is francs. represented by the great public works of Paris, in- cluding the modern system of streets and boulevards, the water-supply, the drainage works, the parks and 1 Dr. Jacques Bertillon is chief of the Paris statistical service. It may be of interest to present the list of members of the com- mission, not only because of what it reveals as to the distin- guished character of the men who serve upon this important board, but also because it represents very fairly the personal qual- lity of many other advisory boards and commissions, that are bringing the highest professional abilities into the service of mu- nicipal Paris. The following twenty-eight gentlemen constituted in 1894 the Commission de Statistique Municipals : Eugene Rene Poubelle, prefet de la Seine ; L6on David Bruman, secretaire general de la prefecture de la Seine ; Jacques Bertillon, docteur en medecine, chef des travaux de la statistique municipale ; M. Bezancon, chef de division a la prefecture de police ; Adolphe Bloch, docteur en medecine, medecin-adjoint de la prefecture de la Seine ; M. Chautemps, docteur en medecine, depute de la Seine; Arthur Chervin, docteur en medecine; M. Cheysson, in- specteur general des ponts-et-chaussees, professeur a 1'Ecole des Sciences Politiques ; Jean Jules Clamageran, senateur ; Emile Ferry, maire du IXe arrondissement, ancien depute de la Seine ; PAEIS: THE TYPICAL MODERN CITY 135 their improvement, the new Hotel de Ville, the pre- CHAP. i. fectoral and mairie buildings, several hundred new school-buildings, many other pieces of public archi- tecture, the magnificent embankments of the river Seine, the series of beautiful and indestructible bridges, the great markets and entrepots, including 'mentT" the municipal slaughter-houses and cattle-yards, and a host of other investments of a permanent and credi- table nature, many of which I have already described. The critics of the financial policy pursued under the prefecture of Baron Haussmann have brought to- gether an array of facts and arguments which show it to be undoubtedly true that extravagance and cor- ruption to some extent characterized the methods of that period of rapid transformation and of accom- The question . ofextrava- panymg excitement and speculation. Nevertheless, gance. I am of opinion that the modernization of Paris has, in the main, been soundly and ably financiered, and that no very appreciable percentage of the outstand- M. Girard, chef du laboratoire municipal de chimie ; M. Jacques, depute de la Seine ; Jean Adrien Jaubert, docteur en medecine, inspecteur de la verification des d6ces ; Pierre Francois Rene" Lafabreque, ancien directeur de 1'Hospice des Enf ants- Assisted ; Alfred Martial Lamouroux, docteur en rne'decine, membre du conseil municipal de Paris ; M. Lemoine, ing^nieur en chef des ponts-et-chauss4es ; Augustin Henri Antonin Le Roux, directeur des affaires de"partementales a la prefecture de la Seine ; Emile Levasseur, membre de 1'Institut ; Toussaint Loua, ancien chef du bureau de la statistique gen that the expense of the system is excessive ; but 6 per cent, would perhaps be absorbed in the cost of levy, collection,, and accounting if an equal sum were to be obtained by some other method. In defense of the octroi it may be remarked that the people of Paris, as of many other continental cities, are accus- tomed to this indirect mode of contributing to muni- cipal revenues, and a majority of them would prob- ably prefer it to any system of direct taxation. PARIS: THE TYPICAL MODERN CITY 143 Further, let it be borne in mind that the direct taxes levied by the national government itself fall very heavily upon property and upon almost every kind of business. In the succeeding chapter I shall de- scribe the French system of direct taxes, under which the local authorities raise a portion of their revenue by adding a certain rate for municipal purposes to the general rate levied by the national government. If the octroi dues fall largely upon the masses of the people as consumers, it is to be remembered that the municipal revenues are expended for their particular benefit. In the budget of 1894 the sum of 33,368,300 francs is credited to the municipality's share in the levy of direct taxes, this amount being collected with the taxes of the national government and paid over to the municipal treasury. Deducting the receipts from the octroi and from direct taxes, there remains 103,- 000,000 francs of ordinary revenue derived from other sources. The receipts of the water department amount to nearly 16,000,000 francs, and the public revenue from the gas company is almost as large. About 10,500,000 francs comes from the national trea- sury as a contribution toward the expense of the police department. More than 8,000,000 francs is received as gross income from the public markets; more than 6,000,000 accrues from the sums paid to the city by street railway, omnibus, and cab compa- nies; and from 2,000,000 francs to 4,000,000 francs each is received from (1) the abattoirs, (2) the en- trep6ts, (3) the cemeteries, (4) the rental of minor street privileges. It has perhaps been made sufficiently clear, in my account of the various departments of administra- tion, that a constant increase of municipal revenue CHAP. I. The direct taxes. 144 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. I. Future finan- cial policy. Large pub- lic invest- ments bene- ficial to the citizens. Individual prosperity enhanced. from franchises, concessions, and the direct public management of productive enterprises, may reason- ably be expected in the future. It would seem both feasible and wise that during the next twenty years the finance authorities of Paris should pursue a con- servative policy, husbanding the public resources, developing to the utmost the revenue from monopo- lies and concessions, and resisting the temptation to add much to the volume of bonded debt. The pro- posed abolition of the belt of fortifications would be attended by a large outlay for streets, boulevards, and parkways. But it ought to be possible to make the sale of private building-sites yield a fund large enough to pay the entire cost of the execution of a splendid programme of public works in the zone now occupied by the wall, moat, and glacis. To sum up the financial position of Paris, it must be admitted that the per capita of public debt is large, and the per capita of ordinary annual municipal expenditure also formidable. Over against this bur- den of expense, however, must be placed the long series of substantial benefits that the municipality confers upon its citizens. In view of the very high average density of the population, the Parisians are peculiarly dependent upon public services of various kinds. The well-paved and well-cleansed streets are essential to comfort and health. Brilliant public illumination, well-shaded streets and boulevards, in fact, all the agencies of civilization that the munici- pality supplies, are of the highest value to the people. If a large percentage of the wealth of the community is absorbed into the public treasury, that wealth is, upon the whole, disbursed in such a way as to pro- duce results more valuable to society, and in most cases more valuable to the individuals concerned, than could possibly have been secured by private ex- PAEIS: THE TYPICAL MODERN CITY 145 penditure. Public exactions in Paris have not tended CHAP. i. to exhaust the sources of private wealth. On the contrary, the municipal government has been con- spicuously successful in fostering the industrial and commercial activities of the Parisian people, whose prosperity is shown by their unfailing ability and readiness to invest in municipal and other interest- bearing securities, no less than by the fact of a mil- lion individual savings-bank accounts in a population of less than three million souls. The experience of Paris, candidly studied, ought to convince the most skeptical that there is no modern community of civilized men which cannot afford to provide, for its areas of dense population, the most per- Lessons from feet public appointments that technical and scientific experience, knowledge have discovered and prescribed. Well- made and clean streets, good water, proper drainage, convenient transit facilities, complete schools, thor- ough sanitary organization, these at least should be considered the irreducible minimum. No city should think itself rich enough to prosper without them, and no city is so poor that it cannot afford them if it has any reason whatever for continued existence. But further than this indispensable minimum, any city might hopefully bend its energies toward the acquisition of the finest flowers and fruits of culture and art. Paris has exemplified these propositions with an unfaltering faith in science, in art, and in civilization that deserves our homage. 10 CHAPTER II THE FRENCH MUNICIPAL SYSTEM. "T/iTTTH the great revolution of 1789 there came V T two sweeping changes in the municipal and local administration of France. One was the estab- Theiegisia- lishment of popular self-government, or home-rule. of irs^oo! The other was the substitution of a perfectly regular and uniform system for the intricate and anomalous methods under which no two communities could be said to possess identical institutions. Every feature of the old organizations was effaced in order that a fresh beginning might be made upon logical prin- ciples. The new administrative scheme created by the acts of the Constituent Assembly in December, 1789, and January, 1790, strongly resembled, in its sim- plicity and its geometrical sense of relationship and system proportion, the lucid and regular rules of local govern- ment that the legislators of our trans-Mississippi States found it easy to lay down where the checker- board lines of the congressional land survey had given territorial uniformity to school-district, township and county. It is true that nothing quite so radical was at- tempted in France as a territorial reshaping on geo- The forty metrical lines of the primary units of administra- thousandold . ml . , . , . communes, tion. The ancient communes, of which there were nearly forty thousand spread like a network over the land, had to be treated as permanent and irreducible 146 THE FRENCH MUNICIPAL SYSTEM 147 CHAP. n. Permanent units. political atoms. There was a sense of distinct identity and of immemorial continuity in these communes, many of which were cities, towns or villages, while most of them were petty rural parishes or hamlets, that withstood all shocks of revolution. The best minds of the revolutionary period seem clearly to have recognized the advantages of an autonomous neighborhood life, and to have considered the ancient French commune, with its own domain of lands, high- ways, and buildings, its local maintenance of order and dispensation of petty justice, its administration of relief and charity, and all its microcosmic life, as the very foundation-stone of a true political structure. But although the old communes themselves were, as a rule, left without territorial revision, the larger administrative divisions of France were radi- cally altered. There had been thirty-two old-time The ancient provinces, in each of which the royal authority had been represented by a functionary known as the in- tendant. He in his turn was represented in subdivi- sions of the province by officials entitled subdelegues. The provincial and local life of France had been sub- ject to the almost unlimited domination of these agents of the central authority, whose hand was at once against the nobility of the regions to which they were assigned, and against the bourgeoisie that com- posed the old municipal corporations. The lawmakers of 1789 abolished at once the prov- inces and the intendants. They reparceled France into departments, eighty-nine in number, endeavoring to make the departments as nearly equal in area as cir- cumstances would permit, due account being made of population density, and of the location of chief towns. The departments were subdivided into districts, each district being composed of a very large group of adjacent communes. It was ordained that the affairs partments. T tricts S 148 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUEOPE CHAP. II. Govern- mental structure. Municipal system. Classifica- tion of com- munes by population. of the department should be managed by (1) a popu- larly elected Council General, composed of thirty-six members, whose functions were to be deliberative; and (2) a group of eight executive officers, known as the Directory, to be designated by the council gen- eral, presumably out of its own membership. The districts were provided with a government on the same plan. Finally, the communes were accorded a simple and uniform method of self-government. At that time the suffrage was not made universal, a small tax qualification excluding the very poorest classes. The qualified voters in every commune or muni- cipality, great or small, were authorized to elect a mayor and several other executive officers, these to- gether constituting what was termed a corps muni- cipal. A group of men called Notables were further elected for the exercise of deliberative functions. These were twice as many as the executive officers. The notables and the corps municipal, sitting together as one body, formed the council general of the com- mune or municipality, the mayor and his executive associates being in charge of the active work of ad- ministration. The number of officers varied in the ratio of the population of the communes, and it was thus intended by a sliding scale to give the system an automatic adjustment to the large towns on the one hand and the small communes on the other. For communes having less than five hundred people, of which there were a great number in France, it was provided that there should be three members of the corps municipal, that is, the mayor and two executive associates. For more populous localities the member- ship of the corps municipal was gradually augmented until it reached the maximum number of twenty-one for cities having a population exceeding one hundred thousand. All ordinary municipal government was THE FRENCH MUNICIPAL SYSTEM 149 carried on by the corps municipal, which was further CHAP. u. divided into an executive bureau and a council. Thus, in a town having a hundred thousand people or more, the voters directly chose a mayor and twenty organization ,1 <-.! of a town of other members or the municipal corps, bix or the one hundred twenty were subsequently designated by the body it- peopTe" self as the mayor's assistants and coadjutors in the regular work of executive administration. The other fourteen were in regular and frequent consultation with the seven, forming a governing council for all the ordinary affairs of the town. At longer intervals the forty-two elected notables were called into session with the twenty-one, making a body of sixty-three men, who formed the council general of the muni- cipality. Such was the system promptly created by the Con- stituent Assembly, under the impulse of a grand pas- sion for the principles of simplicity and uniformity in administration, and an equal passion for local auton- omy and personal liberty. While it mavbe criticized ideal rather J.T- i -j. i thanprac- on various accounts, nevertheless it was a masterly ticai. piece of legislation. It was, perhaps, too far advanced for the actual conditions of French life. However that may be, it was destined to undergo most radical changes and vicissitudes. Doubtless its chief useful- ness lay in its embodiment of high ideals. It has taken a hundred years for the French people, through various political and administrative experiences, to acquire that practical habit of local self-government which the municipal laws of 1790 took for granted. One of the most serious faults of this legislation was its failure to discriminate wisely between urban and rural units of local government. Except that the number of officers was smaller in the communes of tooeiliSorate sparse population, the exact scheme of organization towns. that was provided for cities and large towns was also 10* 150 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. II. Permanent results of the legisla- tion of 1790. The hard lesson of local self- government. made applicable to all local units down to the popula- tion line of five hundred. The communes of less than five hundred people were of simpler organization. But there were thousands of local-government units in France possessing a population of more than five hundred and less than five thousand, for which the law of 1789-90 provided a cumbrous and over-elabo- rate system of administration. The French laws from that time until now have never made quite enough difference between the government of urban and rural communities, although the distinctions have become better marked. From that period of lawmaking there has survived the series of departments, which have become crystal- lized into entities as distinct and real as the great English counties, while very much more uniform in size and population. Moreover, throughout the entire administrative system of France, there has remained, despite all changes of method and of spirit, an un- wavering devotion to the principle of system and uniformity. I have said that the laws of the Con- stituent Assembly exemplified the two great ideas, first, of simplicity and uniformity in the structure of municipal and local government ; and second, of popu- lar home rule on the elective basis. It is this prin- ciple of decentralization and local self-responsibility that has been the hard lesson for the French nation to master. They have not perfectly learned it yet, although the experience of a hundred years has begun to give them confidence in the principle, and a con- siderable measure of ability in applying it. In 1795, France having come under the government of the Directory, a new administrative system was devised which possessed some merits and many de- fects. This new legislation is always cited as the Constitution du 5 Fructidor, de Van III. (August 22, THE FRENCH MUNICIPAL SYSTEM 151 1795). In the departments the elective councils were CHAP. n. abolished, and all functions, both of deliberation and of action, were merged in a departmental Directory Sy^new of five members. These directors were elected one 8 y stem > 1795 - each year for five-year terms by all the qualified vot- ers of the department. The central Directory of the Republic, meanwhile, retained the right to depose the departmental directors and to appoint substitutes. Under the system of 1790, besides the officers whom I have already mentioned, the people of the department were empowered to elect a so-called Syndic Procureur, who had a voice but not a vote in the departmental council, and who was the department's agent and rep- resentative in various legal and other relationships. This popularly elected officer was now replaced in the Directory's system by a so-called Commissaire, who was appointed by the national government from Tendency among the citizens domiciled in the department, and ^ranaition! whose business it was to oversee the execution of the national laws within his territory. Thus, while the government of the department still remained largely local and representative, it will be readily seen that the strong tendency of the system of 1795 was toward centralization. In place of the districts which the laws of 1789 had created as intermediary between the departments and the communes, and which had possessed only a limited importance, the Directory now substituted a much creation of smaller series of territorial divisions entitled cantons. th tous C ." n ~ The cantons were given an incomparably greater im- portance than the districts which they replaced. The canton comprised an average of about twelve com- munes, while the district included perhaps a hundred. The function of the canton in the rural regions may readily be explained. It was intended to remedy the serious mistake in the earlier laws of attempting to 152 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. ii. impose an elaborate municipal government upon simple agricultural neighborhoods. The full muni- Their place cipal organization was now abolished in communes of in rural life, less than five thousand inhabitants. Each commune of less than this number of people was authorized to elect from among its own citizens a municipal agent and one adjunct or assistant. All active administra- tion in the commune was confided to these two officials. But it was the canton, under this regime, which be- came the real unit of government. There was estab- lished what was known as an administration municipal du canton, which was composed of the agents of the several communes constituting the cantonal circum- scription, together with a President elected by direct vote of the qualified electors of the canton. All de- liberative functions were intrusted to this body. The commune had therefore lost much of its -inde- pendence, and had in effect become hardly anything more than an administrative division of the canton. Something very similar has taken place in several of our American States, where the county government has gained authority at the expense of the township government. Thus the cantonal administration of 1795 might be considered as reproduced in a western county where each township elected a supervisor or trustee for the administration of its ordinary affairs, and where these township supervisors, coming to- gether in session at the county-seat, constituted a board of supervisors for the county, under the chair- manship of a president of the board elected directly by all the voters of the county. This system was not wholly bad for the rural parts of France. But the Directory, with the French pas- sion for logic and symmetry, undertook to assimilate cantons? the large towns to the cantonal unit. Each commune or municipality having from five thousand to one hun- THE FRENCH MUNICIPAL SYSTEM 153 dred thousand people was made a distinct cantonal CHAP. n. entity, with an administration of its own composed of from five to nine members, according to the size of the town or city. These officials were elected by the voters of the town, and constituted what might be called a board of municipal trustees or directors, in whose hands was reposed the exercise of all municipal functions, whether deliberative or executive. The sys- tem was by no means an absurd one ; and in view of the actual conditions of local life prevailing in France at that time, it may have been better than the system of 1789. When the large towns having more than a hundred thousand people had to be dealt with, it was deter- mined to try the plan of subdividing them into can- tons, each of which should have its own board of large towns, directors. Thus, Paris was partitioned into twelve municipality canfonales, while Marseilles and Lyons the only other towns which at that time possessed more than a hundred thousand inhabitants were each cut into three such administrative districts. The voters in each of these urban cantons elected a di- rectory of seven members, charged with all the duties J Cantonal of current administration. In order, however, to pro- directories 7 * and central vide for certain administrative municipal tasks which bureaus. could not be apportioned to these arbitrary divisions, some sort of central bureau was requisite; and the Directory of the Republic retained in its own hands the designation of the members of the central bureau for Paris, while for the other two large towns the three members of the central municipal bureau were designated by the departmental directory, subject to confirmation by the national government. It should be noted that these cantonal administra- tions were subordinated in the exercise of their au- thority to the departmental administrations. Thus, 154 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. ii. subjection of cantons to departments, summary estimate of the system, Napoleon's system of 1800. Entrance of the prefect, the government of the department had a right to nul- lify the acts of the cantons and municipalities, and also under certain circumstances to suspend the can- tonal and municipal officers. But such suspension was in turn subject to the approval or disapproval of the central government at Paris. This possibility of interference by the higher authorities constituted a serious limitation upon the regime of local indepen- dence which had been ordained five years earlier. Let this suffice for a rapid outlining of the admin- istrative system of 1795. One is at a loss to describe it in such a manner as to make it seem an actual ar- rangement and to relieve it from the appearance of being altogether artificial and forced. It certainly was surcharged with the experimenting audacity of the times which gave it birth. Nevertheless it evinces some true elements of constructive statesmanship. Chiefly, however, it serves to betray the exigencies of a situation in the sphere of the higher politics which compelled the transient possessors of power to tighten their grasp and to strengthen the lines of central authority. It remained for the legislation of the year 1800, in- spired by Napoleon as Premier Consul, to complete the work of centralization. The principle of unity and symmetry was retained in all perfection, but the principle of local self-government was absolutely re- jected. The departmental commissaire, who had been selected by the Directory from among the citizens of the department, and who had been charged with the duty of seeing that the public laws were enforced, was transmuted by Napoleon into the Prefect of the department. The prefect was not only charged with seeing that the laws were enforced, but he was made the sole executive and administrative authority in the department. He was appointed for each department THE FRENCH MUNICIPAL SYSTEM 155 by the central authority, that is to say, by Napoleon CHAP. n. himself. The departmental Council General was re- tained as a matter of form, but its elective character had disappeared. It was now a mere body of ap- councils be- * . * come ap- pointed advisers, varying m number from sixteen to poiutive. twenty-four, all of whom were designated by the Pre- mier Consul himself, acting of course very largely up- on the suggestions of his trusted prefect. There was also appointed by the central authority a so-called Council of Prefecture, consisting of from three to five members, its business being to deal judicially with administrative disputes and contentions arising in the government of the department or of any of its minor divisions. The prefect was, in point of fact, the virtual resurrec- tion of the intendant of the ancien regime. He was the personal agent of the central authority, was a stranger Historical t ,, .. , . , , , . J . ' , * character of in the department which he administered, and be- the prefect. longed to the type of nomadic administrative function- ary whose prototype is found in the Roman proconsul, and whose race has perhaps never been extinct in France from the time of the conquest of Gaul to the present day. Descending one step from the depart- ment and its prefectoral administration, we find the old district, practically as created in 1789, now recon- stituted under the name of the arrondissement. This division, as I have explained, had been abandoned by the law of 1795 in favor of the much smaller Appearance ,. . . ,, , ,, . , . . , .. ofthearron- division called the canton. As an administrative dissement. division the canton now practically disappeared, al- though retained as a judicial district and for certain other purposes. In the arrondissement there made ap- pearance the sub-prefect, who is altogether analogous to the sub-delegate of the ancien regime, just as the pre- fect of the department suggests the old-time intendant prefect of the province. The Napoleonic sub-prefect was the 156 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. II. The limited nature of the arrondisse- inents. All munici- pal officers appointed. Extent of the Premier Consul's patronage. appointee of the higher authorities, was the agent of the prefect, and had the assistance of an arrondisse- ment council of ten or twelve members whose func- tions were advisory, and who held their positions by virtue of appointment by the central authority. The arrondissement was not a complete and distinct legal personality like the department on the one hand or the municipality or commune on the other, but a mere division for administrative convenience, existing for comparatively limited purposes, holding no property in its own name or right, and having none of the at- tributes of a body politic and corporate. As for the communes under the legislation of the year 1800 (which is always cited as the law of 28 Pluviose, an VIII.), we find that they were still ac- corded, as in the law of 1789, a mayor with several adjuncts or assistant executive officers and delibera- tive councils. But whereas these were all elected by the people of the commune under the earlier legisla- tion, they had all, by the fundamental law of the year 1800, become appointive functionaries, owing their places to the central executive authority. Of course Napoleon could not in his own person make selection of mayors, executive adjuncts, municipal councilors, arrondissement councilors, and departmental coun- cilors, for the whole of France, inasmuch as this would have involved the naming of half a million functionaries. But where he did not make personal selections, the choice was exercised for him by his prefects or sub-prefects. In practice, the Premier Consul was supposed to appoint the mayors and councils of cities and towns having more than five thousand people ; while the de- partmental prefects were authorized to make appoint- ments in the smaller communes. The only limitation upon this exercise of absolute central power was the THE FRENCH MUNICIPAL SYSTEM 157 requirement that mayors and municipal councilors CHAP. IL must be chosen from certain lists of their fellow-cit- izens which the electors had some voice in preparing. This limitation in practice did not act as an impor- tant restraint. Two or three years later, under some circumstances, it was permitted to the electors of municipalities to nominate two candidates for every place which became vacant, one of whom should be appointed by the superior authority; but even this concession was not allowed to become operative as an ordinary rule. This arbitrary system of municipal subjection was not abandoned, as it ought to have been, upon the downfall of Napoleon's empire. It held its own with- out material modification at any point under the Restoration! period of the Restoration up to the revolution of 1830, when France again became a republic except in name, Louis Philippe's being " a throne surrounded by republican institutions." There had been able states- men in the epoch of the Restoration who had de- manded a return to the plan of popularly elected municipal councils, but in vain. This reform was promptly granted by the government of 1830. The act of March, 1831, allowed a list of municipal voters possessing a modest property qualification to , r, , , . . , M mu Municipal choose the members or the municipal council. The councils be- central government retained the right to appoint the mayors and their adjuncts or executive assistants; but in making these appointments the minister of the interior was obliged to confine his selections wholly to the elected members of the council. Herein lay a very substantial concession to the principle of local self-government. The councils remained, however, very much under the tutelage of the prefect, who con- tinued to administer the department as the direct representative of the central authorities. 158 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE OC omy. n CHAP. IL Through all these vicissitudes, it should be ob- served, municipal affairs were actively administered by mayors and adjuncts, with the assistance in delib- erative affairs of a municipal council. The principal All fluctu- . r r ations af- changes f rom time to time concerned themselves al- most wholly with the question whether these local officers should derive their places and authority pri- marily from the commune itself or from the higher government. The revolution of 1848 carried the emancipation of municipalities much further than that of 1830. Universal suffrage now replaced the limited suffrage which had held sway for nearly twenty years ; while for towns of six thousand people or less the municipal councils were permitted to select the mayor and other executive officers from their own member- ship, without interference from any superior admin- istration. As for the towns of greater population, the central government of the Republic thought it neces- sary to retain the right to designate the executive of- ficers, although appointments were always made from among the elected members of the municipal councils. The spirit of the legislation of 1848 was that of confi- dence in the principle of municipal home-rule. With the public events which in 1852 made Louis Napoleon Emperor of the French, there began another epoch in the administrative life of the French munici- palities. The prefectoral system was reinvigorated, ' and the mayors and executive officers of all munici- palities and communes became, like the sub-prefects, a part of the administrative mechanism of a system of autocratic, centralized government. The munici- pal councils retained their elective character, but the mayors and adjuncts of all communes, from the great towns to the smallest country hamlet, were named by the Emperor or by the prefects acting for him, and the choice was not limited to the membership of the councils. e THE FRENCH MUNICIPAL SYSTEM 159 The municipal system retained these essential char- CHAP. n. acteristics throughout the period of the Second Em- pire. I have shown in the preceding chapter with what scope and magnificence the work of modernizing the capital city was prosecuted during this epoch; and it is true of other French cities and towns that the spirit of the new Paris was to some extent reflected in their municipal activities. For Baron Haussmann, as prefect of the Seine, was only one of Napoleon III. 's energetic agents. It must be remembered that . . Character of through this period the initiative in local and muni- the period. cipal life belonged chiefly to the appointed execu- tive officers. The elected councils were expected to approve the projects recommended by the executive authority, and to duly sanction by their votes the financial estimates and budgets that were submitted for their formal acceptance. The councils, it is true, possessed some measure of substantial influence and authority; but the imperial will, which made itself felt so directly and powerfully in the affairs of Paris, was not without its high degree of potency also in Lyons, Marseilles, and every other considerable town of France. Inasmuch as this influence was, in the main, exerted in behalf of municipal progress, as I Napoieonin. have endeavored to make clear in my description of the Napoleon-Haussmann epoch in the transformation of Paris, it cannot be said that the Second Empire forms a barren or reactionary period in the material and visible progress of the chief communities of France. But it was certainly a period in which the principle of self-government was repressed and dis- couraged ; and its educative effect upon the citizenship of the nation cannot be considered beneficial. There are several reasons why the legislation of 1871, immediately following the overthrow of the Em- pire and ushering in the happier and better epoch of 160 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. ii. the Third Republic, did not revert with confidence to the salutary principles of the municipal legislation of the two preceding republican periods. The immedi- ate reason undoubtedly was the position of M. Thiers. This eminent statesman felt himself responsible for the political situation of the nation as a whole, at a conserva- time when the communal uprising in Paris had caused uen. s cient fame, the capital of old Normandy, typifies as completely as any other town in France outside of Paris the modern processes of reconstruction which characterized the Second Empire, and which were at the height of their activity in the period from 1860 to 1870. The historic walls of Rouen may be perfectly traced in the line of broad boulevards which form an irregular ellipse around the inner city. In scarcely any other French town has the plan of a modern sys- tem of main thoroughfares inside the ancient limits been so completely carried into execution as in Rouen ; , , , . J ,. , , .,, . . , ' A miniature and the town might well be described as a miniature Pans, edition of Paris. The reminders of Paris are, in- deed, very numerous. For example, at Rouen, as at Paris, the river Seine has been flanked by miles of magnificent stone quays on both banks, and the river as thus compressed keeps its own channel deep and clear. Eventually Rouen will annex its thriving sub- urbs, and it will thus gain rank with the towns of approximately 200,000 people. A traveler who touches French soil at Calais may readily visit the stirring and historic town of Lille, 13' 198 CHAP. II. The indus- trial town of Roubaix. Rapid ex- pansion. Modernized Amiens. The new town of St. Etienne. of which I have already said something ; and while at Lille he should also visit Roubaix, in the immediate vicinity. Roubaix is famous as the center of the French woolen industry, as Rouen is the center of cotton manufacture. It is true of Roubaix as of Rouen that the census does not give credit for the full population that belongs to the place as a com- mercial town. The census of 1891 ascribes to Le Havre 116,000, to Roubaix 115,000, and to Rouen 112,000; but on the very outskirts of Roubaix is Tourcoing with a population of more than 65,000, and there are other populous manufacturing towns in the immediate vicinity. Thus Roubaix stands at the center of an urban population of perhaps 250,000, where at the opening of the century there were hardly 10,000 people living. Here we find, therefore, a man- ufacturing community which has developed in a man- ner comparable with those of the north of England. Roubaix forms an exception to the rule of old for- tified towns, whose modern street systems take their key from boulevards following the lines of obliterated walls and moats. But in resuming the journey to Paris one passes Amiens, the capital of the ancient province of Picardy, a place well worth study for what it reveals of the process by which an ancient walled city may be turned into a modern boulevarded town. St. Etienne, like Roubaix, is a specimen of the modern manufacturing town which has sprung up rapidly in the nineteenth century, and has no historical background. Its street system is strikingly different from those of most other French towns, for the sim- ple reason that it was never a walled city, and its ground-plan, therefore, lacks the usual tendency to- ward concentrics and radials. St. Etienne is regarded as having grown more rapidly in the last half -century than any other French town. It is in the heart of the THE FRENCH MUNICIPAL SYSTEM 199 best coal region, not far from Lyons, and is the CHAP. n. French center for iron and steel manufactures and the great metal- working industries, a Sheffield or a Pittsburg. Not only is the framework of municipal govern- ment identical for all these French towns under the terms of the general municipal code which I have al- ready described, but very many of the active func- uniform ,. J .. i 4J * methods and tions of the municipal corporations are uniform functions. throughout the towns, because they are exercised in conformity with the requirements of general laws. Thus the educational system, while largely in the hands of the municipal authorities as a branch of local administration, is strictly regulated by national enactments. Throughout France primary instruction is obligatory and free. School-books and various ap- ofeducatio. pliances needful in schools are gratuitously supplied. Since 1886 the public schools have been entirely in charge of lay teachers. The caisses des ecoles, which I have described in my account of educational work in Paris, are found in connection with schools through- out the whole of France, and have everywhere the same characteristics. They possess full authority of law, yet leave large room for voluntary action. In Marseilles, Lyons, and the other large towns, no less than in Paris, the caisse des ecoles looks after the health and comfort of the children, supplies warm meals from school restaurants, gives shoes and clothes to the needy, organizes vacation holiday trips, pro- vides prizes for faithfulness and merit, and in a score of ways enhances the value of school life and work, and promotes the wholesome development of the rising generation. The system of ecoles maternelles, under & J ' Kindergar- which free instruction is given by kindergarten tens. methods to the children below six years of age, also prevails in all the French towns as well as in Paris. 200 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. ii. Those features of the law which make instruction compulsory between the ages of six and thirteen are Compulsory instruction, remarkably well enforced ; and particularly since 1890 the number of French children growing up without instruction is too small to be reckoned. It would at most constitute less than one per cent. The standards of education, from the ecole mater- nelle up to the university, are fixed for the whole coun- Nationai try by the central educational authorities, under the control of . .. a i i* education, general oversight of the minister of public instruction. The normal schools, which instruct the teachers, are jointly national and departmental, and the examina- tion of all teachers is conducted under the auspices of the higher authorities. Thus the criteria of excel- lence are uniform throughout France, and the great army of teachers, men and women, constitute a branch Teachers be- ^ 7 long to the of the national civil service. Teachers' salaries are service, regulated on a scale prescribed by the national gov- ernment. The employment and assignment of teach- ers belongs to the departmental school authorities, with the prefect in general control. Appointments are made in a businesslike fashion from the departmental lists of applicants who have passed the examinations and have been duly certificated and registered. The municipal school board is presided over by the Municipal mayor, and most of its members are designated by the boards, city council, usually, though not necessarily, from its own membership. The board also contains, how- ever, one or more of the school inspectors, who are the appointed representatives of the higher educational machinery of the nation. French school legislation since 1880 has been not merely voluminous but also of the most intelligent and valuable character. It has forced good methods into the remotest hamlets, has made it obligatory upon the municipalities and com- munes to provide suitable buildings, and has given THE FRENCH MUNICIPAL SYSTEM 201 universality to those attractive side-features of school CHAP. IL life which I have endeavored to describe in my ac- count of the schools of Paris. In particular, it has spirit of ... school life endeavored to promote every phase of practical in- and work, struction for the development of health and physique and the skilful use of eye and hand, and has made it the duty of the schools to teach the principles of mo- rality, industry, and thrift, and of household and busi- ness economics, together with the keenest type of French patriotism. For the larger towns, the general government has been ready to subsidize apprentice schools and practi- cal trade and technical institutions, while the munici- Technical pal councils themselves have shown a commendable a educatlon? zeal in this direction. At Lille, for example, there has lately been completed a magnificent institution for the training of young men who are to supply the knowledge and skill that the great textile and chemi- cal industries of the north of France will require. At St. Etienne, the technical instruction naturally gives . , ' . . . . 3 A Municipal special emphasis to mining engineering and the pro- trade schools . . , , -,, -n inallindus- cesses of metal- working. At Marseilles and some other trial centers. southern centers, the ceramic arts, with other lines of manufacture, are especially provided for in the techni- cal schools. In all the important towns, moreover, one finds schools of the fine arts and of artistic de- signing, supported by the municipalities and subsi- dized by the general government, while commercial schools, in like manner supported as public institu- tions, are found in every town of importance. The organization of assistance publique throughout France employs precisely the same principles and methods which I have set forth as in operation in the Poor relief, department of the Seine. Each of the other depart- ments of France has its general task of supervision, while the municipalities and smaller communes in turn 202 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. ii. possess their local boards of assistance publique and their bureaux de bienfaisance. There are in France from 15,000 to 16,000 of these bureaux de bienfaisance, car- rying on their work in a manner quite in keeping with that which I have described as pertaining to the twenty bureaus in the Paris arrondissements. The mayor is at the head of the municipal bureau, unless he may Organization A of bureaux have designated one of his adjuncts to represent him de bienfai- . . . i ., . sance. in that capacity. The municipal council is represented by two or three members which it designates; and several other members, usually four, are selected for four-year terms (one going out each year) by the pre- fect of the department, either from the municipal council, from other official or professional quarters, or from the non-official citizens who are interested in public charity. About these official bureaux de bien- faisance as charity-centers one finds that most of the volunteer work of poor relief has learned to rally, for the advantages of union and concentration. Many thousands of volunteer helpers, like the commissaires and dames de charite of Paris, whose work I have described, are found aiding the provincial bureaux de bienfaisance. As for the care of the insane, the main- tenance of establishments for the blind and for deaf- ^charities*.' mutes, the administration of the laws relating to the succor and care of unfortunate children, these mat- ters, as well as the system of penal institutions, belong to the administration of the respective departments rather than to the municipal governments. The public pawnshop (mont-de-piete) is a munici- pal institution which exists in more than forty of the The munici- chief provincial cities and towns of France. The mont- de-piete is carried on under the control of a board or commission, over which the mayor always presides. The other members of the board are selected in three equal parts from (1) the members of the municipal THE FRENCH MUNICIPAL SYSTEM 203 Municipal savings- banks. council, (2) the administrators of charitable institu- CHAP. n. tions, and (3) the other citizens of the town. The benefits of these institutions in Lyons, Bordeaux, Mar- seilles, Lille, Rouen, and other populous industrial towns, are not one whit less than those conferred upon the working-people of Paris by the great metro- politan mont-de-piete system which I have described in the previous chapter. Much more universal throughout France than the monts-de-piete are the caisses d'epargne, or savings- banks. These are to be found in all the important towns, without exception. At the opening of 1894 there were 543 municipal and local savings-banks, with branches and receiving offices which increased the total number of places where savings might be de- posited to somewhat more than two thousand. In very many instances one finds the savings-bank itself lo- cated in an important town, with its branch offices in outlying villages for the convenience of depositors. The development of the savings-bank system, under the joint auspices of the municipal governments and local societies of public-spirited citizens, must be deemed one of the most significant and important Remarkable phases of social progress that can be observed in thTsystem. France. Taking the entire population of the country, one finds that for the year 1893 there were 6,173,000 depositors in these municipal savings-banks, or 161 for every 1000 of the population. Thus for every siixr men, women, and children in France there is a muni- cipal savings-bank account, the average value of which exceeds 500 francs. The total yearly deposits in these banks is now, in round figures, 1,000,000,000 francs, while the accumulation of deposits at any given mo- ment is considerably in excess of 3,000,000,000 francs. I have not included in these statistics the figures that The postal belong to the national postal savings-bank system, "blnlS 204 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. II. A bank ac- count for every family in France. Investment in state obli- gations. Analysis of depositors. Municipal revenues. which, though much younger and less important than the municipal savings-banks, is showing a rapid development. Thus in 1893 the national postal system was patronized by 2,327,000 depositors, who confided to it more than 335,000,000 francs of their savings. Summing up the two systems, therefore, one finds a savings-bank account for every four and a half peo- ple, or to speak in a general way, one for every family. The national postal savings-bank system was begun in 1882, and so rapid has been its progress that at the end of 1894 it could show about 2,500,000 depositors. As for the municipal system, the number of depositors has multiplied threefold in twenty years. The sav- ings-banks are prudently managed under national surveillance, and the local commissions which super- vise their operations are composed of citizens who serve without pay. The funds are almost entirely in- vested in the obligations of the state ; and thus the savings-bank systems are a powerful supporter of the national credit, and their existence and remarkable popular success help to explain in part the ease with which the governmental financiers have been able to manage an immense interest-bearing debt. An analy- sis of the depositors shows that the vast majority be- long to the laboring and industrial classes. The small shopkeepers form a considerable element, and the con- tingent of minors of both sexes is exceedingly large. Numerous as are the savings-bank patrons in Paris, the number is still greater proportionally among the working-people of Lyons, Marseilles, Bordeaux, St. Etienne, Orleans, and many other industrial centers. The French municipal treasuries derive their in- comes from two principal sources. One of these is the system of direct taxes, the other is the octroi, or local customs system. The direct taxes collected for local THE FRENCH MUNICIPAL SYSTEM 205 purposes are levied by means of so-called centimes ad- CHAP. n. ditionnels. To understand the levy of these centimes additionnels it is necessary to glance for a moment at the French system of direct taxes. This system is one of long standing, and it has become fixed in the c The direct habits of the nation. There are several important taxes, direct taxes. The first of these is the contribution fonciere, a tax levied on the value of land and build- ings, the building improvements being assessed sep- arately from the land. Another is levied upon all house-occupiers, based upon the amount of rent they pay, with extra levies for each servant kept. Still another takes the form of an elaborate, graduated series of taxes upon business callings of various kinds, and may be considered an annual trade-license sys- tem. These schemes of direct taxation exist primarily for the benefit of the national treasury. The rates of levy are fixed from year to year in the national budget, and the amount to be collected by means of each of the different direct taxes is determined. Apportion- ment is made by the national authorities to the eighty- seven departments. The departmental authorities, in tionment. turn, apportion the sums to be raised among the ar- rondissements. The arrondissement councils proceed to distribute the burden to the communes, great and small. The taxes thus falling upon real estate, upon house- holders, and upon business pursuits are heavy enough to make it seem practically out of the question to raise the sum total of local revenues by assessments of the same nature. Nevertheless, it is found convenient to provide a considerable part of the local income by the The "cen- i IT times ad- Very simple device of adding something tor municipal ditionnels." purposes to the direct tax-rates before any collection is made. These local augmentations are known as the centimes additionnels. A centime is the hundreth part 206 MUNICIPAL GOVEENMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. ii. of a franc; and thus if the amount which a given municipality must collect for the departmental and national treasuries by means of a tax on land and houses is one hundred thousand francs, an imposi- tion for local purposes of fifty centimes additionnels would mean that the total amount to be collected from real estate is one hundred and fifty thousand francs, of which fifty thousand will be retained for the local treasury, and a hundred thousand remitted to the superior fiscal authorities. Subject to the ap- proval of the prefects, there is a wide range of discre- tion permitted to the municipal councils in the extent to which they may employ the device of the centimes additionnels, and the practice in different places va- ries widely. A recent copy of the annual report upon the financial operations of all the communes of France shows that the average was fifty-four centimes addi- tionnels for the year 1893, which simply means that of the amounts collected by direct taxes the com- munes retained for local purposes a little more than one-third. The proportion varies greatly, however, in the different French towns. For most towns having more than four thousand inhabitants, however, the largest source of income is the octroi system. The total amounts collected by system, the authorities of the 1513 municipal octroi systems in 1893 was in excess of 303,000,000 francs. About one third of this amount was collected upon wines and other alcoholic liquors. Food-supplies yielded approximately one third, and the remainder may be ascribed to building materials, fuel, and other heavy substances. It happens that the octroi revenues are almost evenly divided between Paris and the other fifteen hundred towns. The chief In general it may be said that all French towns of 80u ome! m " considerable size rely upon the octroi receipts as their THE FRENCH MUNICIPAL SYSTEM 207 principal source of municipal revenue. Thus the town of Lyons, whose ordinary receipts for 1893 were about twelve million six hundred thousand francs, derived 8,750,000 from the octroi. Of the nearly four million francs remaining, perhaps half was derived from the centimes additionnels, while the rest accrued from a variety of sources, including the incomes of produc- tive municipal departments. The receipts of Mar- seilles for the same year somewhat exceeded fifteen million francs, of which the octroi yielded 9,000,000 francs of ordinary revenue and 2,000,000 francs for special purposes. The municipal income of Lille was somewhat less than seven million francs, and the octroi yielded 5,000,000. Roubaix derived 2,500,000 francs from the octroi system, the total income of the municipality being 4,135,000 francs. Rouen, whose revenues were 4,800,000 francs, obtained 3,700,000 francs from the octroi. Le Havre, with receipts slightly exceeding four million nine hundred thou- sand francs, derived 3,500,000 from the octroi. Tou- louse, whose income was not quite five million francs, was indebted to the octroi for 3,280,000 francs. These instances, which are entirely representative, will suffice to show how large a factor the octroi system is in the finances of the French municipalities. The octroi system is to be viewed as an historical fact. If it were non-existent, it is scarcely conceivable that any one would seriously advocate its establish- ment as a method for the collection of local revenues. In the smaller towns the system is undoubtedly an expensive one, although I am not inclined to consider the cost of the maintenance of the octroi as the princi- pal argument against its employment for the larger towns. The octroi is by no means a compulsory ar- rangement, and the law provides for a suppression of the system by any locality which chooses to dispense CHAP. II. Revenues of Lyons and Mar- seilles. Of Lille, Roubaix, Rouen, and Le Havre. As to the character and future of the octrois. 208 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP, ii with it, after a careful investigation, in which the higher authorities participate. The point of the in- quiry would have to do with the question whether or not the community could safely and satisfactorily sub- stitute other sources of revenue. As yet, no towns of importance have emancipated themselves from the gir- dle of local custom-houses. If the finances of the na- tional government justified the abandonment of the direct property taxes, so that these might be exclu- sively available for local purposes, there would un- questionably be a rapid movement among the towns for the abolition of the octroi ; and with such a move- ment fairly initiated, the whole system would be doomed. When the longed-for era of disarmament arrives, and national expenditures are correspond- ingly lightened, it will perhaps become feasible to ac- cord to localities the full benefit of real-estate taxation, with the proviso that the octroi system, which is one of the few medieval survivals in the institutions of France, shall be totally obliterated. While the debts of the French towns are by no means insignificant, it happens that the debt of the commune of Paris alone is much in excess of the sum total of the indebtedness of all other communes, great and small. Thus the official reports for 1892 show that whereas the capitalized interest-bearing debt of Paris amounted to somewhat more than 1,920,000,000 francs, the aggregate indebtedness of all the other communes of France was 1,373,000,000. The debt of Marseilles was in that year 106,000,000 francs, this outlay being represented by various public improve- ments, principally, however, those pertaining to har- bor facilities. The debt of Lyons was 86,500,000 francs, that of Le Havre (largely for harbor improve- ments) 48,000,000 francs, that of Rouen 41,000,000 francs, and that of Lille 40,000,000. The description THE FEENCH MUNICIPAL SYSTEM 209 I have given of the modernization of street systems in CHAP - IL the French provincial capitals will readily explain a considerable share of the outstanding indebtedness, while improved water-supplies, sewers, new school buildings, public abattoirs, and various architectural and sanitary improvements would sufficiently account for the rest. I am inclined to believe that the conditions of life * general . outlook for in the French provincial towns are destined to improve municipal .-,,.,, ,, . -11 progress in very rapidly in the course of the coming decade or France. two, and that, for France at least, the rate of move- ment of population from the country to the towns is destined to increase somewhat rather than to dimin- ish. On the other hand, the distinction between town and country in France is likely to become less em- phatic, inasmuch as the suburban tendency begins to make itself felt, the compactness and density of town life having already passed its maximum and begun to grow appreciably less. Improved transit systems will rapidly widen the area of municipalization ; and thus the country at large will become more urban in the character of its improvements, while the towns will become more countrified, by reason of their tree-lined thoroughfares, their outlying parks, and their villa- built suburbs. 14 CHAPTER III THE SYSTEMS OF BELGIUM, HOLLAND, AND SPAIN The French system as a type. Medieval Belgium. rilHE account that has been given of the character I and historical development of the French system of municipal administration will make it a compara- tively brief and simple task to outline the systems of several adjacent countries. It has been stated in the opening paragraph of this volume that French influ- ence was dominant in the modern revision of the ad- ministrative framework of other European peoples; and this remark applies particularly to Belgium, Hol- land, Spain, French-speaking Switzerland, and Italy. Each of these countries has modified the French sys- tem in numerous ways for its own practical uses; yet all of their municipal codes of to-day may for our purposes be regarded as so many variations of one general type. The differences of detail are much greater than those that distinguish from each other the English, Scotch, and Irish systems; but on the other hand they are much less than those that mark the systems of different states in the United States. The Belgian provinces with approximately their present bounds are very ancient, and were practi- cally independent of one another until the House of Burgundy, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, knit them together with a centralized administration which has from that time to the present day given them a common destiny. After the crumbling of the 210 THE BELGIAN SYSTEM 211 Carlovingian Empire, the Belgian provinces had conie under the rule of feudal princes and barons, whose sway had in turn been broken down by the rise of the " communes," or municipalities, a movement be- ginning in the eleventh century. The communes reached a very high degree of prosperity, privilege, and local autonomy in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries. The great part which the feudal princes of Belgium played in the Crusades had en- abled the communes the more successfully to assert themselves. Each commune, with its elected council and its college of magistrates, composed of a burgo- master and several echevins, formed in itself a minia- ture free state. The House of Burgundy superimposed a superior central administration upon provinces each of which had already its long-standing provincial or- ganization and its highly developed communal system. In order to produce a larger unity, the measures which depressed and enfeebled the communes in the fifteenth century and subsequently were perhaps justified. We are accustomed to regard the virility of Anglo- Saxon institutions as due in large part to the persist- ence of the old-time local units of government, the townships. It is, however, well to remember that the French and Belgian communes are as ancient and as worthy of respect as the Anglo-Saxon townships. Modern constitutional improvements in Belgium have been wisely grafted upon the ancient structure of provinces and communes. The economic character of the pre-Revolutionary regime in Belgium was far from being so bad as that of France. In Belgium, in the eighteenth century, the nobles and the Church bore their respective shares of taxation, and the masses were comparatively com- fortable. The more violent phases of the French Rev- olution were fortunately not witnessed in Belgium, CHAP. III. Rise of the communes. Miniature states. Central amalgama- tion. Historic dig- nity of the communes. Belgium and the French Revolution. 212 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. III. Annexed to , ... , . - -i ^ France. Napoleon in 1814. A trans- forming ex- perience. Permanent results. while the beneficent and just principles of the new po- litical philosophy of France had free course and gen- eral acceptance in the neighbor country. In 1794 Belgium was annexed by the French Republic, and it shared the fortunes of France until the downfall of Compared with the old France, the old Belgium was certainly an elysium; but its society was lethargic and uuprogressive. The Revo- lution and the French intrusion made an awakening that was exceedingly rough and uncomfortable, but thoroughly beneficial in the end. As a primary-school summary of Belgian history quaintly remarks : A la suite de la victoire de Fleurus, la Belgique passe & la France, dont le regime a ses rigueurs, mais nous pro- cure de precieuses libertes." The transformation wrought in a very few years is well summed up by a spirited Belgian historian : " 1789, c'est la vieille Bel- gique, la Belgique provinciale et communale, telle que 1'ont formee les siecles, avec ses antiques privileges, ses rouages compliques, ses classes juxtaposees, ses trois e"tats, son clerge tout-puissant, son esprit par- ticulariste et conservateur 1799, tfest la Belgique nouvelle, la Belgique unifee, telle que 1'a modelee le clair genie de la France, avec son administration sim- ple, sa egalite civique, son clerge fonctionnaire, son esprit centralisateur et progressif ." The existing civil and criminal codes, the machinery of civil adminis- tration, and the arrangements and procedure of ju- dicial tribunals have grown essentially out of those introduced from France in the Napoleonic period. The allied powers, convened at Paris in 1814 to ar- range terms of peace with France, determined upon the fusion of Belgium and Holland, and the estab- lishment of the kingdom of the Low Countries, under the rule of the Prince of Orange as William I. The new power was erected upon the basis of a constitu- THE BELGIAN SYSTEM 213 tional document known as " the Fundamental Law o.f CHAP. in. 1815 ; " and a very liberal charter it was, when one considers the mood in which the conquerors were, and their dislike of advanced and " Frenchified " po- litical notions. It had been adopted by Holland in Fundamen- * * tal Law of 1814, and its benefits were extended to Belgium by isis. the fusion of the following year. The Fundamental Law recognized most of " the rights of man," gave the provinces and communes their own administration, and, in short, established modern representative in- stitutions. But while the government of William was in the main advantageous and just, it was in minor respects exceedingly unpopular and obnoxious in the Belgian provinces. The Belgians for the most part talked French, and they disliked Dutch as the official language. Holland was Protestant, while Belgium was intensely Catholic, and the Church found itself uncomfortably fettered. Dutch views seemed to pre- i . , . ,-, . ,. ' ,, The "regime vail in everything, to the growing exasperation 01 hoiiandais." the Belgians, who felt themselves under a foreign yoke rather than an integral part of a self-governing country. The Belgians all admit that what they term the regime hoiiandais was highly favorable to the de- velopment of their industry and commerce, and no- table for the great impulse given to education ; but while acknowledging and respecting the many supe- rior qualities of the Netherlanders, the Belgians found the union ill-assorted and incompatible. They ad- mired the Dutch as neighbors, but could not endure to keep house with them. In 1830, they pronounced themselves divorced from a union which had been e in a i83o? n forced upon them without their consent by the Trea- ties of Paris and the Congress of Vienna, and they succeeded in maintaining an independence which at first was viewed unfavorably by Europe and vigor- ously opposed by Holland. A provisional govern- u* 214 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE Constitu- tional con- vention of 1830. CHAP. in. merit declared Belgium an independent state, and called a national congress to adopt a constitution. Few constitutional assemblies have ever been more thoroughly representative, and few have ever shown a higher degree of political sagacity, than that which assembled at Brussels in November, 1830, and com- pleted its labors in the following February. "Within a period of about forty years Europe and America had witnessed a series of most remarkable constitutional experiments. New principles had been developed, and what we term the modern era of constitutionalism had fairly set in. There were in this convention a num- ber of able and brilliant men, and the discussions were of the most important character. Some of the two hundred members believed that the time had come to establish a republic ; and, with the House of Orange forever excluded by a formal vote, the ques- tion seemed to rest upon its pure merits. It was de- cided, after a discussion of the actual situation, do- mestic and foreign, that an hereditary constitutional monarchy, with ministerial responsibility, and with large provision for provincial and communal home- rule, would be the best form of government for Bel- gium, and only thirteen votes dissented, although the republic was frankly avowed by many to be their ideal. The sovereignty of the people was, however, declared, and not a vestige of the divine right of kings was left in the reconstituted system. The nature and limita- tions of the monarchy were, fortunately, determined before the monarch himself was selected. The Belgian constitution-makers of 1830 understood the nature of their task. It was theirs to preserve in unified and harmonious form the old institutions of the provinces and communes, and to weave into the new fabric those modern liberties, individual and so- cial, which the French Revolution had rescued from Popular sovereignty. THE BELGIAN SYSTEM 215 the de"bris of feudalism, and which the French regime in Belgium had left as an imperishable souvenir in the political creeds, if not in the ordinary practice of the country. Then there was the very respectable constitution of Holland, which a joint commission of Belgian and Dutch notables had revised in 1815, and under which the people of the two countries had now lived for fifteen years. This document might well be taken as the basis of comparison, the point of depar- ture. Then the French Revolution of 1830 had pro- duced exemplary legislative changes. Good use, more- over, was to be made of English and American expe- rience ; and, finally, there were, in the precise Belgian situation and in the causes that had led to the Revo- lution of 1830, many things to tax the critical and the constructive faculties of the national assembly. The result was not only one of the clearest and most scien- tific instruments of organic law ever drafted by any man or body of men, but also one of the best in point of practical fitness. The revolutionary waves of 1848 and 1870 which swept across Europe were quite with- out effect in Belgium, where the people were already in the enjoyment of substantial constitutional liber- ties. Full freedom of worship, of instruction, of the press and the theater, of assembly and association, of petition, of language, these social rights, only partly protected under the regime hollandais, were specifi- cally guaranteed in the constitution of 1831, together with those individual rights of perfect equality before the law, and of inviolability of domicile and property that have had more universal recognition. The nine provinces (Antwerp, Brabant, East Flan ders, West Flanders, Hainaut, Liege, Limbourg, Lux- embourg, and Namur), whose lines were revised by the French on the analogy of their new "departments," have each their elective assembly, known as provincial CHAP. III. Sources of the new constitution. Successful results. Guaranteed rights. The nine provinces. 216 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. III. Provincial councils. The governor and his func- tions. The com- munes and the munici- pal govern- ments. The elective franchise. councils ; these bodies varying in number, according to the provincial population, from forty-one in Limbourg to ninety-two in East Flanders. The assembly meets in a brief annual session at the chief town of the pro- vince, and deals with matters of purely provincial concern. Councilors are elected for four years, half of them retiring every two years. The most impor- tant work of the council is done by a standing com- mittee of six members (la deputation permanente), which acts as a governor's administrative council. The provincial governor corresponds to the French prefect, being appointed by the king, and having ex- ecutive authority in the name of the general govern- ment. But the Belgian province has a somewhat larger measure of autonomy than the French " depart- ment." For certain judicial and electoral purposes the provinces are divided into cantons and arron- dissements; but these are merely territorial circum- scriptions, and have no corporate character. The es- sential internal divisions of Belgium are the provinces and communes. There are 2600 communes, each with its municipal government. Some of them are densely filled with an urban population, and others are mere rural townships; but each has its elected council, its burgomaster, and its echevins. The size of these municipal councils varies with the popula- tion, from nine or ten members in the smallest to thirty or more in the large places. Unlike the French, the Belgians have never adopted the plan of universal suffrage. The Flemish and Bel- gian constitution-makers of 1815 and 1830 were con- servative upon this question of the franchise; and restrictions were imbedded in the fundamental law which it was almost impossible to dislodge. The con- stitution withstood attack until 1893, when the old system was changed in a manner which I shall pro- THE BELGIAN SYSTEM 217 ceed to explain. But it may be well first to sum up the electoral arrangements which were in existence until that time. The payment of direct taxes to the state was made the condition of voting, and the con- stitution provided that the sum should be determined from time to time by law, the maximum being one hun- dred florins, and the minimum twenty florins. At first a schedule was enacted which made different rates for town and country, and also for different provinces, the average rate being much higher than the constitutional minimum. But in 1848, under the influence of the universal wave of democratic feeling, the differences were all abolished, and the minimum of twenty florins was made the uniform qualification, by unanimous vote of both Chambers. It should be remembered that this sum (42.32 francs, equal to about $8.50) was to be paid as direct taxes to the state, and that payment of provincial and municipal taxes did not count toward electoral qualification. "When in 1893 the system was changed by constitu- tional amendment, there were only about 130,000 voters, one in thirteen of the adult males, or one in fifty of the population. For a long time there was very little agitation in any quarter for an extension of the suffrage, and the system was destined to remain as it was until the in- tellectual emancipation of the masses had made much greater progress. Under the existing system of com- pulsory education the reproach of illiteracy is fast disappearing. In 1880, forty-two per cent, of the pop- ulation above fifteen years of age was absolutely illit- erate, while all but about twenty-nine per cent, of the children between seven and fifteen could read and write. The statistics of 1890 showed a very marked improvement, illiterates above the age of fifteen having fallen from 42 per cent, to 26.9 per cent, in a single CHAP. III. The system prior to 1893. One voten for fifty people;. Decrease of illiteracy. 218 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUEOPE CHAP. in. decade. In deference to the demands of a growing popular intelligence, there was enacted in 1883 a law Educational establishing an educational qualification for the pro- for voting, vincial and communal franchise. This new law added to the electoral lists two classes of persons, irrespec- tive of tax-paying : first, all persons exercising speci- fied liberal professions, holders of diplomas from specified classes of institutions, occupants of impor- tant official, commercial, and social positions under specified conditions, and so on through a carefully elaborated schedule; and second, those who should pass successfully an electoral examination, the de- tails of which were prescribed in the law. Educational qualification has been much discussed theoretically, both in Europe and America, but has had very meager practical trial anywhere. This Bel- An instruct- cnan experiment was the more interesting for that ive expert- r ment. reason. The requirements were made to correspond in a general way with the amount and kind of know- ledge included in the compulsory school courses, the intention being that the boy who had completed his school attendance should be well prepared, with a little reviewing, to take the electoral examination. The programme of obligatory instruction in Belgian Subjects ob- . r . ? , , , ... ... ... ., ., , ligatory in schools included reading, writing, arithmetic, the le- scnoois! gal system of weights and measures, the elements of the French, Flemish, or German language (according to the province or locality), geography, Belgian his- tory and civil government, drawing, singing, gym- nastics, and the principles of agriculture in schools of rural communes. The electoral examination embraced all these subjects except drawing, singing, gymnastics, quired for and agriculture. As originally enacted, the law re- electoral ex- animation, quired the presentation of school certificates as a pre- liminary; but this demand was afterward modified. The candidate had to be fully eighteen years old. THE BELGIAN SYSTEM 219 (He was not, of course, to exercise the franchise until CHAP. in. he was twenty-one.) He might have his examination in the French, Flemish, or German language, and choose between an evening and a Sunday sitting. T i i ,. i -. Conductor The examinations' were held 111 March of each year in examination, the chief town of every canton, and the state railways carried the candidates up to the ordeal and home again at half price. The examinations were conducted by "juries of three" members each, named by the minister of the interior. Each jury was composed of a principal or leading instructor in a middle school of the state system, a like educator from a private mid- dle school, and a third person not engaged in educa- tional work, who acted as president. The answers were wholly in writing, and the questions to be sub- mitted were selected by lot, in the presence of the candidates, from a very large list prepared and pub- lished by the government. The current lists held good for a period of four years, and it was the privilege of the candidate to study all the questions at his leisure, in advance. Publishers issued the questions with answers annexed, to make "cramming" as easy as possible. But the examina- tion was, nevertheless, far from being a farce. The official questionnaire contained one hundred numbered lists. 011 passages, averaging about one hundred and fifty words each, from the writings of standard authors. A num- ber was drawn, and the corresponding passage was slowly dictated to the candidates, to test at once their ability to read, write, and spell. To answer the ques- tions on the history of Belgium (111 in the question- naire) required a remarkably thorough knowledge, involving also much of general European history from the time of Caesar to the middle of the present cen- tury ; while the fifty or more questions on the prin- ciples of the Belgian constitution called for know- 220 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE The system in practice. CHAP. in. ledge both accurate and mature. The geography questions numbered nearly two hundred, and re- quired a minute knowledge of Belgium, a very thor- ough acquaintance with the natural and political fea- tures of Europe, and a fair knowledge of the whole world. One hundred and fifty problems in general arithmetic were given, and as many more dealt with measures of length, measures of surface, measures of volume and capacity, with weights, and with money. Questions from each category were successively drawn. The precautions to insure fairness were many and ef- fective. Resident electors were allowed to be repre- sented by witnesses, who observed that all was done in the interest of fair play. The examination papers were collected, sealed in a package, and transmitted to the examining board of some other canton, selected by lot, to be read and marked. Reading and writing together counted for ten points, and the other five branches for five points each. To pass the examina- tion and receive a diploma it was necessary to have gained at least twenty-one points out of a possible thirty-five. The requirements seemed rather formi- dable ; but they were open to a liberal construction, so that if the candidate were but able to write legibly, to spell respectably, to solve ordinary every-day prob- lems in figures, and to use current weights and mea- sures, he might fail in history and. geography and still pass the ordeal. An examination system can never be free from all objections ; and Belgium's had per- haps as few as any ever devised. The body of provincial and communal electors gradually became vastly larger than that of the legis- lative electors. Only those who paid forty-two francs of direct state taxes voted for senators and represen- tatives. For provincial elections the limit had been reduced to twenty francs, and for the municipal fran- Growth of the munici' pal voting ' list. THE BELGIAN SYSTEM 221 chise to ten francs, direct taxes paid to the treasury of the state alone being reckoned. The enrolment of individuals by virtue of professions and positions (capacitaires de droit), and of those who passed the educational test (capacitaires apr&s examen], reinforced the number of those possessing the property qualifi- cation (censitaires) as regards the provincial and mu- nicipal elections. In 1893, after a memorable period of agitation, the electoral clauses of the constitution were changed. For the election of members of the Chamber of Rep- resentatives, every male citizen twenty-five years old, who had been a year in the commune where he was domiciled, was given one vote. An additional or plu- ral vote was given to married men or widowers over thirty-five years old having children, provided they paid as much as five francs a year as a house-occu- pancy tax. Finally, two additional votes (three al- together) were accorded to professional men and others having diplomas of higher instruction, while a plural vote was also allowed to real-estate owners. This arrangement increased the number of legislative votes almost tenfold. Qualifications for choosing senators were made the same, except that senatorial voters must be thirty years old. A law was passed in 1894 which made the qualifica- tions for the election of provincial councils the same as those for the election of senators. It was not un- til April, 1895, that the municipal and communal fran- chise was revised. Until that time the local electors were those above the age of twenty-one who paid di- rect taxes of ten francs, together with others entitled to vote under the educational qualifications. But the new law of 1895 absolutely disfranchises every man un- der the age of thirty. Every citizen above that age is entitled to one vote at a municipal election, pro- CHAP. III. Extension of the national franchise in 1893. Plural votes. New provin- cial electo- rate, 1894. Municipal suffrage law of 1895. 222 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUEOPE CHAP. III. Supplement- ary votes to fathers of families. A conserva- tive electo- rate. Universal suffrage and proportional representa- tion rejected. Educational test repealed. Councils chosen on general ticket. vided he has been a resident of the place for three years. A supplementary vote is given to family men above the age of thirty-five who are assessed a certain sum as householders. This sum is fifteen francs in places having more than ten thousand inhabitants, five francs in communes of less than two thousand, and ten francs in those having from two to ten thou- sand people. A second supplementary vote is granted to property owners who derive a revenue of at least one hundred and fifty francs a year from real estate. Thus (1) the total exclusion of men who ai"e under thirty, and (2) the requirement of a three years' resi- dence, practically eliminate from the Belgian municipal electorate the great majority of unmarried men and all the floating industrial element. The second vote allowed to tax-paying house-occupiers with families, and the third vote to real-estate owners, give assured control of municipal affairs to the well-to-do classes. The workingmen of the labor unions, and the large socialist element, clamored in vain for universal suf- frage. The Liberal party would have preferred a more popular system, and the leaders of Liberalism were strongly committed to the principle of propor- tional representation in the choice of municipal coun- cils. But the Conservative or Catholic party, which was in control of the government, insisted upon mak- ing the local suffrage more restricted than the na- tional. With the new system, of course, educational qualification as adopted in 1883 disappeared altogether. The municipal councils continue to be elected by the qualified voters on general tickets for terms of six years, half of the number being chosen every three years. The ward system has never commended itself to the Belgians. It happens that a majority of the propertied and intelligent classes in the large towns belong to the Liberal party, and that the restrictions THE BELGIAN SYSTEM 223 A political paradox. system. upon the franchise have always operated in favor of CHAP. in. the very party which has advocated a more demo- cratic system. The situation involves a curious po- litical paradox. The Conservative position in the municipalities would be much stronger with propor- tional representation, which the Liberals advocate; but the Conservative majority in the national legisla- ture insists upon the maintenance of a system in the local elections which has long kept the Conservative or Catholic Church party despite its overwhelming influence with the masses from controlling the mu- nicipal governments of any of the large towns. The Belgians have adopted a form of secret ballot that is worth attention as being better in some respects than any in use elsewhere. The ordinary French sys- tern of balloting was in vogue in Belgium prior to 1877. In that year the English system (commonly called in America the Australian system) was adopted, as a safeguard against prevalent bribery and intimi- dation. The English plan of ballots prepared by the authorities was found, of course, a great advance. But it did not secure absolute secrecy; for instructed or purchased voters were required, in many cases, by those who controlled them, to make the cross or mark in some prescribed and recognizable way, so that interested persons could know to a certainty whether pledges were fulfilled or not. All this was done away with by the substitution of gutta-percha stamps for pencils, in the alcoves of the polling places. The property qualification admits many illiterates to the ballot; and it is found practically objectionable to allow the president or any other official of the day to accompany such voters into the alcoves to read and explain the ticket. Different colors are used for the benefit of illiterates. Thus, in the legislative elec- tions, the average district is entitled to choose several illiterates. 224 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. in. members. The Catholics prepare their list of candi- dates, and send it in to the authorities with the sig- natures of at least forty electors to constitute a valid nomination. The Liberals do likewise. The parties are so perfectly organized that the occasions are ex- Nominations, tremely rare when any other than the two regular lists are sent in. The authorities print the two sets of names in parallel columns on the voting paper, printing the Catholic list in red and the Liberal list in blue. At the head of each list is printed a device which incloses a blank white patch. The voter places the inked stamp in the Catholic or in the Liberal patch at his option, folds the ticket, and deposits his vote. He may vote a mixed list, if he chooses ; in which Method of J voting. case he affixes the stamp in a space left for that pur- pose at the end of each name. He can vote only for names printed on the ticket, and only for as many as the number of places to be filled. Sometimes it hap- pens that more than two tickets are nominated. In municipal elections at Brussels there have been four parties in the field, Catholic, Liberal, Radical, and Socialist. In such cases the additional lists are printed in still different colors on the same ballot paper. The instances are exceptional where voters do not adhere to the regular and complete party list. A man votes " red " or he votes " blue," and stamps his ticket ac- cordingly. It will be observed that the requirement of so many as forty signatures to a nomination paper helps to maintain party discipline and to keep down party ties, random voting. In all its details the system would not be perfectly applicable for a country where par- ties are less rigid and omnipotent than in Belgium ; but the use of the stamp is an improvement which might advantageously be adopted everywhere. The communal lines are sometimes much more re- stricted than the area of a large town. Thus Brussels THE BELGIAN SYSTEM 225 as a metropolis had 500,000 people in 1895, while the CHAP. in. commune of Brussels the " municipal corporation," as we should say had hardly 200,000. The council- ors in the larger communes are usually intelligent and active men barristers, engineers, manufacturers, and progressive citizens of various callings. The bur- gomaster, or mayor, is appointed by the king (that is, by the government of the day) from the members of the communal council, usually in concurrence with Burgomas- the known or supposed wishes of the majority, and he tens. holds his place for an indefinite term. In all but the larger communes there are two echevins, selected from the membership of the council, and having executive duties to perform as associates and assistants of the mayor. They hold for six years. In Brussels and The echevins. Antwerp there are five echevins, and in the other large towns there are four. These, with the burgo- master to preside over them, form a standing execu- tive board, and supervise municipal works, have charge of the sanitary administration as a board of health, and so on. The system is simple and efficient. The burgomaster presides at the sessions of the coun- cil as well as at those of the " echevinal college," and is at once a servant of the commune and a representa- tive in the commune of the executive power of the state. The college of echevins has control of the civil board. m registers of births, deaths, and marriages, and is charged with the duty of executing in the commune all the laws and mandates of the superior governments of the province and the realm, thus having general as well as merely local functions. The burgomastership becomes in some towns a sort of dynasty. In Ant- Dynastic burgomas- werp the burgomaster of 1850 was succeeded by his ters. son, who has in turn been succeeded by his son-in- law, thus keeping the office in the family for three generations. 15 226 MUNICIPAL GOVEKNMENT IN EUEOPE CHAP. in. The Belgian echevins, obviously, correspond to the French adjuncts, forming with the burgomaster a standing executive committee of the same character compared as that which in the French municipalities is made up with French , i i T-T system, of the mayor and his adjuncts. But whereas in France the executive authority is conferred upon the mayor alone, who in turn distributes their tasks to his adjuncts, in Belgium much of the authority is reposed in the collective group. The French mayor exercises the appointive power, while in Belgium the municipal council itself appoints the municipal employees, as in England. The theory upon which the king names the burgomasters and e"chevins has regard for the fact that these officials are charged with the local execu- tion of the general laws. Local self-government in Belgium does not in practice suffer any considerable Burgomaster limitation from the nominal selection of the burgo- masters by the king. The burgomaster is personally charged with the police authority. Those who regret the rapid disappearance of the quaint and old-fashioned in European cities must be shocked at the changes which a few years have made in the principal places of Belgium. Parts of these . towns are now not unlike parts of Omaha, Minneap- The march of tr~ r municipal o lis, or Kansas City, in their freshness and newness and improve- * ment. in the general character of their architecture. There has been a great passion in Belgium for municipal renovation, and much has been done on lines similar to those by which New and Corporation streets were constructed in Birmingham. In about 1875, the Bel- gian law regarding ex-appropriation was altered to permit such improvements. The town of Liege, for . street re- example, bought up all the houses old and poor, for L?fege! n the most part lining a narrow but central and im- portant street. The houses were demolished and the street was greatly widened. The building sites were THE BELGIAN SYSTEM 227 then sold in toto to a company for an amount more CHAP. in. than sufficient to cover the cost of original purchase and of demolition. The company built in part and sold lots in part, and the result is a magnificent mod- ern street, now solidly built up. The beautiful broad boulevard, with double rows of splendid trees, that curves through Liege, was once the course of the Meuse (or rather of one branch, the original town being upon an island). But the river was diverted into a straighter channel some seventy years ago, and a grand street was made of the other and longer channel. About 1879, a smaller island, then unbuilt upon, was acquired by the government, and sold to the municipality of Liege for 1,000,000 francs. The speculation. town authorities laid out fine streets and sold build- ing sites. Within two years the new "addition" was splendidly built up with showy residence rows. The city's speculation was a very lucrative one. But these things are not always carried out so smoothly. Visitors to Brussels must have been im- pressed with the broad and exceedingly handsome new Brussels and business thoroughfare on which the Grand Hotel boulevards." stands. These " inner boulevards " were made a few years ago, upon the plan already described. The old buildings were all purchased and demolished at great cost, and the formerly narrow street was made straight and broad. The reconstruction was accomplished by a foreign company, which could not meet its obliga- tions to the city, and failed. A large amount of the property fell into the hands of the municipal corpora- tion, which became a landlord on an extensive scale, and which, as perhaps many of the subsequent guests did not know, owned the Grand Hotel itself. Ant- Antwerp's i i-ii' i street re- werp has employed this same plan to rebuild and im- forms. prove its central streets ; and so the old and pictur- esque is disappearing, and something like Parisian 228 MUNICIPAL. GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. III. Brussels and its gas plant. Tram-lines in Belgium. General im- provements. A projected ship canal. Antwerp's harbor facil- ities. uniformity and universality is everywhere the new rule in municipal architecture. Brussels, as a modern municipality and a growing commercial center, has many points of interest. It is developing rapidly, and its ambition and courage are expanding in due proportion. It is one of the few large towns of Belgium or France that have gone into the business of gas supply on municipal account. Its gas-works are advantageously operated, prices have been reduced, and the net revenues are considerable. The tram-lines in all the Belgian towns are operated by private companies under strict regulations, and they pay mileage rates to the municipal treasuries for use of the streets. They are, as a rule, admirably managed, with low fares, graduated according to dis- tance. Marked improvements are everywhere being made in such matters as paving, drainage, building regulations, and municipal amenities of various sorts ; but in these undertakings the Belgian towns, like the French, are more conservative than the G-erman and the British. Brussels has taken the notable example of Glasgow, and the still more recent example of Manchester, to heart, and is seriously agitating the question of a ship canal. This huge undertaking could not fail to enhance the importance of the Bel- gian capital, and, as a financial project, it seems en- tirely feasible. Every ambitious modern city has its future largely in its own hands, and Brussels is intent upon making itself great. Meanwhile, immense sums have been expended at Antwerp for the improvement of harbor facilities, and few seaport municipalities in Europe have since 1880 exhibited a more determined or intelligent energy. Antwerp, like Brussels, is gaining population with striking rapidity. It had 120,000 people in 1862, and more than 260,000 in 1895. Brussels in 1800 had THE BELGIAN SYSTEM 229 66,000 people within the walls (which are now demol- CHAP. in. ished and replaced by encircling boulevards), and Growth of there were 10,000 more in the extra-mural precincts. The total population in 1893 had reached 500,000, of which perhaps 200,000 were within the limits of the ancient commune or inner city. Liege, in 1893, had 160,000 people, as against 100,000 some thirty years earlier. Although these Belgian cities are growing so hand- some and Paris-like, one regrets to find the housing of the poor so inadequate. The late M. de Lavelaye, of Liege, once assured me that while, in recent years, much new construction had added greatly to the aver- age size and comfort of the houses occupied by the more fortunate classes, there had been little or no new building for the poor, and small improvement in the character of their habitations. As in the British cities, so in the Belgian towns, thousands of families live each in a single room. The condition of the ouvriers did not seem to M. de Lavelaye to be improving fast. It was in this vein that the Belgian economist dis- coursed as we inspected the handsome new rows in Liege consisting of houses that cost about one hundred thousand francs to build, on lots valued at 20,000 francs such establishments renting for about five thousand francs. Incidentally, it may be said that many well-to-do people perhaps nearly half of them in Belgian towns own their houses. But while the poor are still overcrowded, and hous- ing-reforms require serious attention, the general conditions of the Belgian cities have improved aston- ishingly through the successful adoption of modern progreS. sanitary methods. Thus the death-rate of Brussels in 1876 was nearly twenty-five per 1000, from which there was a gradual decline until for the year 1894 the rate was 18.1. In the face of an exceedingly rapid 15* 230 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. III. Reduced death-rates. Octroi abol- ished. Cheapness of tramway fares and small articles. Freedom of communi- cation. growth, the death-rate had fallen off about thirty per cent. The Antwerp death-rate had formerly been a high one, but in 1894 it was a little less than nine- teen. Such figures speak eloquently of good munici- pal housekeeping that is to say, of satisfactory water and drainage, public cleansing, food inspection, and vigilance against infectious diseases. So many things in the local administration of Bel- gium being like those of France, it is worth while to observe one great point of improvement. Belgium abolished the octroi taxes before 1870 with the result of making some of the commonest articles much cheaper in Belgian than in French towns. One is impressed, indeed, with the cheapness of all small articles in Belgium. In France the smallest coin in usual circulation is the sou piece (five centimes, equivalent to one American cent, or an English half- penny) ; but in Belgium copper coins of one and two centimes are in ordinary use. A newspaper may be bought for two centimes. The tram-line fares are six or eight centimes per kilometer. School-children buy pencils and other small articles at prices which only the small coins make possible. The relation of minor coinage to customary prices is worthy of more study than it has received. The poor people of Bel- gium probably save in the total a large sum annually because of the fact that change can be made to the centime. The substitution of other sources of local income for the octroi dues has been accounted an economic reform of great social benefit. In so small a country, where population is so dense and where good roads and navigable waterways invite to easy traffic, the octroi system could but cause great friction. Bel- gium's comparative freedom from the strain of mili- tary expenditure has made it possible for the central THE DUTCH SYSTEM 231 CHAP. III. Municipal councils con- trol schools. Also chari- ties, etc. government so to adjust the taxation system as not only to permit but to require the towns to abolish their local customs barriers. The educational methods of the Belgian towns are in most respects like those of France. The schools, under the Belgian system, are directly controlled by the municipal council, which appoints the teachers and performs the functions of a school-board. The hospital administration, the bureaux de bienfaisance, and the monts-de-piete", are also under the authority of the municipal council, which appoints their super- vising boards and manages their finances. Thus the municipal councils of Belgium occupy a larger sphere of control than those of France, or even those of England. For the British schools and poor-relief are administered by separate elective bodies, while in France they are in the hands of appointive boards. In Belgium, on the contrary, these great branches of local administration, like all others, find their man- agement vested in the one representative municipal council. The provincial government exercises a con- siderable measure of supervision over the actions of the municipalities and communes, not to the end of checking or restraining a proper municipal freedom, but for the sake of regularity and safety. Decentrali- zation has been better realized in Belgium than in France, although the manner in which the superior control over local government is exercised is similar in the two countries. The effect of modern conditions upon the growth and the grouping of population may be studied in Town popu- TT ,, _ , J . . lationin Holland to great advantage. Perhaps nowhere else Holland, has the rapid expansion of the towns been attended with so few embarrassing results. The larger its membership becomes, the more orderly and efficient Control ex- ercised by provincial authorities. 232 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. IIL growth, Density and social progress. seems to be the Netherlander hive. For some years past, using round figures, there have been 150,000 births each year in Holland, and 90,000 deaths, leav- ing a net annual increase of 60,000. Emigration has averaged less than 5000 a year, and it has been coun- ter-balanced by some immigration. Thus for the four years from the end of 1889 to the beginning of 1894 the average net gain of population was 55,374 per annum. In the twenty four years previous to Janu- ary 1, 1894, Holland's population had grown from 3,579,529 to 4,732,911, a gain of 1,153,382, or more than 32 per cent. Of this remarkable increase, 602,- 036 people are credited to the twenty-one largest towns, and 551,346 represent the gains of all the rest of the country. The percentage of the total popula- tion belonging to the large towns (those having more than 20,000 people each) had increased from 26.1 to 32.5. But the urban growth in fact was greater than these figures indicate ; for much of the gain outside the large towns was aggregated in manufacturing suburbs, and in industrial towns having from 10,000 to 20,000 inhabitants. The density of the provinces of North Holland and South Holland had increased to the remarkable averages of 876 and 836.5 per square mile ; while for all Holland the average was 374. With a harsh and capricious climate, and with great difficulties in the way of thorough drainage and a satisfactory supply of water, it is nothing short of a brilliant triumph of sanitary science and enlightened municipal administration that Holland is able to ac- commodate half a million additional inhabitants every decade, without further aggravating any of the evil consequences of overcrowding, but, on the contrary, with steady improvement in the average of healthful- ness and of social well-being. The death-rate dimin- THE DUTCH SYSTEM 233 ishes ; poverty and crime are well controlled ; educa- CHAP. in. tion "becomes more universal and more complete, and, in short, the urbanization of Holland seems not to have been attended with any of those phenomena of Beduction physical, mental, or moral decline that have been re- rate. garded in many quarters as inevitable results of the growth of cities. For the whole country, the average yearly death-rate in the decade 1860-70 was approxi- mately 25 per 1000. In the period from 1870 to 1880 it declined somewhat. But from 1880 to 1890 it fell materially, and reached an average of about 20. In 1893 it was only 19.1. But the great city of Amster- dam, with a population (December 31, 1893) of 446,657 not including the suburbs, reported for 1893 a death- Amster- rate of only 18.6, which was appreciably less than the liant record. rate for the whole of Holland. When a country's chief city has a death-rate lower than the rate for the nation, in the face of the old maxim that death-rates increase in a certain mathematical ratio as density increases, then, surely, modern sanitary improve- ments and administrative methods are vindicated be- yond all controversy. To show that the low Amster- dam rate promises permanence, it should be said that the report for 1894 was still more favorable, the figures being 18.3. At the Hague in 1893 the rate was 19.1, The Hague exactly the same as that for the whole country ; but dam. in 1894 the Hague rate dropped to 16.9. The Rotter- dam rate was 21.9 in 1893 and 20.1 in 1894. Until a very recent date, mortality in these cities was at a con- siderably higher rate than in the nation at large. Birth-rates for 1894 were reported as follows: Am- sterdam, 31.6 ; Rotterdam, 35.3 ; the Hague, 31.4. The birth-rates promise soon to be double the death-rates. The population of the seven largest towns at the opening of 1894, as compared with their population 234 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. in. ten years earlier and thirty-two years earlier, is shown in the following table: Town growth in 32 years. Amsterdam .... Jan. 1, 1894. 446,657 . Jan. 1, 1884. . 361,326 . Jan. 1, 1862. . 268,355 Rotterdam 228,597 . . 166,002 . . 109,402 Th.e Hague 174,790 . . 131,417 . . 81,993 Utrecht 91,070 . 74,364 . 54,495 Gronengen . ... 58,554 . 49,992 . 36,112 Haarlem 56,803 . . 43,961 . . 28,145 Arnhem . . 52,582 44,436 26,382 Within one generation these Dutch towns have nearly or quite doubled their population. If an area large enough to include the contiguous suburbs were brought into the comparison, it would be seen that Doubled in the population of Amsterdam as well as that of the ne tf e n. era other towns in the list had, within a third of a cen- tury, gained more than a hundred per cent. The ac- tivities that this rapid growth has necessitated on the part of the municipal governments may readily be inferred. But the new problems have been met with intelligence and success. The last generation of Dutch town-dwellers were habitually economical in the donnestic use of water. For although canals are everywhere, and almost the whole country would seem in imminent danger of submersion through the breaking of dykes, it is need- less to explain that the canal water is not potable, oid and new In the earlier days, drainage of every character passed freely into the water-ways, and the series of Amster- dam canals, for instance, were in fact so many open sewers. But methods have changed. The canals are flushed and renewed with clean ocean water, in- troduced from the North Sea by an artificial channel, and the sediment is constantly being dredged. The houses are supplied with earth closets, from which accumulations are regularly and frequently removed in tight receptacles on the well-known tub or pan THE DUTCH SYSTEM 235 system ; and the excrementary material is converted CHAP. in. into fertilizers. The Amsterdam drinking-water sup- ply is introduced from the famous " Dunes " near Water- Haarlem, by aqueducts ; and with this improved sup- supplies. ply of pure domestic water collected from the sterile region of sand hills; with the better disposition of waste of all kinds ; and with the improved means for renewing water in the street canals which divide Amsterdam into nearly a hundred islands, the fevers and the other once prevalent diseases have be- come far less frequent, so that a city which seemed destined always to be unwholesome has now become a marvelously healthful place. The Rotterdam water- supply is pumped from the river and filtered, while waste materials are carried to the farms as from Am- sterdam. I am informed that the Amsterdam mu- nicipality has recently acquired control of the gas plant and is furnishing its citizens with their light- ing supplies. But if this be the case it is an excep- j. 1 . f 4., r, , i 4 . 1V Lightingand tional instance ; lor the Dutch towns in general have transit m been little disposed to embark in these collective municipal undertakings. Private capital and energy have always been abundant in Holland, and have been allowed as a rule to take the initiative in sup- plying such common wants as light and transit. The street railways are numerous in the towns, and the country is intersected with steam tram lines. Fares are exceedingly low, and the facilities for local transit and traffic are notably good. The Amsterdam mu- pubiicwork nicipality has achieved great things in the develop- of dam!* 1 ment of harbor accommodations, and the canal works, bridges, and municipal appointments in general, are undergoing constant improvement at the hands of skilful engineers. In 1795 the aggressive French republic made an easy conquest of Holland. As in Belgium, the 236 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUEOPE CHAP. III. The French regime in Holland. Permanent results. Dutch con- stitutions. Administra- tive system. "rights of man" were proclaimed, and the new French methods of administration were promptly acquired by the "Batavian Republic." The Napo- leonic modifications were in turn applied to the Neth- erlands, and in 1810 Napoleon went so far as to incorporate the country with France, its institutions being completely assimilated. "With the battle of Waterloo the French domination came to an end ; but nearly twenty years of modern French administrative organization, with French civil and criminal codes, had left an impression not to be obliterated. When there- fore the kingdom of the Low Countries, uniting Holland and Belgium, was formed in 1815, it rested upon the basis of a written constitution which guaranteed the essential principles of the French revolution of 1789, and which prescribed a framework of provincial and municipal institutions upon the familiar French model. Subsequent enactments have created numer- ous variations of detail; but the French, Belgian, and Dutch systems of local administration are all traceable to a common origin. From 1795 to 1815 they were practically uniform. In 1830 the Belgians withdrew from the Union with Holland, and adopted a new constitution. Their minor organization, how- ever, continued to be very similar to that of their greatly respected Dutch neighbors. The Dutch con- stitution was revised and somewhat liberalized in ]848, with a new and comprehensive municipal code following two or three years later. Again in 1887 the constitution was revised, the franchise broadened, and some changes of detail adopted in the administra- tive laws. The outline of the system of provincial and muni- cipal government may easily be drawn, and the reader of these pages will at once perceive its similarity to the French system, and still more to the Belgian. THE DUTCH SYSTEM 237 The Dutch provinces (corresponding to the French CHAP. in. departments and the Belgian provinces) are eleven in number, and the communes (in 1894) are 1123. Each province has its elected council, known as the " Pro- vincial States," corresponding precisely to the councils- general of the French departments and the provincial Provincial councils of Belgium. These bodies vary in size from 01 ffonf 1 " 80 in the most populous (South Holland) to 35 in the least populous (Drenthe) of the provinces. They hold two sessions a year. They are represented for every-day administrative purposes by a standing committee of six of their members, designated by the body itself. This executive committee is known as the " Deputed States," and it holds the same place in provincial affairs as the deputation permanente of the Belgian provincial councils, which also consists of six members. The standing executive committee of the French councils-general, as created by the law of 1871, occupies a like position. In Holland an ap- pointed " Commissioner of the Sovereign " represents The Royal the central authority in each province, correspondin g s io^en to the provincial governor in Belgium and the prefect in France. The commissioner presides over the sessions of the Provincial States, and also over those of the executive committee of six, i. e., the Deputed States, where in case of an equal division he casts the deciding vote. While many of his duties are identical with those of a French prefect, he exercises a less domi- nant authority. Provincial and municipal self-rule in the Netherlands is more complete than in France. The Deputed States of each province must approve the budget of all municipalities, and must always give R prov\nce f consent before municipal property can be alienated. Franchises, important contracts, and some other mu- nicipal matters must also be referred to the provincial authorities for ratification. But in most of their 238 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. m. ordinary affairs the communes are left to themselves, their functions being regulated by the terms of the general law. The municipal councils of all cities and towns of considerable size are composed of thirty-nine mem- bers, elected for six years, thirteen retiring every two Councils! 1 years. For smaller communes the number is less, and the smallest elect only seven councilors. The rule for all communes, however, is the six-year term and the biennial renewal of one third of the council. The suffrage in Holland is much restricted by tax-paying qualifications. Previous to 1887 the requirements were so arduous that there were only three voters for Suffrage lim- J itations. every hundred people. At present there is one voter for about fifteen people a total electorate of ap- proximately 300,000. Voters must be twenty-three years of age, and must have paid a, land tax of at least ten guilders (about $4.00), or direct personal taxes of an amount varying in different towns accord- ing to population. 1 So exclusive an electorate might confidently be expected to choose substantial burghers Character of . . , ., ... , councilors, as municipal councilors. Any citizen who is twenty- three years old is eligible to a seat in the council, whether he is entitled to vote or not. But an elec- toral body of tax-payers would naturally fill the council with men of their own class. The mayor, or burgomaster, as he is usually called, is appointed by Theburgo- . *. * F . f master, the sovereign, for a term of six years. The appoint- ment is presumably made in deference to the ex- pressed or understood wishes of the municipal coun- cil. The mayor presides over the council, and he has 1 Pending propositions, advocated "by the government itself in the legislative chambers, will, if adopted, as seems probable, fix the minimum age of voters at twenty-five, and greatly reduce the qualifications, so that, it is estimated, there will be 700,000 voters more than twice the present number. THE DUTCH SYSTEM 239 the power to suspend its ordinances and resolutions for a period of thirty days, in order to allow the deputed states of the province time to act as a court of appeal and settle the matter. The councils of large towns select from their number four wetkouders, who constitute an executive committee with the mayor as their presiding officer. In the smaller towns only two or three such wethouders are cho- sen. They correspond to the echevins of the Belgian councils, and to the adjuncts of the French, though possessing higher authority than their French equi- valents. They are in general charge of all the depart- ments of municipal administration, and exercise the appointing and removing power over the municipal officials. The police, however, are under the mayor's personal control, by virtue of his character as an officer of the State. The Dutch burgomaster, though belonging to a municipal system the forms of which are so much more closely akin to the French than to the German, is in practice an official more similar in status to the German burgomaster than to the French mayor. His six-year appointment is likely to be renewed from time to time, and he is a high and expert pro- fessional civil servant, rather than a citizen magis- trate invested with brief authority. The Amsterdam burgomaster being appointed not long ago to a cabi- net position, the vacancy was filled by the transfer of the Rotterdam burgomaster to the executive chair of the greater city. More commonly, however, the bur- gomaster has local affiliations with the town where he holds office, and vacant burgomasterships are often filled by the promotion of a wethouder or mem- ber of the council's executive committee. Practically, a burgomastership in the Low Countries is a life position, and it carries with it much dignity and CHAP. III. The "wet- houders." Appointing power. Police con- trol. Position of the Dutch bur- gomasters. 240 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. IIL salaries. "agencies, honor, not to mention the very adequate compensa- tion that is allowed. Ordinary councilors, of course, are not paid, while wethouders are granted reasona- ble salaries. The Dutch preference for private initiative is ex- hibited in the school system, and also in the methods of charitable relief. While education is very general and thorough, it is not the policy of the country to develop a uniform, free, compulsory system of ele- mentary instruction. Private schools are subsidized by the municipalities, and public schools are not wholly free. The system resembles that of Great Britain in many respects. The report for 1892-93 showed that 466,910 pupils were enrolled in 2993 public elementary schools, and 205,378 in 1331 private schools. The in- fant schools (kindergartens) are chiefly in private hands, the report showing 80,517 children in 2550 private infant schools, and 23,858 in 800 public schools. The general government pays a portion of the expense of instruction, and in 1892 it appropriated nearly $2,500,000 on account of primary education, while the local authorities expended more than $3,500,000. There is no such thing in Holland as the levy of a poor rate, and the presumption is that private societies will Charity and , . __ r relief. meet the demands of charity. The communes grant small subsidies to the benevolent societies and estab- lishments, and suppress mendicancy as criminal. To some extent there are public work-houses, but the State, the provinces, and the communes merely pro- vide such means and establishments as are found necessary to supplement private charitable effort. Certainly it is not to Spain that the inquirer would be sent for practical lessons in the art of municipal administration. Yet Spain, with all its backwardness in the general adoption of modern ideas and facilities, THE SPANISH SYSTEM 241 should not be wholly overlooked even in a survey of CHAP. in. the most recent phases of progress in Continental cities. From the standpoint of theoretical organ- ization, the Spanish legislators and administrative lawyers of the Liberal party have shown an almost un- model ad- surpassed ability and knowledge ; and they have given statute^ 6 their country an administrative system at least on paper which is perhaps the most perfectly adjusted of any to be found in Europe. Moreover, at points where the magic of modern commercial progress has touched a Spanish community, notably at Barcelona, ' j-1 L j.i i , / As to practi- oue perceives that the people possess capacity for mu- cai progress. nicipal self-government, and have begun to transform their public services, revise their street systems, and modernize their municipal establishments with as great an energy as can be observed anywhere else in Eu- rope, and with ready acceptance of the most advanced methods. Spain's relations with the first French Republic which resembled vassalage rather than a free and equal alliance did not much affect the domestic regime of political and ecclesiastical absolutism and the medieval methods of administration. But Napo- leon, in 1808, assumed the sovereign authority, made his brother Joseph the nominal king, and promulgated ^ spam. a constitution of the clear-cut, regular sort which was operative in France. Uniformity of system was in- troduced, with complete centralization. The Spaniards were rebellious, however, and in 1813 they expelled the French. The revolutionary leaders had, mean- while, in 1812, framed a liberal constitution at Cadiz, i-i- -i n r*nr\ i Constitution based upon the French principles of 1789, and pro- viding for individual freedom and a large measure of local autonomy. The advanced and enlightened mi- nority of the Spanish people were ready for the mod- ern order of things. But the ignorant masses had not 16 242 MUNICIPAL GOVEKNMENT. IN EUROPE CHAP. in. been permeated by the new influences ; and with the return of a Bourbon monarch the constitution of 1812 was set aside, and the ancien regime was restored, with its hideous accompaniments of inquisitorial per- secution. Nevertheless, the constitution of Cadiz held its place as an ideal in the minds of liberal and educated men ; and in 1836 it was restored for a little while by virtue of a successful revolution. In 1837 the Cortes framed an excellent constitution which was Reforms of 1837. similar in most respects to the Belgian constitution of 1831, and which also bore a resemblance to the French constitution of 1830 under which Louis Philippe was called to reign. The system of provinces and com- munes, with prefects and mayors for executive pur- poses, and with provincial and municipal councils for deliberation, with a hierarchy of control, and with a careful assignment of local jurisdiction, was now firmly established in Spain. But a reactionary move- ment in 1845 diminished the extent of local freedom, while also maintaining heavy restrictions upon the elective franchise. The revolution of 1868 again restored the progres- sives to power, and it was followed by sweeping legis- lative reforms. The constitution of 1869 was framed ^ ... by the national legislature after the most protracted Constitution of 1869. and careful deliberation, involving a comparative study of all the constitutional projects and experi- ments of the century, whether European or American. The Spanish documents of 1812 and 1836 naturally formed the basis for the new organic law. Individual liberties were guaranteed, the suffrage was extended to every male citizen who had attained the age of twenty- five, and self-government for provinces and for mu- A triumph nicipalities took the place of centralization. It was views* the most advanced of all the European constitutions then in operation. The contrast was the more em- THE SPANISH SYSTEM 243 phatic because the highly centralized system of the Second Empire was still the law of France. To this free constitution the Italian Prince Amadeus, called by Spanish liberals from the fresh atmosphere of reform and progress in Italy, took the oath of allegiance when he ascended the throne of Spain in 1870. Three years later he abdicated, and the republic was pro- claimed, with institutions much more completely di- vested of monarchical traditions than those which the new French republic had ordained. But within a year a scion of the Bourbons was reigning, and after the suppression of the Carlists, and the necessity of a return from the military to the civil order of gov- ernment, a new constitution, that of 1876, was drawn up by the ministers themselves and submitted for ratification to an elected national assembly. It has remained the organic law of Spain since its proclama- tion on June 30, 1876. It was a less advanced instru- ment in many respects than the famous one of 1869 ; but, nevertheless, it was doubtless better adapted to the actual conditions prevailing in the Spanish nation. It restricted the suffrage, whether for local or for na- tional elections, to citizens above the age of twenty-five who had paid a land tax, or an industrial tax, amounting to about five dollars per annum ; although the priests and members of learned professions, and various classes of public servants and others presumably in- structed and intelligent, were entitled to be registered without regard to the payment of taxes. Under these qualifications the registered voters were about three in number for every fifty persons. It must be re- membered that the universal suffrage of 1869, as of the transient liberal constitutions of earlier periods, had not been demanded or appreciated by the masses. In June, 1890, however, the tax-paying restrictions were abolished, and the voting lists now contain the CHAP. III. Short-lived republic. Present oi> ganic law. The elective franchise. Extensions of 1890. 244 MUNICIPAL GOVEENMENT IN EUEOPE CHAP. in. names of all male citizens above the age of twenty- five who have been identified with a particular com- mune for two years. The constitution of 1876 did not materially affect the admirable system of municipal and provincial organization which had been devised as one of the chief reforms resulting from the revolution of 1868. There are in Spain about 9400 municipal districts or communes, and 49 provinces. The marked character- istic of the Spanish system is the unreserved and emphatic manner in which it proclaims and guards Local self- ^ government the sovereignty or the communes and provinces within the spheres of action that are ascribed to them. The general lines of the whole administrative organi- zation are the familiar French lines; but a much firmer stress is laid upon local autonomy. Here again, however, it is well to remember the difference between institutions that have taken deep root and those that exist on paper. In Barcelona municipal autonomy is a realized fact ; but in many Spanish communes it is far less operative as a working sys- tem than in the French communes, where the average intelligence and political experience of the people are so much more highly developed. The Spanish province is precisely analogous to the French department. Its affairs are managed by a representative body consisting of 25 deputies for provinces! provinces having less than 150,000 people, the num- ber increasing according to a graduated scale up to 40 for those of 300,000, and to 48 for those of 500,000, with one additional deputy for every 50,000 persons in excess of half a million. The largest provinces actually have about 52 members in their legislative assemblies. As in France, Belgium, and Holland, this provincial congress appoints a standing executive committee from its membership, which exercises con- THE SPANISH SYSTEM 245 stant administrative authority over provincial affairs. These affairs consist of all public matters distinctively affecting the province, and include particularly such in- terests as roads and water-ways, penal and charitable institutions, and education. The national authority is represented in each province by a " civil governor n a functionary identical with the French prefect whose duty it is to see that the national laws are en- forced, and that the provinces and municipalities con- fine themselves strictly within the limits of their own jurisdiction. The governor presides over the annual sessions of the deputation provincial (the provin- cial assembly) and also over the comission provincial (the standing executive committee). He may suspend a decision either of the assembly or of the committee, in order to refer it to the central Council of State. This reference is merely to determine whether or not the provincial authorities have ventured beyond their lawful power. The governor has also to represent the State as a supervisor within the province of such national matters as posts, telegraphs, and other in- dustrial and economic concerns relating to the public revenues and to the political and social order. Each commune, by the suffrage of the registered male citizens above the age of 25 who have been domiciled in the place for two years, elects a munici- pal council (ayuntamiento) for four years, one half of which retires every two years. Election is by general ticket, and the number of councilors (called regidores or concejales) varies from five in the small country communes to thirty-nine in the largest towns. The entire municipal authority is vested in this coun- cil. It proceeds to designate one of its own members as alcalde (a term equivalent to mayor), who presides over the body and is the chief executive officer of the commune. In the larger towns the alcade is assisted CHAP. III. The " civil governor." Election of municipal councils. The alcalde and his ex- ecutive as- sistants. 1C* 246 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUEOPE CHAP. in. by several tenientes alcaldes, who form an administra- tive corps altogether analogous to the mayor's ad- juncts in a French municipal government. The pro- vincial authorities do not hold the municipalities in tutelage, but they exercise an oversight aimed to keep the communes from exceeding their powers or committing irregularities. Thus the system as a whole is a finely balanced one, and is very creditable to the scientific attainments of the Spanish publicists and law-makers. The municipal councils exercise a very complete Complete- * . J ness of mu- range of local authority. The minor courts of justice thority. are municipal tribunals, and came under the juris- diction of the councils. The municipal justices of the peace have charge for the State of the registers of births and deaths, and perform the civil ceremony of marriage. They also act as courts of conciliation in disputes of all kinds. Private, ecclesiastical, and endowed charity in Spain occupies a more important place than public charitable administration. But the municipal councils are in full control of a large amount of charitable work, and supervise the accounts of private hospitals and institutions. General super- vision is also exercised by the national and provincial authorities, the secular system gradually superseding the traditional religious establishments. Primary instruction is one of the chief concerns of the muni- cipal councils, the general law requiring the universal system, maintenance of schools, and making it obligatory upon every alcalde to see that all children in the commune are enjoying either public or private in- struction. But while the school system has been greatly improved in recent years, the compulsory universal education, on a uniform plan, as ordained by law in 1857, has never been well enforced. Soon after the enactment of that law, only twenty per cent. THE SPANISH SYSTEM 247 of the population could read and write. This pro- portion has increased to perhaps thirty per cent. Efficient self-government must await a higher average degree of intelligence. The present sanitary state of Spanish towns helps us to understand the conditions that prevailed elsewhere in Europe half a century ago. Reforms, it is true, have been instituted in some of the more progressive cities, but the high death rates and the prevalence of preventable diseases point unerringly to the general neglect of scientific means for the protection of the public health. The average death rate for all Spain has for several decades been approximately 30 per 1000, while the rate for the large towns has been consider- ably higher. In Barcelona, however, the rate for 1894 did not exceed twenty-nine; and the Madrid rate, which in the seventies was wont to approach forty, has of late been nearer thirty. This means, in the case of both towns, that water-supply, drainage, pub- lic cleansing, and kindred agencies affecting health, have been made somewhat more satisfactory, and that the measures used for controlling epidemic maladies are greatly improved. In Portugal, which has made still less progress than Spain in modern methods, the mortality rates are higher, at Lisbon, for example, the 1894 rate being 36, while at Oporto the rate was 45.5. The population of Spanish towns as a rule has not grown very rapidly of late, although the two largest ones, Madrid and Barcelona, are exceptions. The census of 1877 reported 397,690 as the population of Madrid, while that of 1887 enumerated 470,283, and the number for 1894 was estimated at 510,000. Bar- celona is very conspicuous among the examples of recent European municipal expansion. In 1877 it had 249,106 people, and the number was 272,481 in CHAP. III. Sanitary condition. Hi g h death- rates. Compared with Por- tugal. Growth of Spanish towns. 248 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. III. Aggrandize- ment of Bar- celona. 1887, while in 1894 the estimate was 430,000. It is expected that the twenty years from 1877 to 1897 will show a doubling of Barcelona's population. This rapid growth, moreover, has been attended by ambi- tious projects for the aggrandizement of the town, and no city anywhere has a more uncompromisingly modern aspect in its new quarters. The harbor of Barcelona is wholly artificial, and its creation and improvement form a signal instance of municipal energy. The water-supply is of excellent character and has recently been introduced from neighboring mountain sources. Madrid, which is also showing activity in the creation of modern suburbs, derives water from the Lozoya, by an aqueduct thirty-two miles long. Other Spanish towns, Valencia, Malaga, and even Seville, in some regards show sisrns of Other Span- . . & ish towns, awakening and progress under the common impetus of the age ; but for our purposes they are instructive chiefly for the contrasts they supply when brought into comparison with the most advanced communities of other countries. Water- supplies. CHAPTER IV RECENT PROGRESS OF ITALIAN CITIES Modem as- REGARDED as modern municipalities the Italian cities had not until a very recent date enjoyed a good reputation. Some of them, at least, had been notorious for the overcrowding, in garrets and in reeking sub-ground residences, of their shoals of ill- conditioned, unemployed plebeians ; for the frequency of epidemics and the lack of efficient sanitary ad- ministration ; for their foul and narrow passages and the bad odors that indicated the lack of systematic scavenging, and in short for an almost complete dearth of enterprise in the direction of modern muni- cipal arrangements and undertakings. To what ex- tent this reputation was deserved we need not inquire very carefully. Perhaps the almost crushing splen- dors of Roman and Italian history, and the imposing character of much that remains to us of the old art and architecture, have by contrast deepened the un- favorable impression that contemporary conditions of life in Italian cities have evidently made upon the minds of visitors in general. If the simple facts were to be compared impartially, it would certainly appear that in the large English and Scotch towns previous to 1870 the squalor, overcrowding, bad sanitation, and compared general inadequacy of municipal appointments were al- wlt to^ ls most as prevalent as in those of Italy. And the Italian cities, moreover, might well have urged, in extenua- 249 contrast. 250 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. iv. tion of their plight, the facts of decline in relative wealth and importance, of commercial and industrial stagnation, and of protracted political adversities; while the British towns were growing in wealth and numbers, and might with wisdom and forethought have made their public arrangements keep pace with the advance of commercial prosperity. But whatever the extenuating circumstances, the fact remained that the Italian cities were in a condition which the sani- Tardmess in tary scientists and the municipal reformers could but form. deplore. The British and German as well as the French cities had at length undertaken notable re- forms in their physical appearances and conditions widening streets, demolishing unwholesome buildings, constructing improved drainage systems, and provid- ing in various new ways for the social well-being ; and when the visitor who had observed these matters at- tentively went to Italy, it was true that he found reform more tardy, or at least more superficial. I am aware that to some people it seems a sacrilege to discourse of the common-school system, the new building regulations, the drainage and the ward poli- tics of immortal Rome. I remember the rude shock that I once gave to the sensibilities of some very in- telligent travelers at the dinner-table of a Roman pension by the innocent remark that I had spent the day not in the galleries or churches but in watching the repaving of a street and the construction of the main sewer tunnel of a rapidly-building new residence neighborhood, and in admiring the splendid new re- ciaimsofthe taining walls and bridges of the Tiber. But certainly population the people now living are entitled to some considera- tion ; and the nearly half a million residents of Rome cannot be expected to live wholly upon their pleasure in medieval art, or their pride in archeological re- mains. It is inevitable that they should think it RECENT PROGRESS OP ITALIAN CITIES 251 their right and duty to make Rome as modern a city CHAP. iv. as possible, so far as its health, comfort, and advan- tages for residence and business are concerned. Fortunately, the more recent European improve- ments have nowhere been made in the spirit of van- dalism. It has been alleged that the Coliseum was plundered and ruined to build St. Peter's and the AS to Vatican ; and the churches and palaces of papal vandalism. Rome were in very large part built with materials torn from the noble temples and stately monuments of Roman Rome. But it belongs to the new spirit of improvement to preserve and properly guard every- thing of real archeological value; so that the mod- ernization of Rome, by men who believe that their city has a living future as well as an historic past, strives to obliterate no worthy monument of anti- quity, but on the contrary has not spared pains or Preservation A j- .3 ,1 ofantiqui- cost to discover, preserve, and render instructive and ties. intelligible all that has escaped the vandalism of the intervening centuries. And so I must plead guilty to sympathy with much that is proposed for freshen- ing and renovating this ancient capital of the world, and for making it a fit place for its people to li ve in. The Capitoline Hill has its much-frequented museum of antiquities, and its thrilling memories of a glorious past; but it is also the seat of a modern municipal government that is making bold endeavors for the present and large plans for the future of the citv. Municipal . . . offices on the The bureau of municipal statistics ought not to be capitoiine. deemed the least interesting thing on this historic hill; for its weekly bulletins demografico-meteorico, recording births, marriages, deaths, and the meteoro- logical phenomena of the week, all according to the most approved comparative methods, are reminders that Rome still lives. As for the visitors who have been wont to find " picturesqueness " at Naples in 252 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. iv. those conditions that are so frightfully destructive of life and so preventive of the real advance of the city, and who deprecate the sweeping changes in progress there, let us believe that they are ignorant and thoughtless, rather than deliberately inhuman. The material circumstances which have enveloped the lives of at least two hundred thousand of the five Housing hundred thousand people in Naples are appalling. conditions . . , n . at Naples. Family lire in one room as we see it in thousands of instances in all large cities is deplorable beyond ex- pression. But what then can be said of the life of two or three families in a single room, instances of which are not uncommon in Naples, and in rooms, moreover, that are often too damp and foul for any animal life of a higher order than reptiles ? There is no other remedy for these conditions and their terri- ble consequences, except wide-spread demolition and reconstruction under public auspices. But to employ such a remedy may well mean an awakening and a new energy that have in themselves the promise of great progress along every line. What Naples is do- ing and proposing to do, I shall indicate in subsequent paragraphs. It may be well, however, first to give a summary of the system of municipal government now ex- isting in Italy. Such a statement will be the more acceptable in view of the fact that the whole mecha- nism of local and provincial administration has been revised and reenacted in a codified form by legislation Italy's new approved in a royal decree of February 10, 1889. m "ode? a This important law is an excellent example of the clear and scientific legislation which is so creditable to the new Italian kingdom, and which is doing so much to complete the work of actual unification of the provinces. The general scheme of provincial and municipal government in Italy is similar to that in EECENT PROGRESS OF ITALIAN CITIES 253 France and Belgium, and its genesis may be readily CHAP. iv. traced to French connections with the northern prov- General inces. It differs, however, in many details ; and with scheme of ,. .. . * ., -, municipal its recent modifications it may be said to show more organization, respect than the present French system for the princi- ple of local self-government. Like France and Bel- gium, Italy is divided into provinces which are sub- divided into communes. Each commune, whether a rural neighborhood or a great city, has the same framework of government, that is to say, each has its elective council (consiglio), its standing executive committee, known as the junta (giunta), and its mayor or syndic (sindaco). There are no special charters, each municipality coming under the terms of the general law. The communes of more than 250,000 inhabitants have each a council of eighty members; and this number is graded down through five classes to fifteen of councils. for communes having less than 3,000 people. The giunta, or standing executive committee, is elected by the council from its own members, and is com- posed of ten, eight, six, four, or two members, accor- ding to the size of the commune. The sindaco, or .,., . Giuntas and mayor, is also elected by the council itself from its smdacos. own number, in communes that have a population of at least ten thousand, or that are the chief towns of provinces or departments. In the smaller communes the sindaco is designated from the membership of the council by the king nominally, being actually selected, of course, through the prefects and subprefects of the departments, who are supposed to nominate in def- erence to the opinions of the commune. The communal franchise differs in Italy from the _ * Voting quali- general or parliamentary franchise. By the law of 1882 the parliamentary electoral lists include persons who, after meeting the indispensable preliminary 254 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. iv. conditions of being male citizens fully twenty-one years old who can read and write, are either tax- payers to the amount of about four dollars a year, or else are inscribed by virtue of two years' army service, or of holding certain positions official, educational, or professional specified in the law. The general lists thus made up include one person in eleven or twelve of the population. For the communal franchise the general electoral lists hold good, but they are ex- tended to include smaller tax-payers, and also to in- clude occupiers of premises having a rental value that is graduated according to the population of the com- mune. Thus, in communes having 150,000 people, the limit of rental value is fixed at forty dollars a year, and it is diminished to one tenth of that amount illiteracy an in communes which have less than 1000 people. The absolute dis- . . 7 qualification, really effective disqualification is that of illiteracy. No amount of tax-paying can procure the franchise for the man who is unable to read and write. On the other hand, there are few literate citizens who cannot be enrolled by virtue of tax-payments, of house occupancy, or of two years' army service. Fully sixty per cent, of the adult population of Italy is illiterate ; and of male citizens of voting age at least fifty per cent, belong to that category. The other requirements can therefore have had comparatively other re- little effect in restricting a franchise which admits important, to the electoral rolls the names of more than one twelfth of the total population. This absolute educa- tional restriction has existed hitherto in no other Eu- ropean country ; but its reasonableness is hardly to be disputed. If it had been adopted in France by the founders of the present republic the advantage would have become evident. It is enough here, however, to say that the electoral bodies in the Italian communes include practically all the men who can read and write. EECENT PROGRESS OP ITALIAN CITIES 255 An illiterate father has the right to delegate to his liter- ate son his tax-paying qualification, and in this and several other ways family representation is often se- cured at the polls through the delegation of the prop- erty rights of wives or parents. Municipal councilors are chosen for five years, and one fifth of the body is renewed annually, the vacan- cies being filled upon general ticket (scrutin de liste) by all the voters. In communes of more than ten thousand inhabitants the law provides that the elector shall vote for only four fifths as many names as there are councilors to be elected. Fractions are counted as integers, and thus, for example, in a city having a council of sixty members and filling twelve places annually, the individual elector would be entitled to vote for a list of ten. This device for the benefit of minorities is not without merit. It should be added, however, that in the case of the large communes the law permits division into frazione, or wards, with ap- portionment of representation in the council. The full council is a deliberative rather than an administrative body, and it has only two " ordinary " sessions in the year, one in the spring and the other in the autumn, these sittings extending through a number of days. "Extraordinary" sessions can be called at any time by the sindaco, by the giunta, or by one third of the members of the council. In prac- tice the councils of the large cities meet with consid- erable frequency and regularity. The ordinary government of the commune is in the hands of the giunta, or standing executive committee of the council. The members of this committee are chosen for two years, one half of them being appointed annually. The sindaco presides over their meetings as he does over those of the full council. This select body has also the appointing power, and is regarded CHAP. IV. Delegation of property rights. The general ticket plan. A device for minorities. Council meetings. The giunta and its duties. 256 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. IV. The mayor. Required functions of the com- munes. Optional tasks. The octroi and other revenue sources. as " the government " of the commune. In the largest cities, Naples, Rome, Milan, the giunta consists of ten members and four substitutes. In cities of the next grade there are eight members, and the number decreases to two for the communes having less than three thousand people. The giunta is accountable to the full council, and all its doings are carefully re- ported and reviewed. The council elects from its own numbers the sindaco, or mayor, for a term of three years. He is at once an official representing the general government and the chief executive of the commune, his double character thus being the same as that of the French mayors or the Belgian burgomasters. The law makes it obligatory upon the authorities of every commune to provide each year for the cost of maintaining the administration; for keeping the regis- ters of the State, showing births, deaths, marriages, electoral lists, army-service rolls, etc. ; for the main- tenance of elementary schools ; for the ordinary pub- lic works, such as streets, edifices, and aqueducts; for cemeteries ; for illumination ; for a certain amount of medical and sanitary service ; for the maintenance of the local police ; for jails and police courts, and for other ordinary and suitable objects ; while it is left op- tional with the communes to enter upon various addi- tional undertakings, the approval of the provincial authorities being requisite, as a rule, for new or ex- traordinary projects. As in France, the largest independent source of revenue accorded to the municipalities is the octroi taxes levied at the gates upon wines, building mate- rials and various articles of ordinary consumption as they enter from without. The source next in im- portance is the taxes upon houses and land added for communal purposes to the government's levies. EECENT PROGRESS OF ITALIAN CITIES 257 These imposts are extremely heavy, often amounting CHAP. iv. to more than half the gross rental value. I am told in Rome that the house taxes are there equal to about 65 per cent, of the rents. A variety of minor taxes and sources of income complete the amount of rev- enue necessary to meet the expanding outlays. I have indicated as succinctly as possible the main features of a municipal system that is elaborated with great distinctness and detail in the important new piece of legislation to which I have referred. Suffice it then to add that this uniform and modernized framework of administration seems adequate to sup- port the rapidly increasing magnitude and variety of the functions laid upon the government of the Italian communities. For example, Italy had long needed a complete and efficient system of sanitary administra- tion. Obviously this desideratum could not be ef- fected to the best advantage without the aid of a good system of local administration in general. For sev- eral years the sanitary specialists and the publicists of Italy were studying and comparing the health reg- ulations of England, Germany, America, and other countries, with a view to the entire revision and consolidation of the Italian laws pertaining to the preservation of the public health. These studies were embodied in various legislative projects, and at length took form in a bill introduced by the minister of the interior, Signor Crispi, toward the close of 1887. Besides providing for central and provincial sanitary authorities, the measure, which was duly enacted, made large use of the sindaco and the ordinary government of the commune for the regu- lation of all matters relating to the local health. The result now promises to be that within a few years Italy may be able to teach other nations useful lessons in the art of sanitary administration. 17 258 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. iv. tion. Street im- provements. Central fa- cilities. Whatever may be said in criticism of ruthless changes wrought by the ambitious municipal author- ities of other Italian cities, there can be little com- plaint brought against Milan for the manner in which it has adopted the modern regime. It has won the right to be enrolled with the well-administered cities of the world. As the capital of the prosperous and en- ergetic Lombards, its affairs have fortunately been in the hands of its most enlightened citizens since 1860, when Lombardy, with the other north Italian prov- inces, was released from a foreign yoke and became a part of united Italy, under the constitutional rule of Victor Emmanuel and under an administrative sys- tem which had been framed in the liberal mood of 1848 for the kingdom of Sardinia. It is true that Milan also was rich in medieval memories and survivals; but comparatively it was not so interesting from the standpoint of the old conditions as many another Italian town. Its ambition to become a conveniently appointed, a clean and wholesome, and, in short, a dis- tinctively modern center of nineteenth-century Europe- an activities has seemed to most men to be altogether reasonable. Accordingly, vast changes have been wrought, with general commendation. In the period from 1860 to 1880 these took the form chiefly of street improvements, similar to those that were contempora- neously transforming the French towns. The changes at Milan extended from the core to the circumference. The Piazza del Duomo in front of the cathedral was greatly enlarged, and a series of widened and straight- ened main thoroughfares was made to radiate from this center to all the outer portions of the town, which is a fairly symmetrical polygon in shape. Street-rail- way and omnibus lines were brought to a focus at the Piazza del Duomo, which was also joined with the neighboring Piazza della Scala on the north by the most RECENT PROGRESS OF ITALIAN CITIES 259 magnificent arcades in the world, and with the ancient CHAP. iv. Piazza de' Mercanti (almost adjacent on the west) by broad streets. Thus through brave demolitions and wise rearrangements Milan has created what so few cities possess an adequate arterial center. The city is growing rapidly in its outer zone, and every year demonstrates more completely the advantages of a central receiving and distributing reservoir for the daily flux of population, such as the broad Piazza del Duomo furnishes, with its dozen or more radi- ating thoroughfares and its eight or ten converging street-railway lines. In the Piazza della Scala, entered from the Piazza del Duomo by the vast and stately arcade known as the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, is the medieval Palace Marino, which was adapted in 1861 to the uses of the municipality as a town-hall, and has continued to be occupied as the home of the " municipio." Here also is the great opera house of Milan, the Scala. The partial rectification of the inner city's thorough- fares was accompanied by sweeping achievements in ,, , . ,;. ti , , Suburban the outer zone, and in the further zone of suburbs changes. lying beyond the walls. The communal limits are marked by bastioned fortifications, which are pierced by twelve or more gateways. Just outside the walls is an encircling boulevard handsomely laid out, with a belt street-railway line which connects at the several gates with radial lines. Most of those radial lines are extended for some distance to serve the outer suburbs, and the administrative municipality has acquired control of the external belt. The circum- ference of the engirdling walls is seven or eight miles. m , . , . , if,., . , The girdle The ancient, innermost Milan is surrounded by canals, lines. which identify the course of the old-time moat ; and along the canal line is an inner circuit of modernized streets, upon which it is now proposed to operate an 260 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE The Via Dante. CHAP. iv. interior belt-line tramway, crossing the radial avenues at points about midway between the Piazza del Duomo and the city walls. Eventually the external suburbs, which already contain a considerable population and which are all massed along the encircling boule- vard with their chief agglomerations at the points where the radials emerge from the city gates, will have become so important as to require an unob- structed connection with the city j and the useless walls will be doomed. Meanwhile, the street reforms and the visible im- provements in the ground-plan of the city are pro- gressing steadily. As an instance of the new improve- ment work there should be mentioned the Via Dante, a magnificent radial very recently constructed, which leads to the beautiful new park in the northwestern part of the city. There had long been retained within the town, at the rear of the old "Castello," a vast military drill-ground, extending from the inner to the outer lines of circuit. By consent of the national gov- ernment, the city authorities have recently laid out a A new park, large part of this space as the chief park of Milan, and an area of perhaps equal extent has been arranged with handsome streets, and sold for private residence sites. This extremely valuable land has brought into the An improve- municipal treasury a large fund of money, with which mentfund. . * : . / ' . a variety of public improvements has been initiated or authorized. The Via Dante was constructed as the direct approach from the heart of the city to the curved front of the symmetrical new park. It is paved with wooden blocks on a concrete foundation, is lighted with electricity, and is traversed by an electric street- railway. But it is more notable for its underground construction than for its beautifully executed surface ; for, apart from the main sewers, there are subways on either side of the street, six feet high by four or five RECENT PROGRESS OF ITALIAN CITIES 261 feet wide. These subways adjoin the front founda- CHAP. iv. tion wall of the houses, and make it easy to inspect and repair the drain-pipes that connect the houses convenient with the sewers. Within the subways are placed the water-pipes, gas-pipes, electric wires, etc; and pas- sages extend from them to the main sewers. It is considered in Milan that no street elsewhere in Eu- rope so completely embodies the best principles of construction below the surface if not above as the new Via Dante. When the more recent plans for municipal improve- ment were adopted, the city government, with com- mendable forethought, secured the annexation of a zone of suburban territory outside the wall of circum- vallation to the average width of perhaps one mile, negation" The so-called piano regolatore that is to say, the plan for regulating and rearranging the thoroughfare-sys- tem, was thus made to embrace an area very much larger than that of the city proper as bounded by the bastions. Broad and generous ideas have governed these newest projects for the expansion of Milan, and the suburbs will be well supplied with small parks, tree-lined avenues, and modern facilities in general. The sewer-system of the city is now in course of re- construction, a considerable mileage of modern con- The new duits having been added every year since the new sev tm! ys system was agreed upon in 1888. The fund accruing from the sale of the army drill-ground, already men- tioned, gave the impetus to the new sewer-system as well as to other material reforms, and the work is be- ing achieved in the most satisfactory manner. At an earlier period, a swift stream, the Seveso, had been walled in and covered over, and had been made to perform the functions of a collecteur or principal drainage tunnel. It remains the central trunk sewer, and carries the drainage of Milan to the Po, and 17* 262 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUEOPE CHAP. iv. thence to the Adriatic. It passes under the Cathe- dral Piazza at the heart of the city. The new streets are built with proper sewers, and the older ones are being gradually supplied. Improved pavements and sidewalks form a part of the scheme of renovation, and the street-cleaning system of Milan has been de- veloped to a point of very high efficiency. The street-railways have heretofore been under the control of a single company whose charters expire in 1896. It has been one of the most efficient systems in Europe, and has resembled in its equipment and methods the best of the American horse-railway sys- tems. The fare in Milan, for an ordinary ride (dis- tances being short as compared with those on Ameri- can lines), is ten centimes (equivalent to an English penny or two American cents). The company had long been prosperous, and the terms of its charter re- payments to quired the payment to the city of about ten per cent, sury. of its gross receipts, the yearly sum thus paid to the mu- nicipal treasury having amounted for some years past to nearly three hundred thousand francs. When ne- gotiations were recently entered upon for the renewal of the company's charter for another term beginning in 1896, it was made a condition by the city authorities that various new lines and prolongations of old ones questions, should be built at once, and that the city's proportion of the gross receipts should be increased considerably. The company demurred on account of the expense of the new lines ; whereupon the Edison Electric Light- ing Company, which was then furnishing illumination for some of the public streets, made an application for the entire transit concession, proposing to substitute the electric trolley for horses, to build as many new lines as the municipal government required, and to pay the city fifteen per cent, of the gross receipts after the opening years, the payments for a short time EECENT PROGRESS OF ITALIAN CITIES 263 The gas supply. being at the rate of ten or twelve per cent. The mu- CHAP. iv. nicipality was favorably disposed toward this propo- Electric sition, but first desired an experimental test ; and tem fevered. accordingly the electric line was laid upon the new Via Dante. It now appears probable that horses will be superseded by electricity for the entire Milan system. The plan seems to be to suspend the trolley wire from cross-wires attached to ornamental brackets project- ing from the houses. The overhead wires are not condemned on the score of their interference with the extinguishment of fires, for the excellent reason that disastrous fires are practically unknown. The under- ground trolley would not be feasible in Milan until the new sewer-system was finished. The gas-supply of Milan is provided by an Anglo- French company which had a charter extending to the year 1910. That charter has recently been extended to the year 1925 in consideration of a great reduction in the price of gas. The municipal government stip- ulated that the company should make an immediate reduction to private consumers from the existing price of forty centimes per cubic meter to twenty-five centimes, with a provision for further gradual reduc- tion to nineteen or twenty centimes. Still better terms were secured for the city itself as a public con- sumer. Milan has also recently granted a mutually advantageous franchise to the Edison Electric Com- pany, which has a contract for lighting certain streets and squares for a period of years. The question of a suitable supply of drinking wa- ter has been a serious one in Milan for many years, The question and it has been investigated with a rare patience and intelligence by the municipal authorities. Plans for bringing the supply from the region of lakes and pure mountain streams, at Como or Bergamo, were frustrated by the water rights of industrial and irri- Electric lighting. 264 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUEOPE CHAP. iv. gation companies along the proposed routes. Foreign engineers from a number of countries joined in sub- mitting competitive plans a few years ago, and a dozen interesting schemes were drawn up. But most of these were too expensive for practical considera- tion. Two of the schemes, however, proposed driven wells, in view of highly favorable geological condi- tions. The department of public works sank a few " American tubes" as an experiment, with results that were unexpectedly satisfactory. Accordingly, in 1890-91 some large artesian wells were driven at " the Arena," adjoining the new park, and distribution was begun upon a small scale. The analyses of the water Artesian thus obtained have justified the adoption of the driven- adopted. well system for the entire supply of potable water; and since the quantity that may readily be obtained at reasonable cost by this method is unlimited, the work of extension has gone steadily forward. Heretofore, the Milanese have relied upon ordinary well-water for drinking and domestic uses, while the canal system has supplied ample amounts of water for street-clean- ing and industrial purposes. For some years past there has been constant in- spection of the common wells, in order to guard against infection j and they are being gradually closed as the new supply is extended. The complete use of the artesian water will reinforce a sanitary system that Sanitary . J J vigilance has much to commend it in other respects. The mu- nicipal laboratory as administered in Milan is an ad- mirable public agency. The service of disinfection is highly praised, and all the new methods by which the health of communities may be protected are ardently studied and applied by the sanitary authori- ties. The unsanitary modes of life of the masses of the laboring population are not to be wholly reformed in a single generation; and, moreover, while the de- RECENT PEOGEESS OF ITALIAN CITIES 265 molitions and reconstructions have done much, to improve the worst slums, the housing conditions of the inner city remain to a large extent unwholesome. And thus the death-rate is still higher than that of a few of the best communities of other countries. Nevertheless, the rapid population-growth of the past twenty-five years has had the benefit of improved building regulations ; and the average social condition of the Milanese has been wonderfully improved. Be- fore 1880, the Milan death-rate regularly exceeded 30 per 1000, and in some years it was much higher than that. Since 1890 it has been strikingly lower, and in 1894 it reached the exceptionally low figure of 21. The population, meanwhile, had grown from about 330,000 at the opening of 1884 to about 430,000 on January 1, 1894, a gain of 30 per cent, in ten years. The statistical work of the municipal government is exceedingly thorough, and its relation to the public- health services is very important. It is well known that religious questions have in- terfered with the rapid development of a system of free, secular public schools in the Italian towns. But the Milan municipality has accomplished much in the educational field within a comparatively short time. Many new school buildings have been erected since 1880, and nearly a thousand teachers are employed in the free public schools, 31,276 pupils being enrolled in 1892, with several thousand more in the evening classes. The municipal government, moreover, main- tains an admirable series of technical schools and special institutions, besides normal schools and the regular high schools. It is pleasant to be assured that in all the vigorous activities which mark the municipal government of Milan, the foremost citizens take the leading part. The giunta is composed of men of the best qualifica- CHA.P. IV. Slum con- ditions. Decline in death-rate. Population. Statistical work. Progress of education. Technical schools. 266 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. iv. actero/' Elections. Turin and Genoa. tions, who as a rule possess wealth and are glad to devote themselves to the affairs of the community. In a word, the aristocratic element is in executive control. The council contains its more popular ele- ments, but is representative of the best classes in the town. It has its sprinkling of active business men, lawyers, architects, and engineers; but, taking the municipal government as a whole, it seems to be chiefly in the hands of the "old families"; and it certainly commands the best talent that the city affords. In all its large operations, involving the making of contracts with corporations and the ex- penditure of great sums for public improvement, the municipal government of Milan is said to have kept itself above so much as the suspicion of jobbery or corrupt methods ; and its intelligence and good taste have been conspicuously displayed in almost every- thing it has done or sanctioned. Reelection of councilors is quite usual, and the yearly municipal election, at which sixteen of the eighty council seats are filled, is seldom attended with much excitement. Thus in the election of 1892, the number of voters registered on the municipal electoral rolls being 44,- 594, there were only 14,177 votes actually cast, and this would appear to be an average election. The good character of the municipal administra- tion of Milan is by no means a solitary instance. I am assured that Turin and Genoa also enioy the bene- fits of honest and efficient city governments, and that it is the prevailing custom of the north Italian cities to intrust their public affairs to the direction of their most talented and prominent citizens. This testi- mony seems to me to be confirmed by such observa- tions and direct investigations as I have been able to make. Genoa has made conspicuously successful EECENT PEOGEESS OF ITALIAN CITIES 267 efforts to improve her harbor facilities, great suras CHAP. iv. having been expended with resulting benefits to com- Genoa's bar- merce. The location of Genoa, so closely hemmed in ^ r eets d by steep environing hills, has made it difficult to mod- ernize the street-system, although a number of great new thoroughfares have been opened. Among the most recent improvements has been a series of nota- ble connecting boulevards following the contour of the suburban hills, and affording marvelous sea views. The route as a whole is known as the Via di Circon- vallazione a Monte. The growth of Genoa and its suburbs the total population of which has practi- cally doubled in a period of about thirty years has necessitated much modern building in the outskirts on the higher slopes, where air, water, and drainage are far better than in the congested old town below. And thus it requires no special endowments of opti- mism to discover marked gains in the average condi- ci res^ 8 tion of the people, while the vital statistics so elab- orately and thoroughly recorded under the admirable new sanitary code of Italy show unerringly the better security of child-life, the lessened ravages of infectious diseases, and the decline in the general mortality-rate. I am impressed, as I examine the municipal documents and reports of Genoa, with the conscientious and thorough organization of all the departments of the city government. It is evident sound ad- that the finances are administered upon good business ^methods principles; that the public works are in the hands of competent engineers; that the schools and charities are well conducted, and that the giunta knows how to deal with all the town's affairs in an orderly, well- balanced fashion, adapting means to ends, and shap- ing the municipal administration intelligently toward the best material and moral progress of the com- munity. 268 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. IV. Turin's regu- larity. Ancient be- ginnings. Turin's "boom" period. Reaction and recovery. The new in- dustrial era. Turin is a larger city than Genoa, and a very pros- perous and well-conducted one, with regularity as its distinguishing quality in all things. Its street sys- tem is as rectangular as any in America ; but this is not due altogether to modern rectifications. It seems that Turin was laid out as a new town for a Roman colony in the time of the Emperor Augustus, and that it was then inclosed with a rectangular wall and pro- vided with a checker-board street system. The ar- cheologists hold that the present streets of the old part of Turin follow the lines marked out by the civil engineers of the Augustan project. The additions to the original town have been carried out upon the rec- tangular plan, with the result of a regularity hardly equaled by any other European city. From 1859 to 1865 Turin was the seat of government of the new Italian kingdom. Nearly every one of the chief cities of Italy has, within a generation, experienced what Western American towns term a " boom." The boom- ing period for Turin was from 1860 to 1865. There was much new building, many modern public enter- prises were undertaken, and population grew apace. The removal of the capital to Florence in 1865 was a sore disappointment to the citizens of Turin, and for a little time the population fell off, and public and pri- vate enterprise was checked. But the good citizens of Turin, with the vigorous aid of the municipal gov- ernment, turned their attention more earnestly than ever before to the town's industrial and commercial development. Water-power was introduced from the high lands in the vicinity as a municipal enterprise, and diversified manufacturing began to flourish un- wontedly. In those palmy days of its political im- portance, Turin had 200,000 people ; but after thirty years it has grown to nearly 350,000, and has ceased to reflect with bitterness upon the loss it suffered in RECENT PEOGEESS OF ITALIAN CITIES 269 1865. Its natural health conditions are favorable, CHAP. iv. with good water from the mountains at hand, and suitable drainage provided by its river, the Po ; and there has been an intelligent adoption of sanitary ad- ministrative reforms. The death-rate, which from provements. 1875 to 1885 averaged about 26, was only 21 in 1893 and 20.6 in 1894. These years were perhaps excep- tional; but without a doubt the improved public methods have resulted in a permanent reduction of mortality. With the transfer of the seat of government, the speculative wave of modern change and expansion, which had enveloped Turin in the period from 1860 to 1865, passed on to Florence. The metamorphosis Florence and which followed in the years 1865-71 attracted far morphosis. more comment than the changes which had come about at Turin or Milan, for obvious reasons. Flor- ence was a smaller city, with comparatively slight in- dustrial importance, but with a marvelous wealth of historic associations and of surviving medieval art and architecture. The removal of the city walls in order to create Parisian boulevards, the rapid projec- tion of a new system of main streets throughout the , . . . , , , , The specula- entire municipal area, the laying out of new quarters, tive period. and the speculative construction of many new houses, with a growth of population from about 100,000 in 1861 to 167,000 in 1871, all this meant a sudden transfor- mation that was exceedingly painful to foreign ar- tists, poets, and students of the medieval Florence. The removal of the capital to Rome caused a reaction in Florence that bankrupted many individuals, and almost ruined the municipal finances. The popula- tion declined sharply with the removal of the govern- mental bureaus, and even in 1881 it was only 135,000 20 per cent, less than in 1871. But time and the 270 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. iv. inevitable progress of cities have more than restored the loss, and at the end of 1893 the population ex- ceeded 200,000. Moreover, the later improvements More recent have been executed with better taste and judgment in works . matters of detail than those initiated in 1865 and the years immediately following ; and it is now confessed that Florence has not been altogether " vandalized " by the progressive Italians of the new regime. The medieval monuments of architecture and the priceless art collections are hardly less interesting in their modern setting; and to those who can understand that the history of our own time possesses no less dignity and value than the history of other centuries, it gives no shock to find a modern municipal govern- Municipal . i i j.i_ offices in the ment occupying the Palazzo Vecchio, in which the signers of the Florentine Republic once had their seat of government, and which has witnessed six eventful centuries. Just six hundred years ago Florence was undergoing a more relentless reconstruction than that Florence six o f O ur own generation. It was then that the present years ago. town-hall was built, the old walls were demolished, suburbs were annexed, and the new walls were erected which have in our own day given place to the Viale or boulevards. The fascinating thing in Italy is the con- tinuity of life, and the determination to keep building new history upon the foundations of the old. The ancient Romans were mighty road-makers, aqueduct- spirit of the builders, and civil engineers; and the beautiful ave- Bomans. nues of Florence, with the extensive tram-lines tra- versing the town and its adjacent regions, would have their heartiest approval if appeal could be made to them; while the electric road up the heights to an- tique Fiesole, or the steam tram-line on the splendid new Viale dei Colli (a winding boulevard on the slopes of the suburban hills) would seem to them the very consummation of things most to be desired. They EECENT PROGRESS OF ITALIAN CITIES 271 could not possibly comprehend the " Ruskinian affec- tation" (to quote Mr. Frederic Harrison) of sentimen- tal and obscurantist visitors to Italy, who " shudder at a railroad," and " whine over the conditions of modern progress." It does not follow that all attempts at modernization are either necessary or wisely con- ceived, and doubtless mistakes have been made at Flor- ence. But the painful sharpness of contrast is disap- pearing, and the new begins to harmonize with the old under the softening hand of time, aided by the more refined taste that now prevails. But transformations elsewhere in Italy were wholly eclipsed by those inaugurated at Rome when the. Quirinal became the seat of the national government, the sovereignty of the papal states having at last been merged with that of the now completed kingdom. Such an abrupt change from medieval to modern conditions has not been witnessed elsewhere. It was as if all the European changes since 1789 had been successfully repelled from invading the domains of the Church, and had then suddenly burst across the boundaries in one resistless flood. " There was," exclaimed Herman Grimm, " an infinite calm, a love- liness and stillness in which the poet and the scholar could draw near to the mighty dead who had once been there as living men. There was nothing like it on earth. Now it is destroyed forever. In the stead of this there are the stench of engines, the dust of shat- tered bricks, the scream of steam whistles, the mounds of rubbish, the poles of scaffolding, long lines of houses raised in frantic haste on malarious soil, enormous bar- racks representative of the martial law required to hold in check a liberated people ; all is dirt, noise, confusion, hideousness, crowding, clamor, avarice." Mr. Frederic Harrison, who admits the inevitability of the changes CHAP. IV. The new Rome. A startling transition. 272 MUNICIPAL GOVEENMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. iv. and endeavors not to judge them harshly, does not try to conceal his sense of loss in the disappearance by an Eng- of Rome's " medieval halo." And he reminds us of the server. " fern-clad ruins standing in open spaces, gardens or vineyards; the huge solitudes within the walls; . . . the narrow, ill-lighted streets; the swarm of monks, friars, and prelates of every order and race; the air of mouldering abandonment in the ancient city, as of some corner of medieval Europe left forgotten and untouched by modern progress, with all the historic glamour, the pictorial squalor, the Turkish routine, all the magnificence of obsolete forms of civilization which clung round the Vatican and were seen there only in western Europe." Such was the Rome of Mr. Harrison's first visit ; and now he finds that the " Rome, which, thirty years ago, was a vision of the past, is to-day a busy Italian town, with a dozen museums, striving to become a third-rate Paris." Mr. Harrison does full justice to the archeological intelligence and solicitude of the new possessors of Rome, and evidently perceives that the rapid growth of population which followed the establishment of the capital there must in any case have compelled in- numerable modern changes. Wherefore he does not inveigh against tendencies which no regrets or pro- tests could have checked and for which it would be useless to ascribe blame. The people of Rome knew practically nothing of communal self-government under the papal regime. Prior to 1847 there sat a sort of municipal council on was gov- the Capitoline, but it was not a representative body and erned before .,,, ,, , ,. ., -, -, ... ml 1870. it had powers of the most limited description. The meagernessof its functions is best illustrated by the size of its budget. It was allowed by the authorities of the Papal State an income of 35,000 scudi (188,125 lire, less than thirty-eight thousand dollars) a sum hardly RECENT PROGRESS OF ITALIAN CITIES 273 equal to the expenditure of an enterprising village. It CHAP. iv. is to the credit of Pope Pius IX. that one of his first pontifical acts was the granting of a municipal consti- tution to Rome. This was in 1847. The new charter had many features of a comparatively liberal char- acter. But in the following year a great wave of revo- lution against arbitrary government swept across Eu- rope, and the Pope was driven from Rome only to be reinstated a year or two later by French arms. At the beginning of 1851 the papal government promulgated a law depriving the municipal authorities of most of their independent powers and again reducing the mu- nicipality to a mere shadow. From 1851 to 1870 the Municipal communal budget ranged from about 2,000,000 to expenditure. about 3,500,000 lire annually (from $400,000 to $700,- 000. Among the principal sources of income were the regular appropriations from the papal government of about $200,000 a year ; the taxes superimposed upon the government's levies on houses and lands and on wine and spirits, and the tax upon horses and do- mestic animals. The six principal items of expendi- ture were for streets and ordinary public works, administration, lighting, cleansing, cemeteries, and festivals. In view of the completeness of the papal authority and of the immense wealth of the Church, the physi- The church's cal condition of the holy city was far from creditable n Rome. to the government. In 1870, when the papal pro- vinces became a part of the new kingdom of Italy, and Rome was made the royal capital, its people were granted the municipal liberties that the other cities Municipal * home-rule of Italy enjoyed, and the new era of municipal im- in isro. provement was entered upon immediately. How promptly the public services were extended to meet the needs of a great community can best be expressed in the condensed terms of budgetary statistics. The 18 274 MUNICIPAL GOVEENMENT IN EUKOPE CHAP. iv. municipal income, which had been only 3,500,000 lire in 1870, and which for twenty years had averaged Budgetary only about 2,700,000 lire, exceeded 19,000,000 in expansion. 187 ^ and reached 28,000,000 in 1885. The average municipal income and expenditure for the twenty years following the new order of things instituted in 1870, was nearly ten times as great as the average for the twenty years immediately preceding. The comparison admirably illustrates the enlarge- ment of public functions in recent times. In most cities the expansion had been gradual and the con- trast was less sharp. But Rome seemed in a year to have made up for a century of lost time. Until 1870 the public services were costing at the rate of about fourteen lire a year for each inhabitant. In 1872 the expenditure per capita was ninety lire. Growth of population has since diminished the per-capita sum ; but the annual average is seventy-five or eighty lire. Newpublic , . = *vi. M outlays. Under the old regime the street-lighting was insum- cient j it was immediately so extended as to cost three and a half times as much as before. Street-scaven- ging in like manner was made vastly more effi- cient. The sanitary service prior to 1870 had cost about 75,000 lire a year. After 1871 it amounted to 1,400,000 a year, an increase of nearly twentyfold. The outlay for public works, including streets, sewers, accommodation for the various public services and the other usual items, also illustrates the radical change to which I have referred. Under the new regime this outlay at once expanded several-fold. In the old days there were no communal schools, while now the maintenance of elementary instruction under the compulsory school law entails a very considerable expense. The fire department has been reorganized, modernized, and enlarged. Previous to 1871 the city was not supplied with a RECENT PROGRESS OF ITALIAN CITIES 275 system of sewers. The new authorities adopted a CHAP. iv. scientific plan for the complete drainage of the city, using the Cloaca Maxima and other gigantic sewers dramage. of ancient Rome for the main tunnels. The system has been steadily worked out, with immense advan- tage to the health and convenience of the people. The water-supply of Rome had been famous in the ancient times, numerous high sources in the vicinity of the city having always been ready to yield an Rome's abundant quantity; and from time to time the an- Wa p 1 r y ^ up cient Romans constructed new aqueducts to meet the needs of the growing metropolis. During the later period of the Roman empire, the city was magnifi- cently furnished with pure water. But in the dark period that followed the triumph of the barbarian in- vaders, both the water-supply and the drain age-sys- ^ten?!^ 8 " tern became deranged. The sewers were choked up, rari g ed - and the aqueducts were broken down. The time came when the Roman population was obliged to re- sort to the Tiber, and to dig wells, for its water-sup- ply. The Tiber water is unfit for domestic uses; a ^ el t h e and, as might easily be believed of so ancient a city, Tiber - the subsoil is saturated with poisonous impurities that render well-water dangerously unwholesome. The later popes accomplished some good work in the restoration of aqueducts; but until the new and secular order of things was fairly inaugurated, the water-system remained lamentably bad. This was the more inexcusable because the situation made a good supply and thorough distribution so very feasi- ble. It was not until 1885, as the result of alarming disclosures by the chemists and bacteriologists of a special commission on the hygiene of the municipal- w< j ity of Rome, that all the wells were peremptorily closed. The municipal authorities have repaired the splendid old aqueducts, improved the reservoirs, and 276 CHAP. IV. The new aqueduct supply. Public fountains. Organization of sanitary services. Declining rate of mor- tality. brought the daily supply up to a total of 60,000,000 gallons, or more, about 150 gallons a day for each inhabitant. To take the place of the closed wells the municipal authorities have added greatly to the number of public fountains. At the beginning of 1886 there were in the city 162 ancient fountains of public supply, and 167 more that had been opened since 1870, not counting 25 or 30 fountains of a monumental or artistic character. The number has been somewhat increased since 1886, and this record is among the most creditable of the many reforms of the new municipality. A most gratifying reduction of the death-rate, es- pecially as regards those classes of diseases that are amenable to sanitary science, has followed the im- provements of drainage, of water-supply, of cleans- ing, and of general health administration. One of the first acts of the new government in 1870 was the establishment of an office of Igiene ed assistenza sani- taria ; and the functions and usefulness of this de- partment have been steadily augmented from year to year. This work is carefully systematized, and includes a service of food inspection, one of house-to-house inspection for nuisances, a vaccination service, a new hospital system for the isolation of epidemic diseases with the chief establishment in a secluded area on the Aventine Hill, a system of sanitary regulation for cemeteries and funerals, a house service of medical and health assistance for the poor, a service of public dormitories, an exceedingly interesting and useful se- ries of stations for night medical relief, and still other distinct features. The death-rate of Rome in 1876 was within a fraction of 30 per 1000. It was lower in 1877, but the average for 1878, 1879, and 1880 was just under 28. In 1885 it was 26 ; in 1893, 22.3, and in 1894 only 19.4. RECENT PROGRESS OF ITALIAN CITIES 277 The systematic reform of the street-system of Rome did not begin at once with the change of administra- tion. It seemed to be forced upon the municipality by the development of population and the necessity for accommodating a traffic which had enormously increased. The railroad system of Italy had been ex- tended, and Rome had become one of its centers. In 1860 the population was only 184,000. In 1870 it was 226,000, and in 1880 it had increased to more than 300,000; and the temporary sojourners and visitors who thronged the streets were a vastly multiplied host. Moreover, there was prospect of a continued rapid growth. Half a million people before the end of the century appeared a reasonable estimate ; and how could such a community, busy and eager, rest content in the absence of main street arteries and of the facilities for transit and traffic that have become universal in this age ? Certainly the outlook of the municipal authorities of 1880 has been justified by the subsequent facts. The population at the opening of 1894 exceeded 451,000, and the gains had been at a rate which made it reasonable to expect that the fig- ures would reach 500,000 in 1900. What the Roman people could have done under these conditions of growth and commercial progress without a reformed street-system, I have never heard any of the critics attempt to explain. Some preliminary and detached improvements had been made earlier, but it was not until 1883 that the so-called piano regolatore the complete scheme for the straightening and enlarging of the chief thoroughfare system, was finally adopted and set in motion. It had for its examples the notable improvements of re- cent years in the street-systems of a score of impor- tant European cities from England to Hungary. It has seemed to me that the Roman project was a rea- 18* CHAP. IV. Need of street re- forms. Continued population- growth. The plans of 1883. 278 MUNICIPAL GOVEENMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. iv. sonable and conservative one ; that is to say, as little arbitrary and destructive as circumstances could well allow, and notably different in its spirit and methods from the iconoclastic and uncompromising nature of the earlier Parisian projects. Inasmuch as nearly every street in Rome except in the new suburbs was narrow and irregular, leading nowhere in particular, the reformers determined that some main arteries were indispensable, and proceeded to create them. It was resolved to contract a municipal loan of 150,000,- Puwic- 00 lire ($ 30 > 00 ,000) for tne accomplishment of the works loan, work, the Italian government lending its aid by a guaranty of the debt. One of the first great works undertaken was the creation of the new Via Nazionale in extension eastward of the Corso Vittorio Eman- uele, at a cost of more than twelve million lire. At the western end of this broad Corso, which until 1890 led nowhither, heavy demolitions were made to cut some of the the thoroughfare through to the new Tiber bridge neA ments! ve Vittorio Emanuele, and further demolitions on the west side of the Tiber were to continue the avenue as a broad and unobstructed approach to the Piazza of St. Peter's. Another of the new streets is the Via Ca- vour, leading eastward from the Forum to the main railway station. At the foot of the Corso, and ex- tending to the east side of the Forum, very important demolitions were required by the plan. The magnifi- cent new retaining walls of the Tiber and the new bridges Garibaldi and Umberto were built as a part of this huge improvement scheme; and broad thor- oughfares were projected, with much demolition of old structures, as approaches to these bridges. These details are sufficient perhaps to indicate the character of a project which required more than one decade for its entire completion, but which has already effected most noteworthy transformations. RECENT PROGRESS OF ITALIAN CITIES 279 But still more recent than the "piano regolatore" are CHAP. iv. other glittering projects evolved by the enterprising municipal government of Rome, with the cooperation of an ambitious national government that desires to make its capital one of the finest and most attractive of modern cities. One of these projects is the estab- Anarcho- lishment of the lines of a Passeggiata Arckeologica. g vation? er Within the area thus delimited it was determined that there should be no further erection of private build- ings, and it was the purpose of the government to exappropriate and acquire the entire tract, and con- vert it into a public park, whose chief attractions would be the ruined monuments of old Rome. The passeggiata contains within its precincts the Forum, the Coliseum, the Forum of Trajan, the baths of Titus, the remains of the palaces of the Caesars on the Palatine, the Circus Maximus, the baths of Caracalla, the temples of Vesta and Fortuna, and other ancient remains, and includes an extensive area of land made up of parts of the Capitoline, Aventine, Palatine, and Ccelian hills, an area densely populated in ancient times, but now almost bare, and lying to the south of the heart of the modern city. Not only would this reserved area make a noble park, but it would also, when cleared according to the proposed plans, render the archeological remains by far more intelligible in their relative positions than they have been hitherto. Moreover, new and instructive discoveries are con- stantly being made by excavations. A much larger project, so far as cost and superficies are concerned, is that of a grand park and boulevard- system in the district now occupied by scattered villas and gardens north of the Porta Pinciana and within the bend of the Tiber. This is planned upon a mag- nificent scale, and its realization will cost an enor- P p7r p k. se mous sum. Inasmuch as the project itself is defi- 280 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. iv. nitely conceived, and is agreed upon by the govern- ments of the State and the municipality, it might be carried into effect gradually and the expenditure dis- tributed through a long series of years. But financial difficulties are compelling the postponement of active work on such projects, perhaps until the opening of the new century. I have instanced enough to show that the rehabilitation of Rome as begun and as planned will entitle it in due time to rank among the most progressive of modern cities. While these improvements have been made under public auspices, Rome has been the scene of a remark- able amount of building by private owners. Along the revised or newly created business thoroughfares are to be found long lines of new commercial edifices 5 Activity in but it is in the erection of large and high residence building, blocks that the building activity has been greatest. Lying adjacent to the older city on every side are new quarters platted in regular squares, and largely built upon with plain but superior and massive apart- ment-houses. The greater part of this new construc- tion has been made since 1880, and much is now in progress. Thus a large addition has, within a few years, been built up in very regular blocks just north of the castle San Angelo ; and as one looks out over it from the eastern balconies of the Vatican, the effect of Chicago-like newness is very strange. The most extensive of these new quarters are, however, at the opposite side of the city, in the east and northeast. For its own official uses the government caused to be prepared, several years ago, an elaborate map show- ing by different colors the demolitions required under Amapofthe to ' JUT new Rome, the street-regulation plan, the proposed boulevard system in the north, with the projected new Mar- gherita Park, the perimeter of the passeggiata archeo- logica in the south, the tracts of ground occupied or RECENT PEOGEESS OF ITALIAN CITIES 281 reserved by the government as sites of actual or pro- posed public buildings, the built-up area as it existed in 1870, the new house-building accomplished in the decade 1870-80, that from 1880 to 1888, and that in process or anticipation in 1889. The rapid creation of a new Rome, as thus shown graphically, is most impressive. It is a satisfaction to observe that the new tenement- houses of Rome are a vast improvement over the old ones in structural and sanitary respects. While the housing of the population of large cities is admittedly the most serious social question of the day, and while only a few cities have ventured upon the policy of extensive exappropriation, demolition, and rebuilding for the sole or chief purpose of improving the dwell- ings of the poor, it is fortunate that many cities have been awakened to the important fact that much future evil can be averted by strict regulations as regards the character and arrangements of new houses. The building rules of a city have a public and social im- portance that is now, tardily, becoming recognized. Of Rome it can certainly be said that the average character of the house accommodation of families has improved materially, although, as yet, the housing of the very poorest classes is probably little better than twenty years ago. The present building regulations of Rome, adopted after very careful consideration in 1887, are among the most approved and advanced in the world. They bring under strict public surveil- lance everything that has to do with the style, mate- rials, construction, size, and sanitary arrangements of buildings. For example, they establish the rule that the height of buildings must not exceed once and a half the width of the street upon which they front, with the proviso, however, of a minimum height of fourteen meters and a maximum of twenty-four. CHAP. IV. Regulation of building. The new rules at Rome. Provisions for light and air. 282 CHAP. IV. Other restrictions. Historic edifices protected. The awaken- ing of Naples. MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUEOPE They require that buildings shall be provided with inner courts, the narrowest side of which shall not measure less than one third the height of the build- ing; and they do not permit a narrower space between houses than the width prescribed for courts. Those who have examined the buildings of the old, crowded parts of European cities, where there is the least possible free space left unbuilt upon, and there- fore the most inadequate provision for air and light, can best appreciate the importance of a regulation requiring a reasonable area of open courts. The Roman regulations further establish the minimum height of ceilings, require that every apartment or group of apartments designed for a family shall have water-supply and sewer connections, and enter into great detail as regards all matters of appearance and health. Gradually, through the operation of these enlightened rules for new building, and through de- molitions from time to time of ancient tenements, the housing of the Roman population will become en- tirely transformed. One section of the new building code of 1887 authorized the Commissione Edillzia to make out a list of all structures of an historical and artistic character, and forbade their destruction or alteration, even by their private owners, without pub- lic authority. Thus, while Rome is rebuilding, there is nothing of real interest or worth that is allowed to perish. Rome's municipal undertakings were, however, des- tined in turn to be surpassed by those of another Italian city. Naples awoke in its turn, and entered in a sys- tematic manner upon what is perhaps the largest definite program of sanitary renovation ever un- dertaken by any city, a scheme whose full accom- plishment can cost hardly less than 500,000,000 lire 283 ($100,000,000). The project owes its inception to the CHAP. iv. cholera epidemic of 1884, or, rather, the epidemic was the occasion, while the new energy and courage of United Italy gave origin to the plan of action. The whole country was aroused in behalf of Naples, and the parliament in 1885 voted an appropriation of 100,000,000 lire toward the cost of a complete new program of , renovation. sewer-system, a new water-system, a scheme of sweep- ing demolitions and street alterations in the low and crowded quarters of the city, and a corresponding plan for the construction of new quarters on the higher ground at the eastern limits, and ultimately on the northern and western slopes. Naturally, much delay was experienced in the arrangement of prelimi- naries, in negotiations with private owners, and in the development of the plan in detail. The new water. The new supply was introduced immediately, from high moun- w ^e t t r e S! d tain sources near Avellino, fifty or sixty miles dis- tant. The sewer-system was taken in hand also and prosecuted with energy. But the piano di risanamenlo the project of re- habilitating the old quarters was found as delicate in detail as it was huge in its entirety. It was not Tbe "rfsana- * inento be- until the summer of 1889 that the actual work was gun isss. begun, in the presence of the king and queen, who had taken a deep interest in it from the beginning. A few statistics may be of assistance in explaining the scope of this undertaking, as furnished by the com- munal assessor, Professor Alberto Marghieri. The number of proprietors whose property was to be taken in whole or in part was 7100, 5400 of these exappropriations being entire. The awards for such property were estimated at not less than 93,000,000 statistics of lire. The amount of ground to be cleared and re- detuned area. built, or to be redeemed and raised to a higher grade, was about 1,000,000 square meters. The area of 284 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. IV. Proposed transfer of population. Motives of the project. An end of epidemics. Antiquity of the Naples slums. improvement included 271 old streets, of which 144 were to be abolished entirely, and 127 retained and widened. The number of people to be unhoused was about 90,000. Of habitations destined to be destroyed there were 17,000. Churches to the number of 62 were doomed, as were a large number of shops and other establishments. Streets and open squares rep- resented 22 per cent, of the area to be renewed. Un- der the new scheme they would occupy 62 per cent, of the area. The population of the area had a density in 1889 of 1610 per hectare (2J acres). This would be reduced to 700 per hectare, and perhaps to still less ; for the new quarters (piano di ampliamento) in the suburbs were eventually to provide house-room for 180,000 persons. The carrying out of this vast reform was to be ac- companied by the enforcement of improved sanitary laws, and by various minor municipal improvements. It was also believed that a great industrial impetus would be given to Naples, and that as a result of the general stir and agitation the thousands of occupa- tionless plebeians might be evolved into a regular working class. Costly as the great experiment must be, its courageous advocates had no doubt that it would be profitable. They believed that the expendi- ture would not represent wealth sunk and lost, but on the contrary, that it would be a most advantageous investment for Naples and for Italy. It promises in any event practically to end Italian epidemics; and that result alone would justify a far greater invest- ment, even from the purely commercial point of view. It is pleasant to believe that the new Naples is to be worthy of its beautiful situation and its unsurpassed environment. The quarters undergoing renovation are very old, dating back in part to the Greco-Roman period, and in part to the early middle ages ; but there EECENT PEOGEESS OF ITALIAN CITIES 285 was comparatively little of priceless value in their an- CHAP. iv. tiquity. The existence of these overcrowded and un- wholesome slums is much less disgraceful, when the facts are considered impartially, than is the recent development of crowded and unwholesome slums in American cities, where the neglect of simple and ob- vious preventive measures has made it certain that drastic and costly remedies must be employed in a future not far distant. The Naples projects have made very large advances toward completion, although the execution of the full plans will yet require a number of years. About 50,- Actual 000,000 lire had been paid to dispossessed owners from progress. 1889 to 1894, the chief new thoroughfares in the old quarters had been constructed, and thousands of good houses had been built in the new districts, in confor- mity with the requirements of a strict new code of building regulations. Many thousands of people had been transferred to the improved dwellings, and street- railway lines had been placed in operation on the re- formed avenues and extended to the attractive sub- urban additions. The actual carrying out both of the "risanamento" project and of the "ampliamento" Execution of schemes were intrusted to private companies with a large capital which act as agents of the municipal gov- ernment under carefully devised contracts. Although large sums are involved in the necessary operations, it is to be expected that the resales of street frontage on important new business streets, and good financial management in the new residence quarters, will ulti- mately reimburse the municipal treasury for the greater part of the investment. Meanwhile, the trans- formations already accomplished have proved them- Effect n selves eminently advantageous to the city in all the mortality. phases of its life. A usual death-rate for Naples until recently was 33 or more per 1000. It is not time yet 286 CHAP. IV. As to the Neapolitan population. Growth of Palermo. Earlier im- provements. Present undertakings. MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUEOPE to expect radical results from sanitary reforms to which the domestic life of the people has become adapted only to a limited extent. But the rate for 1894 was reduced to 27.5 ; and it is likely that the average will hence- forth be lower even than this encouraging figure. Naples remains the most populous Italian city, al- though Rome and Milan have been gaining upon it rapidly. In the early sixties it had about 450,000 people, and no other city of Italy had nearly half so many. The Neapolitans of thirty years ago were not an effective population, but included great swarms of idlers and beggars. There were in 1895 about 540,000 people in Naples ; and the changed times, with new industrial opportunities, have much improved the average status of the inhabitants, and diminished the numbers of the unoccupied poor. Since 1880, the growth of Palermo, Sicily's capital, now the fifth Italian city in size, has been very note- worthy. It had in that year hardly more than 200,000 people, while at the opening of 1894 it had 276,000, with the prospect of reaching the 300,000 mark at the end of the decade. The municipality of Palermo has exhibited a surprising vigor in the construction of new avenues, and in the general amplification and adornment of the city. The two broad, straight avenues, which meet at right angles in the heart of the city and cut Palermo into four sections, do not belong to the present era of reconstruction, but were executed by the Spanish viceroys of Sicily, who made Palermo their seat of government in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. But many new avenues attest the zeal of the present 'municipal authorities. The spirit of modern enterprise has taken full pos- session of the town. New water-works, drainage- schemes, and other sanitary reforms ; much attention EECENT PROGRESS OF ITALIAN CITIES 287 to paving ; rapid progress in the extension of street- CHAP. iv. railways ; a decided taste for electrical applications all these are characteristics of a town that dates from Phenician times, but feels itself as young and modern as an Australian capital. There are smaller cities in Italy which have caught the infection of modern progress; but of Bologna and Leghorn, Catania, and the rest, it is needless to discourse. What they are attempting is merely to follow the example of their more important contem- poraries. Venice has hitherto escaped any very shock- ing alterations. Few casual visitors would be likely to have discovered how much attention the Venetian authorities had of late been devoting to various sani- Engineering TT ! ii- projects at tary engineering projects. Happily, the new water- Venice. supply of Venice, the new sewer projects, the plan for a great hospital for infectious diseases, and various other proposed reforms could not affect the pictu- resqueness of the place. But with exceedingly little new construction of houses, the Venetian population has expanded since 1866 by more than 30,000 people. ' r r Recent over- And this increase of 25 per cent, (from about 120,000 crowding of Venetian to more than 150,000) has resulted in a very serious tenements. overcrowding of the old tenements, in consequence of which the death-rate has materially increased, partic- ularly within the past fifteen or twenty years. Obvi- ously, the situation of Venice does not permit an easy and simple overflow into attractive suburbs. To re- lieve congestion in slums of a growingly bad charac- ter, the municipal authorities, with the revision and A formidable approval of the central government, have drawn up a construction. project that will necessitate a large amount of demo- lition and rebuilding, attended with street rectifica- tions and other changes. The limited ground area makes it essential to plan for the most economical utilization of space in reconstruction. 288 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. IV. Venice not to be " Hauss- mannized." But modern- ized, never- theless. It is with some misgivings that I have endeavored to acquaint myself with the nature and scope of these plans. So far as I have studied them, however, I have been led toward the welcome impression that their carrying out will not very materially lessen the charm of Venice, and that the parts of the city most frequented by visitors will remain practically undis- turbed. Into the details of the pending projects it is not necessaiy to enter. It is only to be said that the adoption at Venice of a piano di risanamento e piano regolatore, which plans concern themselves with nu- ove arterie di comunicazione, marks the final victory of the modern spirit of practical progress and of sani- tary reform in its relentless assaults upon the famous old cities of western and central Europe. CHAPTER V THE FRAMEWORK OF GERMAN CITY GOVERNMENT " ~|%/rUNICIPAL housekeeping," as a science and an .1.T-L art, evolved out of the conditions of life pre- vailing in the last half of the nineteenth century, can for various reasons be observed to better advantage in Germany than in any other country. It is true that the German cities had been somewhat tardy in pro- viding themselves with modern conveniences and im- provements. But now, having fairly entered upon the Municipal task, they are accomplishing it in a more systematic, Germany n thorough, and businesslike way than any other cities, whether in Europe, America, or Australia. The Ger- mans have been in their habits of life a rather primi- tive, simple people less fastidious than the English, French, or Americans. In large part they have been a rural people ; and whether in town or in country, the average family income has been very small, and the ordinary scale of living extremely modest. The arrangements of the towns had partaken of this sim- ple, old-fashioned regime of family and social life, and had been in like manner primitive and unsuited to the demands of a complex, artificial civilization, and altogether regardless of the new sciences of sanitation and city-making. But a great change has come over the German na- tion, and nowhere is its altered character shown more distinctly than in the expansion and progress, of the 19 290 MUNICIPAL QOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. V. A pending transforma- tion. Standards of living altered. Scientific methods. Effective ad- ministrative methods. cities. The centers of population are growing with extraordinary rapidity by inflow from the rural dis- tricts. The Germans are in the midst of a quick transition from an agricultural into a manufacturing people. The old seats of petty princes or dukes are coming into a transformed and enlarged existence as industrial towns. Railways and traffic have lately become factors of a wholly new importance, helping to emphasize the distinction between town and country and to modernize the character of the towns. Simultaneously with this recent growth of indus- tries and town population in Germany, there has been arising in large part from military success and enhanced international prestige and importance a marked advance in the standards of living, and a new demand for modern and luxurious appointments. An intense quickening of national pride has made the people and the governing authorities eager to adopt late improvements, and ambitious to rival France, England, and America in matters that Germany had before neglected. To this work of modern improvement, especially in public appointments, the Germans seem to have brought more of the scientific spirit and method than any other people. Their habits of thoroughness in research, and of patient, exhaustive treatment of any subject in hand, have fully characterized their new progress in the arts of civilized life. Above all, the Germans had already developed a system of public administration more economical and more infallibly effective than could have been found elsewhere ; and they were prepared, when the growth of their cities and the new demand for modern im- provements made necessary a great increase in the number and variety of public functions, to do in the best possible way whatever it was decided to under- THE GERMAN CITY, ITS FRAMEWORK 291 take. So confident were they, indeed, in the efficiency of their administrative organization, that they dared to assign to the municipalities spheres of action which elsewhere have been left to private effort. The Germans have, unquestionably, a higher capa- city for organized social action than Anglo-Saxon or Celtic peoples ; and the socialism of the State or mu- nicipality or the increase of " collectivism," if one likes that word better than " socialism," meaning thereby the multiplication of the business functions of government might naturally be expected to have made greater progress in Germany than elsewhere. Moreover, as I have had occasion to remark in writ- ing of affairs in the Danubian valley, when a nation's political and military progress has very much out- stripped its industrial progress, public initiative is relatively stronger than private initiative ; and it is comparatively easy for the people to agree to act to- gether through their governmental agencies in estab- lishing this or that enterprise of common concern. In central, eastern, and southeastern Europe private capital is far less highly developed than in France, the Netherlands, England, and the United States; and the recent demand for various modern facilities and improvements has not found native entrepre- neurs and private capitalists prepared to meet it ade- quately. Circumstances have seemed to render it practically necessary for national or municipal gov- ernments to inaugurate and conduct many such en- terprises. This suggestion has very pertinent bearing upon our general subject of German municipal eco- nomics ; for, unless due weight were given to such considerations, we should be in danger of making our estimates and comparisons without a proper allow- ance for the dissimilar conditions that determine the scope of public functions in different countries. CHAP. V. "Municipal socialism." Why public initiative is natural in Germany. 292 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUEOPE CHAP. V. Berlin as a modernized city. Newness of European towns. Comparative growth of German and American cities. In the rapidity of its growth, in its regularity, and in its general air of newness, Berlin suggests Chicago. But while Chicago in its buildings and appointments other than governmental and municipal is for the most part superior to Berlin, the German capital is incomparably superior to Chicago in its municipal and public arrangements. Chicago and our other fast-growing American cities find great difficulty in extending urban facilities to keep pace in any decent fashion with the growth of population and the en- largement of area ; but in Berlin the authorities have systematically and easily provided for the develop- ment of a city that is several times as large as it was in 1860, and that has within a few years been trans- forming all its services and appointments. We Americans have such a surfeit at home of new towns and new extensions of older towns, that it is not surprising that we should be looking for the old rather than the new in our European travels. The guide-books are all made upon the supposition that American tourists are painfully eager to see every- thing of antiquarian or historical interest, and that they care nothing whatever for Europe as the present- day home of progressive peoples. For the most part, therefore, we fail to appreciate the full force and sig- nificance of the immense modern impetus that is transforming the European cities. Most of them have an ancient or medieval nucleus, but otherwise they are as new as our American cities, and in many respects they are more modern and enterprising. Indeed, there seems to be an almost unconquerable delusion in the popular mind that our American cities are the only ones which show the phenomenon of rapid growth, and that their newness excuses their failure to provide well for the common necessities of urban life. I must ask leave to present a few statis- THE GERMAN CITY, ITS FEAMEWOEK 293 tics to meet this delusion. In 1870 New York was a considerably more populous city than Berlin. It had nearly 950,000 people, while Berlin had barely 800,- 000. In 1880 Berlin had outgrown New York, and in 1890 it still maintained the lead, having 1,578,794 people as against New York's 1,515,301. Chicago's relative gain has been higher ; but Berlin in the past twenty-five years has added as many actual new resi- dents as has Chicago. Thirty years ago Philadelphia was a larger city than Berlin; but since then it has added only half a million souls to its total number, while Berlin has added a million. These figures are cited in order to give a comparative impression of the problems Berlin has had to meet in providing for the accommodation of its expanding municipal household. Let us take another instance. In 1875 Hamburg had 348,000 people, and Boston had 342,000. In 1890 Hamburg had 569,260, and Boston had 448,000. Ham- burg had gained more than 200,000 in fifteen years, and Boston had gained only a little more than 100,000. Yet Boston's growth has been accounted remarkable. Baltimore is sometimes likened for wealth and pros- perity to Hamburg. In the early seventies they were of equal size. But Hamburg has grown twice as fast. In 1880 the German port had 410,127 dwellers, and in 1890 they were 569,260, while Baltimore's census for the same years showed 332,313 and 434,439. The areas of Boston, Baltimore, and Hamburg were about equal. The third German city in size is Leipsic. It is a manufacturing town which had 127,000 people in 1875, 149,000 in 1880, 170,000 in 1885, and 355,000 in 1890. The annexation of suburbs accounts in part for the immense gain of the half decade from 1885 to 1890; but it also explains the comparatively small gains of the preceding decade, growth being princi- pally in the outer belt. St. Louis grew from 350,000 19* CHAP. V. Berlin, New York, Chi- cago, and Philadelphia. Hamburg, Boston, and Baltimore. Leipsic, St. Louis, and San Fran- cisco. 294 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUEOPE CHAP. V. Munich, Breslau, and Cincinnati. Cologne, Cleveland, Buffalo, and Pittsburg. Dresden and New Orleans. Detroit, Magdeburg, and Milwau- kee. in 1880 to nearly 452,000 in 1890. But Leipsic has grown at a much higher rate. It has now well-dis- tanced San Francisco, which was considerably the larger in the seventies. Munich, which has now been slightly outgrown by Leipsic, though formerly much the larger of the two, is still growing at a very respectable rate. In 1875 its denizens were 193,000 in number, and in 1880, 230,000. In 1890 they were 349,000. It has grown at a much higher rate in the past decade or two than the American cities of corresponding size. Breslau, the second city of Prussia, has lost much by emigra- tion ; but still it grows. Its population had expanded from 272,900 in 1880 to 335,200 in 1890. Meanwhile Cincinnati had grown from 255,139 to 296,908. In the same decade Cologne had grown from 144,- 800 to 281,800. This may be compared with the gain of Cleveland (Ohio) from 160,000 to 261,000; with Buffalo's growth from 155,000 to 255,600; and Pitts- burg's from 156,000 to 238,600. Cologne was very much the smallest of the four in 1880, and very much the largest of the four in 1890. Yet Buffalo, Pittsburg, and Cleveland have been accounted most remarkable for their expansion in that decade. Dres- den, the charming Saxon capital, had 220,800 people in 1880, and New Orleans, our own charming south- ern capital, had 216,000. Thus they were of nearly equal size. In 1890 Dresden had grown to 276,500, and New Orleans to 242,000. A difference of less than 5000 had increased to one of nearly 35,000. De- troit and Milwaukee had each approximately 205,000 people in 1890, and Magdeburg, Prussia, had 202,000. But Detroit and Milwaukee had each about 116,000 in 1880, while Magdeburg had only 97,500. It should be explained that Magdeburg during the decade had an- nexed some large suburbs ; but it remains true that THE GERMAN CITY, ITS FRAMEWORK 295 its rate of growth compares favorably with that of these two American cities. Frankf ort-on-the-Main had 180,000 people by the census of 1890, and Newark, New Jersey, had 181,800. Frankfort had 136,800 in 1880, and Newark had 136,500. Hanover in the ten years had grown from 122,800 to 163,600, and Konigsberg from 122,600 to 161,500 ; Louisville, Kentucky, had in the same period grown from 123,758 to 161,129, and Jersey City had grown from 120,722 to 163,003. Hanover and Konigsberg had gained faster than Louisville, but not quite so fast as Jersey City. Each of the four had added about forty thousand to its numbers. Minneapolis, which ranks with these four in size, though somewhat exceeding them all, had a growth in the first half of the decade that was wholly exceptional. But in the last half it grew not much faster than a number of German cities of similar rank. Neither did Kan- sas City, nor St. Paul, nor Omaha. Minneapolis had 129,000 in 1885 and 164,700 in 1890. Magdeburg much outdid that record. St. Paul had 111,000 in 1885 and 133,156 in 1890. Diisseldorf, with 95,000 in 1880, had 115,000 in 1885, and 144,680 in 1890 which quite distances St. Paul. Chemnitz, that stir- ring factory town of Saxony, with 95,000 in 1880, and 110,800 in 1885, had 138,955 in 1890 again distanc- ing St. Paul and its American group. Altona, Hamburg's next-door neighbor, had grown from 91,000 to 143,000 in ten years, while Albany, the capital of New York, beginning at just the same point 91,000 in 1880 had only grown to 95 ; 000. Rochester, New York, had 89,366 inhabitants (about as many as Altona) in 1880, and 133,896 in 1890, while Altona had 143,000. Chemnitz also had fully kept its lead on Rochester, Our prosperous and growing manufacturing city of Providence, from which many CHAP. V. Frankfort and Newark. Hanover, Konigsberg, Louisville, Jersey City, and Minne- apolis. Diisseldorf, Chemnitz, St. Paul. Altona, Albany, Rochester. 296 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. V. Nuremberg nd Provi- dence. Relative growth in general. A compari- son of ad- vantages and disadvan- tages. cultivated men and women have gone to visit that "quaint and stationary" old German town, Nurem- berg, has probably never reflected, when congratu- lating itself upon a growth from 104,857 in 1880 to 132,146 in 1890, that "old" Nuremberg, starting with only 99,519 in 1880 more than 5000 behind Provi- dence had increased to 142,523 in 1890, more than 10,000 ahead of Providence. Doubtless the comparison begins to grow tedious ; but otherwise one might show Indianapolis, Allegheny, Columbus, Syracuse, Worcester, Toledo, Richmond, New Haven, Paterson, Lowell, Nashville, Scranton, Fall River, and all the rest, how their growth has been matched or perhaps surpassed by that of nourish- ing commercial and manufacturing towns of like size in Germany such towns as Elberfeld, Barmen, Stet- tin, Crefeld, Halle, Braunschweig, Dortmund, Mann- heim, Essen, and a dozen more. Some of the specific comparisons I have made might be somewhat affected on one side or the other if every annexation of suburbs were taken into account. But no such reckoning would change the general impression. And if the figures were revised to extend the comparison to the year 1895, the exhibition of swift growth in the Ger- man towns would appear still more remarkable. "When one ventures to suggest that the American cities are meagerly provided with the best modern facilities, and make but a sorry show in comparison with European cities, there comes the unfailing reply that ours are in their infancy, while those of Europe are venerable with age and rich in the accumulations of a long realized maturity. The existence of old churches and castles, and of various monuments and collections illustrating the history of art, has given the impression that the European cities are old. But for the purposes of our discussion they are younger THE GEEMAN CITY, ITS FEAMEWOEK 297 CHAP. v. than their American counterparts. Their citizens are not nearly as rich as those of our cities. They suf- fer under the disadvantage of loss in productive energy and wealth through the emigration of hun- dreds of thousands of their best young men after they have reared and educated them. They stagger under such heavy burdens of taxation and compul- sory service to maintain the military arm of the general government, that the tax increment which can be spared for municipal purposes comes with pain, Heavy bur- and is small compared with the revenues we can raise for local outlay in America, where taxes for national and State purposes are comparatively light. And yet, in the face of disadvantages far greater than any that we can present as excuses, the German cities have grappled with the new municipal problems of the last quarter of a century, and have solved them far more promptly and completely than the American cities have done. The physical transformation of these cities has been very remarkable. The ground-plan of the modern city is an essential consideration ; and there has been much reconstruction of old-time thorough- fares in the central districts of German cities, while the newer parts have been laid out with care and and good judgment. The suburban tendency is the key tendencfes. to recent municipal development everywhere. This tendency demands the distinct recognition of a series of main thoroughfares that shall make easy the movement of population to and from the business center. No such condition of things was recognized fifty years ago. All the German cities are now ad- justing their street systems to the demands for quick transit. The usual American system is the simple checkerboard. The German system is a combination of the radial and concentric with the rectangular and 298 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. V. German thorough- fares. Good road- ways. Berlin pavements. Some Ameri- can com- parisons. Hanover as an .instance. parallel ; and it needs no argument to show that the combination system is by far the most convenient. Main thoroughfares in the German cities are to-day more conveniently planned and carried through than in most American cities. Good streets are to the modern town what the circulatory system is to a living organism. It is not necessary in Germany to argue that good road- ways are cheap at any cost, and that bad ones are so disastrously expensive that only a very rich coun- try like the United States can afford them. New York has begun to construct good pavements, but it lays them gradually and cautiously; and for the most part the existing pavements are wretched. Berlin adopted asphalt more than twenty years ago, and has been increasing its use year by year, though most of the city is paved with stone blocks. The maintenance of the streets in general is so much better than anything in America that comparisons are humiliating. There is no reason in the nature of things why the streets of Hanover, which are beautifully paved and kept, should be better than those of Jersey City or Newark, which cities are as large as Hanover, and as rich, though their streets are probably the meanest and forlornest in the whole civilized world. The Dresden . streets are much su- perior to those of our one exceptional city, Washing- ton; and those of Hamburg, Munich, Leipsic, and most of the smaller German cities, are far better than those of American cities in general. I have mentioned Hanover because it is not in any wise an exceptional German city in the manner and completeness of its modern physical transfor- mation, and because it is one of the many places that travelers usually omit as uninteresting. It is comparable in size with Jersey City, Newark, Louis- THE GEEMAN CITY, ITS FEAMEWOEK 299 ville, or Minneapolis. It typifies the spirit of pro- CHAP. v. gress and improvement now visible in nearly all the German towns. They are growing fast as railroad and manufacturing cities, and are developing a com- mendable degree of civic pride. The remaking of the snug, compact little hauptstadte (capital towns) of petty German principalities into modern industrial communities is a striking and a noteworthy process. Nearly every important place in Germany has at some time been the seat of government of an ambitious king, or prince, or margrave, or elector. The idea of the greater Germany has been completely trium- phant ; but these capital towns have gained more than they have lost. For many of them, however, it is now proving fortunate that the ridiculous little poten- r^ new tate had his day. His ambition often led him to pre- S^capitabf serve extensive private gardens and pleasure-grounds, to erect creditable palaces and public buildings, and to lay out at least a few broad and tree-lined avenues as supports of his dignity. Such public appoint- ments, now becoming municipalized, form valuable features of rapidly extending towns, and conduce greatly to the popular health, comfort, and pleasure. Even where the local potentate and his court sur- vive, an entirely new spirit is shown; and royal grounds, galleries, and avenues are treated as public rather than private possessions. In Hanover one is strongly impressed with this transformation of an old seat of government into a new railroad and manufacturing town. The old town remains almost intact, enveloped in a new town covering several times as large an area. A hand- some palace has been made over into one of the The modem largest and finest technical colleges in the world Hanover. an institution that ministers directly to the practical industrial life of the town. Ducal grounds are used 300 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUEOPE CHAP. V. Opportuni- ties of cul- ture. Municipal appoint- ments. as municipal parks. Street-railway tracks run on splendid old avenues leading out to what were in earlier days the country or suburban residences of ruling families. The old business streets, with quaint, antiquated houses, are now paved with smooth new asphalt. Just outside the town, on almost every side, are the tall stacks of new manufacturing establish- ments. New business streets have the freshness of an American city, with the advantages of evener and more becoming architecture, and of much better paving and cleansing. The people of Hanover now possess, as a community, many of the advantages that formerly belonged alone to the ruling family and court. They are a thoroughly modernized com- munity. They enjoy admirable school advantages; they have access to public libraries containing several hundred thousand volumes; at their disposal for education or entertainment are picture- and sculpture- galleries, museums, and various other collections. The city has magnificent new water- works ; it owns fine central slaughter-houses and cattle-markets ; has convenient and well-inspected produce-markets; pos- sesses a good modern sewer-system; owns disinfection establishments and epidemic hospitals; has a well- organized system of sanitary administration with in- spection corps ; is supplied with ordinary hospitals and institutions for the relief of poverty ; and, in short ? maintains a full complement of the establishments and "plants" that pertain to the well-regulated city of this last decade of the nineteenth century. Its rules and municipal ordinances form a highly in- structive body of municipal literature. The new building regulations, as revised in 1888, comprise a valuable code that brings every detail of construc- tion under strict rule and under the surveillance of the authorities. The code of street regulations, and THE GERMAN CITY, ITS FRAMEWORK 301 that which has to do with protection against fire, are in like manner minute and important. Yet Hanover makes no pretensions whatever, and would assert no claim as a model or an exception. It is not rich, and the adaptation of old surviving buildings, grounds, and establishments has not saved any great sum of money, and does not account for the completeness of the existing appointments. Hanover has been modernized through the intelligent and wise appli- cation of business principles and methods to the con- duct of municipal housekeeping. Having recognized the significance and the value of the suburban tendency, the German cities are now undertaking to control the forms of their expansion, and to prevent errors that would require costly fu- ture remedies. Annexations of outlying territory are the order of the day. Since 1870 most of the German cities have widened their bounds some of them very materially. Munich has annexed extensive suburbs, notably in 1890, with a further addition in 1892; Leipsic in 1889, 1890, and 1891 brought in large bod- ies of suburban population, and annexed territory which makes it three and a half times as large as it was before 1889. Dresden in 1892 and 1893 made material annexations. Cologne, which was one of the most congested and constricted of the German cities, is now, by virtue of its great acquisitions of 1888, much the largest of them all. Berlin, Munich, Ham- burg, and Frankfort are now of about equal area, averaging somewhere near 7000 hectares (the hectare being about two and one half acres), or from twenty- five to thirty square miles. Berlin will make very large acquisitions in the early future, definite steps having already been taken to annex a wide suburban zone. Cologne's new boundaries include 11,000 hec- tares, and embrace much garden and farming land. CHAP. V. A. triumph of good govern- ment. Annexation of suburbs. Munich, Leipsie, Dresden. Berlin's pro- posed exten- sions. 302 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. V. Cologne's policy. Magdeburg, Hanover, and other towns. Public con- trol of pri- vate build- ing. Accommo- dation for railways. But the municipality will be enabled for purposes of the extension of the street, drainage, and transit systems, and the water and gas supplies, for park purposes, and for the regulation of building to con- trol from the outset an area surely destined to con- tain a large population. Magdeburg nearly doubled its area in 1886 and 1887. Hanover in 1891 and 1892 extended its limits from seven square miles to about sixteen; and Altona, Chemnitz, Bremen, Karlsruhe, and other towns, have in recent years widened their precincts. The movement has, however, only fairly begun ; and the next ten years will almost certainly witness a development of superficies, and a distribu- tion of now congested population-masses, that will quite eclipse the achievements of the period 1870-90. The rapid growth of these German cities has been at- tended, of course, with much speculative building, and the laying out of divers new quarters by private com- panies. Berlin has been built up in this fashion, and Hamburg, Munich, Leipsic, Dresden, and the other large towns, all afford abundant examples. But the municipal authorities regulate in the severest fashion the arrangement and width of the new streets thus formed, require the best of paving, demand all that could be desired as to sewers, and govern the charac- ter of the buildings as to materials, height, street- lining, and general appearance. Thus the greed of speculators is not allowed to mar the harmonious de- velopment of the city, or to endanger its future health by bad construction and inferior sanitary ar- rangements. It is worth while to note, as regards the forms of German cities, that the municipal authorities fully recognize the vital importance of railways to a town's commercial prosperitj 1 ", and understand that adequate and convenient terminal facilities both for passengers THE GEEMAN CITY, ITS FEAMEWORK 303 and for goods ought to be as fully considered by the CHAP. v. city government as the provision of proper thorough- fares for ordinary street-traffic. One of the most se- rious mistakes that our American cities have made is their failure to provide suitably for the entrance and An essential exit of railroads, and for the central station and yard room that railway traffic requires. Even our newer cities have neglected this matter with a stupid- ity that is almost unaccountable in view of the fact that nowadays the one question of railway terminals often decides the commercial fate of a town. The European State railway systems are more fortunate than the English and American private systems in finding the towns disposed to grant the necessary fa- cilities for the transaction of their business. Leipsic, for instance, has become a great railway center, and one is impressed with the excellent judgment shown in the location of the extensive railroad yards, and of the factories, which lie on the outskirts of the town and have perfectly convenient shipping facilities. Stuttgart, also, affords an excellent instance of admi- rable central railway facilities. Terminal arrange- At Stuttgart ments at Berlin are magnificent; and the whole movement of traffic, both freight and passenger, is facilitated to a remarkable degree by the stadtbahn or municipal railroad, crossing the city from east to At Berlin. west, and the ringbahn, an encircling railway operated in conjunction with the stadtbahn. These connect with all the lines that come to Berlin, and assist in the collection, distribution, and transfer of freightage. Furthermore, it is made a municipal function in Germany to utilize to the highest advantage any wa- water-ways. ter-ways that a city may possess. Hamburg is the most noteworthy instance. It lies at the head of tidal water, on the estuary of the Elbe, and it has had the enterprise, at vast expense, within the past decade 304 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. V. Hamburg's harbor and docks. Berlin's util- ization of the Spree. Dresden and the Elbe. The struc- ture of mu- nicipal gov- ernment. to create the finest harbor and dock facilities in the whole world. The docks are provided with a net- work of railway tracks and splendid public storage- houses, and thus the highways for the accommoda- tion of the larger traffic of the ocean-going ships are as perfect as those for ordinary street-traffic. And the city is directly or indirectly a very great gainer from these splendid public works. At Berlin, the most casual observer can hardly fail to notice the marvelous use that is made for purposes of commer- cial navigation of the narrow river Spree. It has been well dredged out, is held in a controllable chan- nel by magnificent stone embankments extending for a number of miles on both sides of the river, and has, below the high quays, broad and convenient stone landings all along the water-edge. The quantity of freight barged at cheap rates from point to point in the city by means of the Spree is enormous ; and the city streets are thus greatly relieved. Moreover, the Spree connects with a system of canals penetrating the country in every direction, and carrying enor- mous quantities of heavy ware such as building ma- terials. Dresden in a similar manner derives large service from the Elbe ; and the German cities in gen- eral have not spared expenditure to make their rivers or other navigable water-courses a well-utilized part of the arrangements for the convenient passage of persons and traffic. Although the framework and general structure of the municipal house are not of absolutely vital conse- quence to good housekeeping, they have a very con- siderable importance. It happens that the Germans care less than the French for a modern and regular system one that shall conform to geometrical rules and harmonize with a philosophical ideal. In the United States the reformers have doubtless at times THE GERMAN CITY, ITS FEAMEWOEK 305 lost sight of the aims and objects of government in CHAP. v. striving after good government as an end in itself. Their attention has been devoted to the structure and mechanism, and, so far as the cities are concerned, they keep changing it perpetually. They are forever overhauling, repairing, or reconstructing the house, without seeming to have many attractive or inspiring uses for which they are eager to make the house ready. German The Germans of our generation, on the other hand, a means ' rather than have taken 'their old framework of city government an end. as they found it, and have proceeded to use it for new and wonderful purposes, altering it somewhat from time to time, but not allowing its defects to par- alyze the varied activities of the household. The different States of Germany Prussia, Saxony, Bavaria, Wiirtemberg, Baden, and the rest have their distinct municipal systems, prescribed by general law. The eneial Variations of detail are numerous and marked ; yet ^v/s. the systems of the principal States are essentially sim- ilar. The Prussian laws providing for municipal gov- ernment are a part of the great administrative scheme established in the legislation of Stein and Harden- berg early in the century. Many changes have been made, but the municipal constitutions of Prussia re- stein's Pms- . . . . , , sian reforms main in their chief characteristics what the law of onsos. 1808 made them. Through the previous century it had been the Prussian policy to sink the indepen- dence and individuality of the gemeinden, the munici- palities, in the absolutism of the State ; and to go so far even as to treat old municipal property as belong- ing to the State at large. The towns had practically no freedom in the management of their own local es- tablishments and institutions. But all this was changed in the legislation of 1808. As in the French municipal laws of 1789-90, the mu- nicipalities were recognized as ancient units of gov- 20 306 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. v. ernment, organic entities, with their own properties and functions, and with the right of entire self-gov- ernment within the sphere of their strictly local and neighborhood concerns. They were given elective assemblies, or councils, and an executive body, or The system . , ' , outlined, magistracy, composed 01 a burgomaster and a num- ber of associated magistrates ; the burgomaster (mayor) and his executive corps (magistrats-mitgUe- der) being chosen by the popularly elected council (gemeinderath), and given the complete charge of ad- ministrative work. The system was from time to time extended to the provinces that Prussia absorbed. In its general principles, moreover, it was incorporated in the laws of the other kingdoms and principalities that with Prussia now make up the German empire. In Prussia, as in England, local self-government on the plan of elective councils was granted to the large towns as municipal corporations long before anything similar was devised either for rural districts or for provinces. But in the period 1872-84 the administra- iratufn " tive system of Prussia was reconstructed. There is a government new and comparatively regular series of provinces, 3Sia> districts, and " circles," which divisions are analogous to French departments, arrondissements, and cantons. In each division there are administrative officers re- presenting the central government and executing the national laws, while there are also elective councils with their standing committees or magistracies to at- tend to the strictly local affairs of the provinces, dis- tricts, and circles in accordance with the now accepted doctrines of self-government. The circle consists of a group of rural hamlets and villages; but every town of 25,000 people or more is distinct and consti- tutes in itself an " urban circle." Throughout the en- tire system, which is far more complicated in its details than the French, there is manifested the de- THE GERMAN CITY, ITS FEAMEWOEK 307 termination to stimulate local progress and to bring the best ability everywhere into some form of partici- pation in the work of government. 1 It would not have been possible in the Germany of Stein and of Frederick William III. to establish re- presentative institutions upon a basis of popular equal- ity. The Prussian system emphasized the property qualification; and that system remains to-day. The voters are those who pay certain kinds of taxes above a minimum amount, and this restriction excludes per- haps ten or fifteen per cent, of the men of voting age. The electoral system is somewhat complicated. A city Berlin, for instance is laid off in a number of electoral districts. The voters are listed in the or- der of the sums they pay for taxes, with the heaviest tax-payer heading the list. They are then divided into three classes, each of which has paid one third of the aggregate amount. Thus, the first class will con- tain a group of very heavy tax-payers, the second will be made up of a much larger number of men of moderate fortune and income, and the third class will comprise the great mass of workingmen and small tax-payers. Each class in a given district elects a member of the gemeinderath, or town council. In large parts of the German empire the class system is not maintained. The Berlin system is, how- ever, the most prevalently typical for Germany at large. At a recent Berlin election (1893) held in one third of the districts, for the renewal of one third of the council, there were registered as qualified voters 111,637 men, of whom 2045 were in the first class, 13,049 in the second, and 96,543 in the third. 1 An excellent account of the system of provincial and local government in Prussia, by Professor F. J. Goodnow, was pub- lished in the " Political Science Quarterly " for December, 1889, and March, 1890. CHAP. V. Three-class electoral system. A Berlin election. 308 MUNICIPAL GOVEENMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. V. Essen as an extreme instance. It happened that of these classes 976, 4858, and 25,596 actually appeared at the polls considerably less than one third of those empowered to vote. The first-class voters participated in the highest propor- tion. But each class chooses its third of the munici- pal council, regardless of the force it musters on election day. An extreme instance of the prepon- derance that this system gives to wealth is afforded by the manufacturing city of Essen, where in a pop- ulation approaching 100,000 there is a mere hand- ful of persons who pay one third of all the taxes, and are therefore empowered to designate one third of the councilors. The Krupp gun-works form the great industry of Essen, and at a recent municipal election one voter appeared for the first class and counted for quite as much as the nearly two thou- sand men who appeared for the third class. The statistics of a still later election at Essen show that 4 men belonged to the first class, 353 to the second, and 12,197 to the third, and that 2, 243, and 5367 actually voted in the three classes. In the cities of Saxony, Bavaria, and Wiirtemberg, the three-class system is not in vogue; but there are considerable restrictions upon the franchise. So far as the voters are concerned, whether in Berlin, Breslau, Cologne, Magdeburg, and the other cities where the class system remains, or in Stuttgart, Munich, Leipsic, or in any of the cities where there The munici- are no discriminations introduced among the enfran- chised, their one task is the selection of a good mu- nicipal council. Everything in the life of the gemeinde revolves about this one central body. It finds the burgomaster, designates his expert associates of the magisterial coterie, supplies the means for carrying on the city government, and represents in its own enlightenment, ability, and aspirations the standard pal council as the cen- tral fact. THE GERMAN CITY, ITS FEAMEWOEK 309 and the character of the community's progress. It CHAP. v. is to this body that one must go to discover the secret of the consistency and continuity of German municipal policy. Much of the detail of the organi- zation and method of German city government would only appear tedious and cumbersome if an attempt were made to describe it all. But I must beg per- mission to make as emphatic as possible this funda- mental point, that such city government has its focus in the elected municipal council. However peculiar in a hundred details the German system may be, it is 3 in istrates have the cooperation in various ways, to committees. which further allusion will be made, of numerous unofficial citizens serving in a voluntary or honorary capacity on countless sub-committees. Nearly all the cities in G-ermany, great and small, maintain the plan of a magisterial council composed 320 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. V. Paid and un- paid magis- trates in va- rious cities. The Stutt- gart plan. Why salaries are small. The pay of mayors. Magistrates' salaries. of paid and unpaid members. In Dresden 14 are paid and 18 are unpaid. The 14 have been very largely drawn from the service of other and smaller cities, while the 18 have been promoted to the magistracy after valuable service in the elected council. Leipsic has 12 paid and 15 unpaid magistrates, Munich 16 and 20 respectively, Breslau 11 and 13, Frankfort 9 and 8, Hanover 8 and 9, Nuremberg 9 and 17, Chem- nitz 9 and 16. In many of the smaller cities the un- paid members predominate largely. Stuttgart pays its mayor alone, and appoints all its other magistrates from its own public- spirited citizens, who give their services freely. But it is a marked exception to the rule, its magistrates having in fact the character of the French " adjuncts." Civil-service salaries in general are very small in Germany, for the reasons that positions are perma- nent, pensions are given to retiring officials, and such posts are considered socially desirable and are much sought after. Comparatively, therefore, the pay of burgomasters and magistrates is considered very large by the German official class. The mayor of Berlin receives 30,000 marks ($7500), and the salaries of other German mayors range from that figure down to about 10,000 marks ($2500). The deputy-burgo- master has the next highest salary 18,000 marks in Berlin, and from 6000 to 12,000 in other cities. The average pay of the Berlin magistrates is about 12,500 marks, while, if one should average a hundred or more German towns, great and small, the current yearly pay of this class of expert officials would be found to be about 6000 marks ($1500). Such remuner- ation is tempting enough to give the cities an abun- dant supply of trained talent from the universities and technical schools, and from the various lines of State service. Under the mayor and magistrates are THE GERMAN CITY, ITS FRAMEWORK 321 CHAP. V. Police authority. Berlin watchmen. the numerous officials, of all grades and ranks, who constitute the membership of the municipal civil ser- vice, and who are trained men in their respective departments. The police authority in Germany is retained as a function of the State, and is usually exercised under the supervision of administrative officers who repre- sent the higher authority rather than the purely local interests. The cost of the police in large cities is as a rule borne chiefly by the State, although in some places it is shared by the municipalities. In Berlin the city authorities maintain a force of night watch- men ; but the general police organization belongs to the royal Prussian service. Opinion in Germany is divided upon the question whether the ordinary po- lice administration should be made over to the mu- nicipal governments or separately maintained by the State. Many active friends of the municipal regime prefer that the police system should remain on a quasi- of fun military footing, under control of the political power. In practice it appears an easy matter for the munici- pal and police authorities to keep a good understand- ing and work together harmoniously. It is the German fashion to exercise an extremely minute police over- sight. The entire population is enrolled upon the police registers, and the comings and goings are ob- served and recorded. In many German cities the an- nual directories are published and sold by the police police authorities, their central office necessarily possessing directories, all the names and facts required for the compilation of a directory. Private guests from outside the city, as well as hotel arrivals, must be reported at police headquarters, with an amount of information of a strictly personal nature that American or English travelers always find amusing. Such, then, is the framework and structure of the 21 322 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE Officialism in German cities. CHAP. v. German municipality. It meets the demands made upon it. The German mind has a clear conception of the municipality as an organization for business and social ends, and of the municipal government as a mechanism for the accomplishment of those ends. " Officialism," so-called, expert and highly organized, results inevitably. I am not advocating the introduc- tion of the German type of officialism into our American city life. And, indeed, I have no desire in these chapters to hold any argument with those who do not believe in the development, for America, of a permanent, skilled, non-political body of city officials. My present object is to make comparison easier. For my own part, I see no possible reason why, having city business to do, we should be unwilling to have it performed in as business-like a manner as we should demand in the conduct of a private enter- prise. Nor do I see how an acceptance of the idea that the municipal corporation exists for the conduct of a series of business and social enterprises can comport with the rejection of the idea of a perma- nent, expert body of administrators, that is to say, a somewhat highly developed officialism. However, Believed by it is to be remembered that in Germany the perfunc- tory tendencies of officialism are much diminished by the plan of enlisting the services of thousands of non- official citizens in the oversight of the schools, the dis- tribution of charitable relief, and other municipal un- dertakings, together with the custom of placing the ablest and wisest citizens in the town council or in the magistracy. ordinary citizens. CHAPTER VI MUNICIPAL FUNCTIONS IN GERMANY rilHE practical management of German cities pro- J_ ceeds in harmony with the German conception of the municipality as a social organism. Such a con- ception has metaphysical aspects; but with theories ,,.,-,. , ii The German and philosophies we need not concern ourselves tor conception, present purposes. It is enough for us to understand that in Germany the community, organized centrally and officially, is a far more positive factor in the life of the family or the individual than in America. The German municipal government is not a thing apart, but is vitally identified with every concern of the municipality ; and the municipality is the aggregation of human beings and human interests included within the territorial boundaries that fix the community's area and jurisdiction. There are, in the German con- ception of city government, no limits whatever to the NO limits to -r . , . . . municipal municipal functions. It is the business of the munici- functions, pality to promote in every feasible way its own wel- fare and the welfare of its citizens. This conception must be carefully distinguished from socialism, with which it is not necessarily in harmony. A concrete illustration will perhaps help to make the difference clear. In 1893 the municipal govern- ment of Stuttgart decided that the city should con- An mustra- i i A T i L- " ^ A tion from struct, own, and operate electric-lighting works. An Stuttgart. investigating committee had reported in favor of giv- 323 324 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. VI. Not a question of socialism. Why Stutt- gart muni- cipalized electricity. Municipal gas had been decided upon. ing a franchise for a term of years to a private com- pany. The question was decided adversely to the committee's report by a vote of 13 to 12 in the coun- cil of magistrates. It was purely a question of busi- ness judgment. Socialism would have demanded municipal ownership and operation because socialism is at war with private capital. But the Stuttgart council was dealing with a question of practical finance, on behalf of the community. Half of the council firmly held that for ten years or more, in the developing and experimental stages of electricity in Stuttgart, the new illuminant not being as yet an article of common necessity and demand, it would be a better business policy to allow a private company to establish the lighting plant, the city carefully re- serving the right, after a short period, to supersede the private company on reasonable terms of purchase. Twelve men out of twenty-five adhered to this view to the end. If the question had presented itself sin- gly, on its sole merits, a decisive majority would have favored the plan of private ownership. But let me explain the circumstances which secured the contrary decision. Stuttgart was one of the very few German cities which had not made the manu- facture and sale of gas a municipal monopoly. In the early future, however, as was fully agreed, the munici- pal council was to buy out the existing gas company and go into the business. Gas is an article of common necessity ; it is in its nature an article that is subject to monopoly control ; for street purposes the munici- pality was already a very large consumer ; the gas busi- ness is beyond the experimental stages ; in Germany it has been demonstrably profitable for cities to make the gas-supply a municipal monopoly. Stuttgart, therefore, had already decided to " municipalize " the gas-works at the end of the franchise soon to expire. THE GERMAN CITY, ITS FUNCTIONS 325 But to charter a private company to control electric- CHAP. vi. lighting just as the city was about to assume gas- lighting as a public monopoly, might involve rivalries that would be embarrassing and vexatious. The fact of having the gas monopoly would make it more likely that the city could manage electrical works in conjunction without much financial risk or danger. Obviously, there was considerable force in this argu- ment. And there was still another consideration in favor of a municipal electrical monopoly. The Street Railway Company of Stuttgart had for some time desired permission to change its motive-power from horses to electricity, with the overhead-trolley system. Stuttgart is not a large city, and the objection to the trolley on the score of danger was not very well founded. The company was willing to become a cus- tomer of the municipal electric power and lighting tomerready. plant, at a fair price that was agreed upon, for all the electricity it should need; and the assurance of this large and regular patronage would lessen the speculative risk involved in entering upon the busi- ness of electrical supply as a municipal undertaking. So much for the facts ; a word as to their bearing upon the German conception of municipal functions. So far as I am aware, the theories of socialism did not materially influence either group in the Stuttgart coun- cil. The inquirer who has been led to suppose that he will find in the German cities a consistent, highly-de. veloped collectivism, carried into practice in the spirit of opposition to private initiative, will hardly be able spirit of to find all that he expected. He will certainly find a i n Germany 1 . great many interesting and successful instances of municipal activity in fields that are abandoned al- most wholly to private enterprise in our American cities. But he would scarcely be able to report that he found these things done on doctrinaire grounds. 21* 326 CHAP. vi. The municipality holds itself deeply and supremely responsible for its own welfare. Half of the Stutt- gart council thought that the welfare of the commu- nity, considered as an organic whole, would be better and more economically served, so far as the introduc- tion of applied electricity is concerned, if a private company were authorized to undertake the business, under municipal regulation and oversight. Is it not plain that with this spirit and with this conception of the municipal responsibility it would not have mat- NotMng tered seriously which way the question was decided ? vital in the -.-.- ., -in issue. No councilors were accused of a corrupt or improper zeal for any private company that was seeking a fran- chise. If a franchise had been granted, it would have been given on strict business principles. The munici- Municipai pality would have dominated the question of electri- eithTr g ease n cal supply, in either case. The citizens would not have been thrown upon the mercy of a private com- pany exercising a monopoly control ; for the munici- pality itself, acting steadily and constantly through its official organs, would have stood between the citi- zens and the supply company, regulating and control- ling in the common interest. Stuttgart has been rather a laggard than a pioneer among German cities in the matter of productive mu- nicipal enterprises, and it is by mere chance that I have adduced it for purposes of illustration. We may, however, find it worth while to dwell a moment longer at the pleasant capital of Wiirtemberg. To assume the gas-supply, and to enter upon the monop- oly control of electric light and power, will mark a long step in the local development of the municipal business functions. In due course, the Street Rail- way Company's franchise will expire. Stuttgart's Future municipal plant will have furnished the supply of elec- trical power, and passenger transit in German cities THE GERMAJST CITY, ITS FUNCTIONS 327 will have attained an importance far greater than it now possesses. We shall then see the Stuttgart council investigating with patient care and scientific skill the experience of other cities in the management of street-railways; and we need not be surprised if the decision should be in favor of municipal owner- ship and direct operation. This further step would only be taken after the most mature preparation, and upon the full assurance that it would be a thrifty, solid business investment, and that the welfare of the municipal organism would be promoted. Next, may we not expect to see something like a municipal mo- nopoly of the fuel-supply? With the progress of electricity as an illuminant, gas is likely to be used more and more as a fuel. The city will already be supplying a certain number of gas-motors and gas- stoves ; and the very logic of its position, as monopo- list in the domain of gas and electricity, will surely with the inevitable triumph everywhere of the idea of an urban distribution of heat or fuel, or both, from central reservoirs lead the conservative Stuttgart municipality into the practical business of supplying another common necessity. If any one chooses to call this sort of thing a plunge into socialism, it would probably be idle and profitless to quarrel with his use of a much abused word. The Germans would consider it nothing else than a thrifty and progressive municipal housekeeping. It involves no new principles; for everything was already in- volved, potentially, in the German conception of the municipality's full and unlimited responsibility for the general welfare of the community. If German experience showed that the various common services that we call natural monopolies of supply could be conducted by private persons in a manner more ad- vantageous to the community, there would soon be CHAP. VI. A municipal fuel-supply. This does not mean socialism. A mere question of business expediency. 328 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUEOPE CHAP. VI. Stuttgart's water. Disposal of waste. Management of cleansing services. Cemeteries. Municipal forestry. an end of municipal management ; but the municipal responsibility would be undiminished, and the muni- cipality would remain what it now is, a great, posi- tive, dominating factor in the life of the citizens, an organic entity. Conservative Stuttgart a good while ago assumed the ownership and control of the water- supply, and conducts the business both for the health of the people and also for substantial profits to lessen the direct taxes. It also manages quite elaborately as a municipal monopoly the removal of night-soil and domestic refuse, turning the nitrogenous waste into a fertilizer ; and this undertaking is not only self- supporting, but productive of an attractive net in- come. Stuttgart has not found out how to make street-sweeping and garbage-disposal a source of clear profit, but it manages fairly well to secure public and domestic cleanliness ; and by keen business manage- ment and a perfect readiness to turn much or all of the work over to private contractors when that method appears most economical, the best results are attained at the least cost to the community. The Stuttgart municipal cemeteries are conducted at a moderate net profit. In a limited sense, the very parks are a source of income. That is to say, the whole acreage of municipal pleasure-grounds, hospi- tal-grounds, school-grounds, and other areas contain- ing trees, is for certain purposes put under control of a forestry department of the city government ; and this department, by a judicious and non-destructive harvesting of the timber resources of the municipal domain, is able to keep up paths and lawns, to pay all its own salaries and expenses, and to turn over as net profits fifty per cent, of the gross revenue from the sale of timber and firewood. I have mentioned these matters as minor instances of the characteristic thrift of a German city government. I have never heard THE GERMAN CITY, ITS FUNCTIONS 329 Stuttgart mentioned as a model ; and it would be CHAP. vi. easier to array such concrete illustrations from the housekeeping of various other cities. But a deep responsibility for the welfare of the municipal household means something very different ofmuni- from the successful conduct of these specific business eip slbmty? n " undertakings. Their assumption, or their relegation to private hands, involves little more than a decision from time to time as to what is opportune and what is inopportune. It is conceivable that the G-erman city might do none of these things, and that the American city might plunge into them all, and yet that the German city should remain a far more posi- tive and essential factor in the life of its citizens. For the German city would hold fast to its concep- tion of the municipal household, and would yield nothing of its solicitous oversight and its inclusive responsibility. The German city holds itself respon- sible for the education of all; for the provision of amusement and the means of recreation; for the adaptation of the training of the young to the neces- sities of gaining a livelihood ; for the health of fami- lies ; for the moral interests of all ; for the civilizing of the people ; for the promotion of individual thrift ; for protection from various misfortunes ; for the de- velopment of advantages and opportunities in order to promote the industrial and commercial well-being, and incidentally for the supply of common services and the introduction of conveniences. Broadly but not sharply distinguished, the Ger- man cities recognize two kinds of functions: those that can be made largely self-supporting or even pro- ductive of net revenue, and those that cannot possibly O f functions. be so considered. The latter are the more important ; and in this class the three most important are the education of the children, the protection of the public 330 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. VI. Municipal life as a science. Principles of municipal finance. Support of poverty. Education ; its cost and worth. health, and the care of the poor and unfortunate. To accomplish these and other kindred ends, munici- pal life in Germany has been reduced to a science. German population-masses are more cohesive than Anglo-Saxon masses, and the individual is more de- pendent upon his neighbors and upon the community to which he belongs. The voluntary principle would not work so well in Germany as in England or Amer- ica. But we must remember that the municipal in- tervention in Germany is not merely mechanical. Principles exist which give heart and soul to the sys- tem. The voluntary agencies have been absorbed in the municipal, or affiliated with them, without crush- ing out the sense of human brotherhood and mutual responsibility upon which, after all, must rest the well-being of any community. Municipal financiering in Germany is a high art. It unites thrift and minute economy with broad lib- erality. Its most obvious feature is to make each service or department self-sustaining or productive so far as possible, and to make the social benefits of the non-productive departments so clear as to admit of no doubt. Where charity has become so com- pletely municipalized, the duty of caring for the aged and the submerged poor involves a heavy draft upon current revenues ; but ultimately German fi- nance will have perfected systems of compulsory in- surance that will enable the State and municipality to accumulate social salvage funds out of which old age and distress can for the most part be sustained. Education will remain a heavy burden ; but the Ger- man community no longer needs to be reminded that thorough and specialized education tells so promptly upon the industrial productivity and commercial pros- perity of a city or a province that it is cheap at any cost. In like manner Germany's municipal statisti- THE GERMAN CITY, ITS FUNCTIONS 331 cians and hygienic experts have come to the aid of the financiers with facts and conclusions so irresisti- ble, that the people are ready to bear burdens of taxa- tion for the boon of an exemption from febrile dis- eases and a reduction by one half of infant mortality. The money that is spent in the interest of the common health is applied with such amplitude of scientific knowledge, and such care that every dollar shall count for an end that is in the long run commercially profitable as well as socially salutary, that the in- vestment is plainly seen to justify the borrowing of the money and the pledging of the municipal credit. Meanwhile, the courage of the community is sus- tained, under the heavy ordeal of taxation, by the success of the municipal government in managing the departments that are productive in their nature. Even though these departments yield only a small fraction of the total revenue necessary to meet the expenditures of a municipality that is responsible for the welfare of all its people, they give an air of thrift to its financiering, and encourage an optimism that sees in the future monopoly-rentals of various fran- chises and supply-services a largely increased propor- tion of the public revenue. It is not strange that the American observer should at first be most impressed by the splendid efficiency of German city governments in the prosecution of public works and enterprises. This is largely due, of course, to the superb and continuous organization of the executive administration. The burgomaster is actually or virtually a life incumbent, and his magi- sterial associates who conduct the various depart- ments either hold their places by life tenure or else upon terms practically as permanent. The city coun- cil, representing the people's will, is renewed by in- CHAP. VI. The financial argument for sanitary expenditure. Optimism arising from good man- agement of earning de- partments. Public works. 332 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. VI. Execution of far-reach- ing plans. Deliberate methods. Berlin's paving, and New York's. Business versus politics. stalments. The terms are long, and reelections are so usual that the personnel of the body is transformed very slowly, and nothing like an abrupt or capricious change of policy is ever probable. Consequently it is possible to make long plans, to proceed without haste, to distribute burdens through periods of years, to consult minute economies, and to make an even, symmetrical progress that has far more of tangible achievement to show for every half-decade than could be possible under our spasmodic American methods. A German city, let us say, decides to have well-paved streets, and to modernize its whole thoroughfare-sys- tem. It proceeds to learn everything that can possi- bly be known about street-making. The effect of its immediate climatic conditions upon different kinds of materials is studied theoretically and experimen- tally. The municipal department of public works does not move a step until every detail of the prob- lem from the engineering and from the financiering standpoint has been thoroughly worked out. On this fashion the magnificent public works of Ber- lin have proceeded. The result is that in the period from 1870 to 1890, it may be asserted, $100,000 ac- complished more for the permanent making of good streets in that city than $1,000,000 in New York. Vastly more money had been expended on the streets of New York than on those of Berlin in these twenty years. Yet Berlin was beautifully paved, while New York, except for a few favored streets, was almost as impassable as Constantinople or Damascus. Since 1890 New York streets have improved ; but the con- trast in 1895 was only a little less painful. Nothing accounts for this difference except the superiority of sound business methods in Germany over wasteful political methods in America. Throughout all Ger- many the public-works departments of the towns are THE GERMAN CITY, ITS FUNCTIONS 333 busy carrying out the mandates of their respective municipalities, and creating on permanent lines the material attributes of the well-ordered modern city. Nothing is hurried, yet nothing seems to lag when once begun. Street-systems are rectified; new sub- urbs are judiciously laid out ; here a new water-sup- ply, introduced from high sources, employs engineers, architects, and conduit-builders. In another city new sewers are in progress, on a plan for the complete and final drainage of the place. River frontages are undergoing magnificent improvement, for purposes of water traffic. Gas-works, electric-plants, market- houses, public abattoirs, school buildings, epidemic hospitals, bridges, wharves, subways, or whatever else the expanding requirements of the municipality may ordain, all are in course of construction by me- thods that insure the highest utility and greatest per- manence. To cite illustrations or to present statistics would introduce an almost endless task. It is enough to say that the German cities have accepted the idea that their appointments must conform to the newly recognized necessities of modern life, and that they are steadily supplying these appointments with mas- terly administrative and technical ability, and with such a combination of close economy and generous foresight as no other nation has ever exhibited. Berlin's new era of municipal progress may be said to date from 1861. In that year it annexed con- siderable suburban territory. The old city walls were torn down to give free communication with the new quarters. The Emperor William came to the Prus- sian throne in 1861, and his accession marked the be- ginning of a liberal policy on the part of the State toward the city of Berlin. The new Eathhaus (City Hall) was begun in that year. Prussia's ad- vance among European powers gave Berlin an ambi- CHAP. VI. An era of im- provement in German towns. Recognition of modern needs. Berlin's new impulse in 1861. 334 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. VI. Effect of campaigns. Reforming the streets. Embanking the Spree. An aggressive municipal program. tion to rival Paris. The influence of the Haussmann transformation of Parisian streets was felt in the Ger- man capital. The successive wars and Prussian vic- tories of 1864, 1866, and 1870-71, ending with the formation of the German Empire and the designation of Berlin as its capital, enormously stimulated the municipal life. A policy of bold initiative was en- tered upon. Boulevards were constructed, and the new suburbs were handsomely laid out. The royal government had always controlled the inner street- system, together with the paving, drainage, the Spree navigation, and the bridges, and had allowed a private company to furnish the water-supply. A pri- vate company also controlled the gas-supply. Educa- tion was largely in private or clerical hands. But the awakened municipality acquired from the general government in 1874 the control of the streets, and set about reforming them. It entered upon projects of widening and straightening lines of main thorough- fare, and of laying good pavements. The process has gone on steadily to this day, with magnificent results. The city acquired control of the shallow and sluggish Spree, embanked it with massive walls, flanked it with broad stone quays, dredged it for heavy traffic, and replaced its old wooden bridges with modern struc- tures of stone and steel. In 1873 the municipality had acquired control of the water-supply, and had at once proceeded to create a new and improved system. It also determined to abandon the growingly dangerous practice of drain- ing the city sewage into the diminutive Spree ; and it entered not only upon a marvelous system for the disposal of sewage, but also proceeded in the interest of the public health to create a great series of sanitary institutions, including municipal slaughter-houses and market halls, hospitals for infections diseases, THE GERMAN CITY, ITS FUNCTIONS 335 unified arrangements for public and private cleans- CHAP. vi. ing, and systematic inspection of food, houses, and all conditions affecting the public health. The be- ginnings of the municipal gas manufacture had dated from about 1870, and the success of the experiment had led to very great enlargements in 1875. Mean- while, education had been municipalized with' an energy and thoroughness perhaps unprecedented any- where. Manufactures and railways had been encour- aged, and technical and practical education had been The making so arranged as to promote Berlin's development as a metropolis. center of industry. Parks, recreation-grounds, and gymnastic establishments were provided for the peo- ple. Housing was at length brought under municipal regulations of a very strict character, in the interest of the workingmasses ; and an excellent and comprehen- sive system of street-railways was devised, under mu- nicipal inspiration, though under private management, for the better facilitation of local transit and the wider distribution of the rapidly growing population. Ber- lin is about four times as large as it was in 1860 ; and the immense influx of people, chiefly of the working classes, has been received and accommodated with an ease that seems nothing short of magical. The quantity of water used by a city is regarded by British sanitary authorities as, in a rough way, a measure of its relative civilization. An abundant supply of pure water, thoroughly distributed, is in- deed a vital consideration for any city, too vital to _ J J ' Berlin a wa- be entrusted to private business control. Berlin has ter supply. abundant reason to rejoice in the past twenty years that it has had direct management of its water. The quantity has had to be constantly increased, and the purity of the supply has had to be secured by filtra- tion, involving elaborate plants. New sources, more 336 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUEOPE CHAP. vi. and more remote from the city, have had to be found and brought into the system. A private company could never have been induced to make the invest- ment required for a sufficient and purified supply ; but The financial the city has found it profitable, considered as a purelv point of * . f 7 j view. commercial undertaking. The works supply Berlin with about 40,000,000 cubic meters per annum, of which nearly ten per cent, is used free of cost for various public purposes. The income collected from private users pays all expenses of operation, and after providing for interest on the cost, and for a sinking- fund to redeem the debt on the plant, it yields a sur- plus net profit each year of about 2,500,000 marks. The sanitary authorities at Berlin have led the world The sanitary J jconsidera- i n recent inquiries into the relation of water-supply to public health ; and the character of the service ren- dered by the Berlin water- works is constantly improv- ing. Science has triumphed notably over natural difficulties, and the municipality will be able, in de- veloping the service, to keep pace with the rapidly increasing demand. The Berlin population is housed in tenement-flats, and water is sold by meter not to Water sold J by meter, the tenant, but to the landlord of the building. The system prevents waste without depriving the people of an amount equal to all their necessities. It is a method that has been worked out gradually and in- telligently, and it saves the city a great deal of money. The other German cities are adopting it. When the Berlin authorities decided to establish a metropolitan water-supply, they also determined upon another and still greater undertaking. They per- Good sewer- ceived that the modern city requires. as the corn- age as the complement plement of a good system of pure water distributed ter supply, through every street and every building, an equally good system of house drainage and of sewage re- moval and disposition. The modern ideal is a strong, THE GERMAN CITY, ITS FUNCTIONS 337 pure volume of water, derived from sure and constant sources that are beyond danger of pollution, forced by ample pressure through a network of mains and penetrating every abode, and then, being contami- nated by use and saturated with refuse from closets, kitchens, and street drainage, collected again and car- ried off in sewage tunnels to some safe destination. The old-time Berlin had drained into the Spree, and had used vaults for solid waste instead of the modern all-receiving sewers. Good drainage was as neces- sary as good water, and the discharge of unpurified sewage into the Spree as a permanent system was out of the question. Artificial purification, and the manu- facture of fertilizers from the precipitated solids would have been possible ; but Berlin wisely adopted the better plan of natural purification by the irrigat- ing of land. Immense research was bestowed upon the subject, with the result that the Berlin drainage is the most perfect in the world and is unquestionably that city's most notable achievement in municipal housekeeping, so far as physical forms and conditions are concerned. The city was divided into twelve drainage districts, called "radial systems," the divi- sions being arranged upon considerations of topogra- phy. The sewers of each district were to converge at a common center, at which would be located a re- ceiving-basin and steam-pumping works. A tunnel was to connect each of these district centers with the reservoirs and pumping- works of a sewage farm some miles distant. The work upon this vast project began about the middle of the decade 1870-80, each radial system being dealt with independently. By 1880, systems I., II., and III. had been put into use, and thus the in- ner sections of the city, including the business core, were connected with a large area of municipal farm- 22 CHAP. VI. Abandon- ment of the Spree. Adoption of irrigation system. The radial systems. The project begun. 338 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUEOPE Completing the "systems." CHAP. vi. land lying some fifteen or twenty miles southward. System IV., embracing the north central part of Ber- lin on the upper side of the Spree, was also ready for use before 1880, and was connected with a very ex- tensive tract of land lying a few miles northeast of the city. System V., pertaining to the great eastern residence portion of Berlin, was opened in 1881, although general house-connection was not complete until 1886. Systems VI. and VII., draining the south- ern outskirts, and including portions of the suburban towns of Charlottenburg and Schoneberg, were in full service by 1887. Systems VIII. and IX. lie north of the Spree at the extreme western limits of the city. System X. is on the north side and embraces new and partly built-up quarters, while Systems XI. and XII. are on the eastern limits. System VIII., drain- ing due north to a third great body of municipal land through a tunnel perhaps ten miles long, was ready for use in 1891, as also was System X. The remain- ing systems were not urgently needed, and work upon them was allowed to proceed more slowly. Excepting for some thinly populated outskirts, therefore, all the houses of Berlin are now connected with the new drainage-works, which are carrying annually from 60,000,000 to 70,000,000 cubic meters of sewage to be distributed by scientific irrigation over the surface of municipal farms having an ag- gregate extent of more than twenty thousand acres, or upwards of thirty square miles. Additional land has been bought from time to time. It is interesting to note that a city whose municipal limits include only twenty-five square miles should have acquired an outside domain of thirty square miles as a place for the discharge of its liquid waste. The Berlin sewage farms were tracts of rather poor and sandy soil ; but land is not very cheap in the vicinity of so great a city, Extent of the sewage farms. THE GEEMAN CITY, ITS FUNCTIONS 339 and the purchase money reached about 15,000,000 marks. An additional 15,000,000 marks had been spent prior to 1893 in laying out the farms, trench- ing and tiling them for irrigation purposes, and equip- ping them with the necessary buildings and improve- ments. At that time there had been expended upon the radial systems in Berlin and the discharging tun- nels about 65,000,000 marks, making a total invest- ment of nearly 10,0000,000. With the further outlay to be made in completion of the system as a whole, the new Berlin sewage-works, including the farms and their improvements, may perhaps be said to con- stitute a 120,000,000 mark ($30,000,000) plant. It is novel from an American point of view to con- sider a city's drainage-works as a self-sustaining or productive enterprise, like its water- works and its gas- works. But Berlin regards the matter in that light. Before the new system was introduced, the citizens had to pay for the removal of night-soil, etc. The city now charges a moderate sewage-rate against all property that the system serves. The parts of the farms that have been brought under closest cultivation are already very profitable, although the net income from the entire thirty square miles does not yet pay the full interest on the investment (for purchase and improvement) of 30,000,000 marks. The fertilizing value of the sewage is so great, and the administra- tion of the farms is so superb, that within a very few years the investment will have become enormously productive. On each of the farms are nurseries of young fruit-trees, and considerable areas of orchard have already begun to yield some fruitage. Prodi- gious crops of vegetables are grown, and the yield per acre of cereals and grass is similarly remarkable. Within a reasonable period the sewage farms will have earned profits enough to pay back all that was CHAP. VI. Cost of the new drain- age works. Financial outlook. Profitable farming. 340 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. VI. Sanitary success. Hamburg's notable experience. A great filtration plant. invested in them, and eventually they will be a source of surplus income that will materially lessen the load of municipal taxation. Meanwhile, from the sanitary point of view, the system is an unqualified success. Far from being unwholesome, moreover, for the peo- ple who live and work upon them, the farms them- selves are so free from deleterious influences that con- valescent colonies from the city hospitals have now been established on them, with gratifying results. The problems of water-supply and drainage one or both have in recent years forced themselves upon many other German cities besides Berlin. Hamburg's experience is especially worthy of note. The second city in the empire, with a population of 600,000, with great wealth and vast shipping and com- mercial interests, Hamburg had long been aware of the need of a pure water-supply. Its situation in a flat region at the head of tidal water in the Elbe had seemed to make necessary the continued use of the river- water, in spite of its unwholesome condition. But Hamburg received a great impetus in all direc- tions from its inclusion in the German Zollverein a few years ago, and from the success of the joint mu- nicipal and imperial project of immense harbor im- provements. As had happened earlier in Berlin, a conjunction of political, commercial, and sanitary motives now stirred the Hamburg authorities to an unprecedented activity. A magnificent new City Hall, to be opened in 1894, was entered upon as a symbol of the new municipal era. As the prime san- itary reform, it was determined to construct the greatest and most complete filtration-plant in the world, to supply the city with an unlimited quantity of Elbe water, purified to meet the severest tests of chemist and bacteriologist. The new works were un- der construction when the frightful cholera epidemic THE GERMAN CITY, ITS FUNCTIONS 341 of 1892 swept away thousands of victims. It was de- CHAP. vi. monstrated that the disease had been propagated through the use of Elbe water, and that nitration would remove the cholera germs. The new works were to have been ready for use in 1894 ; but by great effort they were completed and put into operation in May, 1893. During the summer and autumn the river water, when introduced into the subsidence basins and filters, contained millions of cholera germs to the cubic inch. As it emerged and was supplied to the city, the water was as safe and wholesome as if it had been brought from high Alpine sources. The filtered water averted the return of the epidemic in 1893. So striking an object-lesson in municipal health admin- istration has never been presented before, and its effect will have been felt everywhere in Europe. The cholera invasion led Hamburg to adopt various sani- tary reforms, and I shall discuss them more particu- larly in the next chapter. Hamburg's sewers form a fairly complete modern system, but the city has not finally solved its problem of sewage disposal. At present the entire volume is carried in a huge collect- ing tunnel to a point below the city, where it is emp- tied into the river during the hours when the tidal movement is seaward, and dammed back when the tide flows in. But the amount is too great to be carried out satisfactorily, and much of it pours back to foul the harbor with the turn of the tide. Ulti- mately Hamburg must adopt a plan of artificial puri- fication, after the example of London, or else must follow Berlin's still better example of natural filtra- tion through the soil of sewage farms. Breslau, which ranks fifth in population among the German cities, and is the second city of Prussia, is too little known to the English-speaking world. It is one of the model municipalities, and its administra- 22* 342 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. VI. Filtered river water and sewage farms. Munich's Alpine water and its effects. tion deserves high praise for many excellent features. Dr. Forckenbeck, who served for so many years as the upper burgomaster of Berlin, and under whose masterly administration so many of Berlin's most noteworthy undertakings were accomplished, had previously distinguished himself at Breslau in a like position. The town lies on both banks of the river Oder, from which stream it pumps its water-supply. It has for some years successfully filtered the water, and it also has carried into full execution a system of modern sewers and riesel-felder (sewage farms) which leaves little to be desired. The water- works are a source of large net income to the city, and the farms, which are rented to tenants, seem also to be a profitable investment, quite apart from the indi- rect benefits of a system so satisfactory from the sanitary standpoint. The entire population is served by the water-works, and all the house and street drains empty into the tunnels that discharge in the basins of the riesel-felder. Munich had long suffered from an unenviable rep- utation throughout Europe for its high mortality- rate, and particularly for the prevalence of malignant forms of typhoid fever. There were thousands of cases of fever every year, and the number of deaths from that cause alone was high in the hundreds, in some years exceeding a thousand. In 1883 a new water-supply from pure springs in the Alps was brought into Munich, tainted wells were closed, and the foul river-water was superseded for drinking purposes. As soon as the new order of things had become fairly established, the yearly deaths from typhoid fever could almost be counted upon the fin- gers of one's two hands. The new water-supply of Munich was attended by other sanitary reforms, in- cluding improved sewers and the substitution of a THE GERMAN CITY, ITS FUNCTIONS 343 magnificent municipal abattoir with all modern con- veniences and ample cattle markets and yards, for about eight hundred small private slaughter-houses that had existed in different parts of the city. The introduction of Alpine water seemed a bold under- taking at the time ; but it has been an easy matter to make the works earn surplus profits after paying all expenses and providing for interest and sinking-fund. All German cities, with a few unimportant excep- tions, now own and operate water- works, which are made to earn profits averaging from ten to fifteen per cent, on the amounts invested. Frankfort-on- the-Main has within a few years invested something like 30,000,000 marks in improved water-works and sewers, and brought about an improvement in health conditions that has been most extraordinary. The water is taken from several sources, and is of good average quality. The sewage is discharged into the river, after having undergone treatment by chemico- mechanical means for clearing and purifying, the precipitated sludge being sold as a fertilizer. The results, as shown in a diminished death-rate and the disappearance of certain forms of disease, have been even more notable than the change at Munich. Braunschweig, or Brunswick as we call it in Eng- lish, illustrates admirably the transforming effect of the new municipal spirit. In 1861 the city celebrated the one thousandth anniversary of its founding. It was then a compact town of perhaps 40,000 people, and medieval in architecture and characteristics. It is now a lively manufacturing city of more than 100,- 000 inhabitants, and is still growing rapidly. It has lately adopted the plan of sewage farms, having com- pleted a modern system of filtered water-supply. Its wonderful wealth of old collections illustrating art and history has been brought into curious touch with CHAP. VI. Municipal abattoirs and other Munich im- provements. Frankfort's water-works and sewage purification. Brunswick's expansion and reno- vation. Water and sewer systems. 344 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. vi. new institutions for practical and popular education. Under its newly-paved streets are new sewers; and in its quaint and famous timber-built houses, erected hundreds of years ago, one finds modern plumbing of the last twenty years in universal use. The commin- gling of the new and the old in this revivified medieval capital is merely representative of what has been A type.of brought about since 1870 in scores of ancient German numerous . . . towns. towns. The municipal self-consciousness has been marvelously awakened, with results that make the story of expansion and progress in our American cities seem quite prosaic. I have perhaps dwelt too long upon what the Ger- mans call the wasserung and entwcisserung of their "Wasserung" cities. But I have chosen to do so because it seems "serung.* ' to me that this double topic of water-supply and drainage is most truly typical of that varied physical regeneration that cities must undergo in order to be the fit abode of modern communities. I am not compiling a directory of German municipal improvements, or Dantzic's else I should have to compliment Dantzic for its a ments?" water, its sewers and riesel-f elder, and its general dem- onstration of the manner in which a quaint walled city and provincial capital of the fifteenth century can within two decades make itself a great seaport by dredging its shallow harbor to admit modern steam- ers ; can give its population a new prosperity through the development of manufactures; and can lift them in the scale of intelligence and happiness through pro- visions for education and for the unfortunate. street-clean- Clean streets and alleys, and immaculate back yards, were certainly not conspicuously characteristic of German cities twenty years ago. But the recent im- provements in water-supply and drainage, as well as in general sanitary administration, might naturally THE GEKMAN CITY, ITS FUNCTIONS 345 The Berlin system. be expected to have the accompaniment of reformed CHAP. vi. cleansing arrangements. Moreover, clean streets had been made feasible by the smooth, new paving of roadways and sidewalks. As a rule, the streets of German cities are now kept in a state of enviable cleanliness. Berlin's thoroughfares are scrubbed and swept continually, under a system that is perfectly organized, and that costs less than $500,000 a year. It is a flexible system, providing for the prompt increase of workmen in bad weather, and never helpless in the presence of a sudden snowfall. The central streets of all the leading German cities are thoroughly cleansed once a day, at night or very early in the morning, in addition to which " flying columns " of street-cleaners are on constant day duty to remove horse manure and other accumulations. In the residence quarters of many German cities it is still the rule that street- sweeping is an obligation that rests upon the prop- erty-owners or occupiers. But Berlin, Dresden, Ham- burg, Frankfort, and some smaller cities, provide a full municipal service, while in Leipsic, Cologne, Stuttgart, and other places, the cleansing is partly municipal and partly private. Munich, Breslau, and numerous smaller places throw the entire burden upon the owners of adjacent property. The tendency is toward the direct, full municipal service. But the important fact is that under all the different systems the municipal authori- ties prescribe the rules and regulations, and see that they are carried out. Labor is so cheap and abundant that it is easy for the German householder to arrange for the regular cleansing of his sidewalk and his share of street frontage. The municipality, as a rule, at- tends on its own account to the removal of the sweep- ings. It has also become the prevailing practice in German cities to make the removal and disposal of domestic ashes and garbage a municipal function, and Extent of municipal service. Garbage removal. 346 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. vi. this service is conjoined with that of removing the street sweepings. So far as I am aware, Dresden is the most fastidi- Dresden's ous ly dean of all the German cities. It extends the cleansing, uniform daily cleansing to a large area. Berlin's dis- trict of daily cleansing is comparatively small; but the area whose streets are swept from three to five times a week is large, and all the important outlying streets are well cleansed twice a week. If I should name the small sums for which Hamburg, Dresden, Bremen, Dusseldorf, Essen, and other cities obtain remarkably thorough and satisfactory results, I am afraid I should not be believed by American munici- pal authorities. Everywhere in Germany one notes the perfect organization of these services, and their rapid improvement as the standards of civilized life become more rigorous. The trend in Germany is Unifiedman- " . . J agementof toward a unified direct municipal service of street sprinkling cleansing, sprinkling, and garbage removal; and a removalf 5 while much diversity of system exists at present, there is no failure in any large German town of that exer- cise of full municipal authority and responsibility which prescribes what shall be done and sees that the prescription is carried out. About two thirds of the large German cities own Municipal , -mi- gas-plants, and operate gas-works as municipal enterprises. The list of such cities numbers approximately thirty. Public lighting, under modern conditions, has grown to be a very extensive and necessary social service. Nearly a quarter of all the artificial light required by the denizens of many modern European cities is used in streets and public places. Obviously, the cities that reserve the gas-supply as a municipal monopoly are enabled to provide for public lighting at the lowest absolute cost of manufacture. With the unlimited THE GEEMAN CITY, ITS FUNCTIONS 347 Tendencies of public ownership. technical and administrative skill that they control, CHAP. vi. the German cities are in my judgment at a distinct advantage over private corporations in the economi- cal conduct of the gas business. The tendency of municipal ownership is, moreover, toward a more complete street illumination and a more thoroughly diffused private use of an article that is at once a civilizing agent and a police protection. As a monop- oly enterprise it is of course easy to make the works pay good profits. The cities which are now supplied by private companies will probably, one after another, as franchise periods terminate, assume municipal control. Everything indicates such a policy. Meanwhile, most of these cities secure gas for pub- lic illumination at greatly reduced prices, and the cost to private consumers is strictly regulated. Mu- Public con- nich is the largest of the cities that are supplied by a vlte plants. private company; and I remember at one time ob- serving with satisfaction that the municipal laboratory of that city tests the illuminating power of the gas every day, in order to protect the citizens from an in- ferior quality. This Munich circumstance fairly illus- trates the full municipal supervision that is exercised in Germany over the gas-supply, even when under private ownership. For the benefit of American cities entertaining the absurd delusion that there can be beneficial competition in the gas business, it should! be remarked that only one of all the cities of Ger- many, namely, Frankfort-on-the-Main, has chartered rival private gas companies ; and the price of gas is higher there than anywhere else in the country. Among the cities that own their own gas-works are Berlin, Hamburg, Breslau, Leipsic, Dresden, Cologne, Konigsberg, Bremen, Diisseldorf, Nuremberg, Dant- zic, Magdeburg, Chemnitz, Barmen, Stettin, and Brunswick. The principal ones supplied by private 348 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. VI. Municipal policy as re- gards elec- tric plants. Hamburg's electric plant, in hands of Other cities which have municipal works. companies are Munich, Stuttgart, Frankfort-on-the- Main, Hanover, Strassburg, and Altona. In the matter of municipalizing electricity, the German cities have moved somewhat slowly ; but the marked tendency is toward the appropriation for the welfare of the community of all advantages and profits to be derived from the distribution of light and power from central electric stations. The gov- ernmental operation of telegraph and telephone lines, and the municipal supply of gas for lighting and for motors, had predisposed the German communities to a public control of such newer services as electric lighting and the electrical distribution of power. The municipal authorities would naturally be reluctant to admit private companies to any rights under the street surface. Public control of gas- and water-supplies, and of other services requiring pipes, tubes, and wires, has resulted in so orderly and convenient a system of underground conduits that it is deemed wise to allow no private companies to disturb it. Municipal elec- trical works are regarded as the logical development of a policy generally accepted in Germany. Berlin is an exception to the rule, perhaps because the feasi- bility of public control was not so apparent when the Berlin Electrical Company obtained its franchise. The Berlin works were opened in 1886. Hamburg's municipal plant was ready in 1889, and that city is peculiar among its German contemporaries in the fact that it leases out both its gas-works and its electrical-works to be operated for it by a pri- vate contractor. Liibeck, Barmen, Konigsberg, Metz, Darmstadt, and Duisburg were operating general municipal electrical-works before the end of 1890. More recently, the five important cities of Breslau, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Altona, and Cassel had built municipal plants ; and still later, both Dresden and THE GERMAN CITY, ITS FUNCTIONS 349 Stuttgart decided to enter at once upon the same CHAP. vi. policy. Leipsic, on the other hand, has preferred a different arrangement, and has given a franchise to Leipstc-s different the Siemens & Halske Company, on terms regarded as policy. especially favorable to the city and the public. The works came into operation in 1895, and at the end of the franchise period, which is a long one, they are to become municipal property without cost. Although Berlin and Leipsic have given electric- light franchises to private companies, let no reader imagine that the interests of the municipalities and of the citizens were betrayed, or left at any point un- guarded. As an example of what is considered a suitable form of franchise in Germany, it would be points in instructive to quote the entire revised contract made franchise. in 1888 between the Berlin city authorities and the Berlin Electric Works Company. It defines the area within which the company may operate. It re- quires, under heavy penalties, that the area be fully provided with main wires within a brief period speci- fied in the contract. As compensation for permis- sion (not exclusive) to use the streets, it is agreed that the municipal treasury shall receive 10 per cent. Liberal com- of the company's gross receipts, and further, that to city. whenever the company earns a net profit of more than 6 per cent, on its actual investment of capital, the city treasury shall receive 25 per cent, of such excess profits, in addition to its 10 per cent, of the gross in- come. Still further, it is agreed that the company shall provide the magnificent electric illumination of Favorable the central avenue Unter-den-Lmden, together with terms for that of the Potsdamer Platz and the Leipziger Strasse, lighting. with all expense of maintenance and attendance, at a price so low as to be nominal. Besides this, a special and favorable rate is provided for such further electric street-lighting as the municipality may desire. The 350 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. vi. city authorities retain the fullest rights of inspection both technical and financial, and all the company's Rights of ' r j inspection, affairs are open to the knowledge of responsible pub- lic officials. The city requires the deposit of 250,000 marks as caution-money, and holds the company down to the strictest rules in regard to the laying of wires and breaking up of street or sidewalk surfaces. The Various pre- . . , . . cautions, company is required, moreover, to maintain a re- newal fund equal to 20 per cent, of its invested capi- tal 5 and this fund, in the form of Berlin municipal bonds, must be kept on deposit with the city magis- trates. Accompanying the agreement was an official schedule of rates that the company was authorized to Rates to charge its private patrons. No departures from es- patrons. tablished rates can be made without consent of the city authorities. Finally, the municipality reserves the right to buy the entire plant and all its appurtenances at any time after October 1, 1895, upon a fair basis of Right of city valuation carefully provided for in the contract. The plant. arrangement in all its details is an elaborate one, but it is the perfection of business lucidity and intel- ligence. What if New York, Chicago, Boston, and Philadelphia had based all their grants of valuable municipal privileges in the past thirty years upon principles as sound as those that protect German nau- i^Germany nicipal interests in contracts with quasi-public supply interestcom- corporations? In studying these German contracts mands the Jr . ~ ,. best talent, one is always impressed with a sense of the first-class legal, financial, and technical ability that the city is able to command; while American contracts always impress one with the unlimited astuteness and ability of the gentlemen representing the private corporations. I should prefer to wait five or even ten years before street-rail- writing upon the relation of the German municipality Germany, to street-railways and transit facilities. The business of transporting urban passengers is far more highly THE GEKMAN CITY, ITS FUNCTIONS 351 developed in America than in Europe. Our urban populations are much more widely distributed, and rely far more upon public vehicles. Most German cities were originally walled and very compact. The large tenement building, several stories high, housing numerous families, is the prevailing type. Municipal areas are small, and outlying suburbs are compara- tively unimportant. Families, whether in the city or in the suburbs, as a rule live near their daily work. All this has begun to change ; and a redistribution of population over larger areas, under the influence of new industrial conditions, and with the increase of cheap transportation facilities, is now taking place rapidly in Germany, as almost everywhere in Europe. But the magnitude of the movement will hardly make itself realized for several years to come ; and the transit-systems will not have attained an importance at all comparable with those in America before the end of another ten years. Yet the horse-railways of Berlin, Hamburg, Frank- fort, Munich, Leipsic, Dresden, Cologne, Stuttgart, and other cities are to-day exceedingly well managed, and are thriving under a patronage that grows rap- idly from year to year. The first street-railway in Germany was a short line opened at Berlin in 1865. Excepting for small beginnings at Hamburg and Stuttgart, no other German city ventured upon the in- novation until 1882, when Dresden, Leipsic, Frank- fort and Hanover entered the list. In the next ten years more than thirty other leading German towns began their street-railway systems. Nothing could have been more logical than an era of street- railway construction following upon an era of new street making and paving, which had included the straightening and widening of main thoroughfares, and the development of radials from town centers to outer peripheries. CHAP. VL Beginnings in various cities. 352 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE The Berlin company. CHAP. vi. While in several German cities there is more than consolidated one street-railway company, the prevailing rule and tendency is toward a single system with one central management, brought under very direct and inti- mate municipal supervision. The money value of street-railway franchises in Germany is beginning to be considerable, but it will yet be several years be- fore the city treasuries can hope to realize large in- comes from the rentals and tributes exacted from transit corporations. Every one who goes to Berlin is now impressed with the admirably complete and satisfactory service of horse-cars that permeates the whole city. Nearly all these lines belong to the " Grosser Berliner Pf erde-Eisenbahn-Actien-Gesell- schaft" (Great Berlin Horse Railway Stock Company). The municipal authorities have carefully projected the new lines or extensions that this system has added from time to time, having in mind the present and future development of the metropolis. The company has paid lump sums for the franchises, varying from a few thousands to hundreds of thousands of marks, according to the extent or probable paying character of the new line or extension. In addition, the com- pany has assumed heavy burdens with regard to the maintenance of the paving and cleansing of streets traversed by its lines, and is further compelled to make yearly cash payments to the municipal treasury in return for its privileges, on the basis of its earn- ings. At the end of the franchise, in the year 1911, the entire system falls to the municipality as its own. Meanwhile the company pays to the city an annual cash sum that now amounts to more than 1,000,000 marks. This results from a percentage on gross re- ceipts, the rate increasing as the company's business grows. The minimum rate is 4 per cent., but for several years past 7 per cent, or more has been paid. Payments to city. THE GEKMAN CITY, ITS FUNCTIONS 353 Hamburg's street-railways pay a municipal tax on CHAP. VL each passenger carried, which would amount to per- f Hamburg haps 8 or 10 per cent, on gross receipts. Besides and its . . 7 , . . street-rail- this, the companies are subject to other municipal way system, taxes, and have duties regarding the maintenance of streets. Their tracks will revert to the city at the end of the charter period. On the basis of their pres- ent business they are unquestionably paying the mu- nicipality as much as they can afford. The principal Hamburg company has not been accustomed to pay its shareholders more than about 5 per cent, a year; and the stock represents actual investment. Like Berlin, Hamburg is principally served by a single street-railway corporation, other companies operating one or more lines to Altona or some other suburb. Cologne's recent enlargement of its limits and rapid suburban progress give its transit system an interest- ing outlook. The " Koln Strassenbahn-Gesellschaf t " (Cologne Street- Rail way Company) is working upon a The cologne thirty-year franchise which will expire in 1916, when ai the municipality will come into ownership of the lines without paying anything for them. Meanwhile the company pays a small fixed yearly rental of perhaps ten thousand marks, and also pays to the city 15 per cent, of all profits accruing above a 5 per cent, divi- dend to the shareholders. The Frankfort-on-the-Main contract would seem to be still more favorable to the city. Frankfort's street-railway company which monopolizes the transit business except for three or . , , , . ,. -ii.-, What Frank- four single electric or steam lines operated by inde- fort exacts. pendent companies and running out to neighboring towns pays the city a fixed annual rental of about thirty thousand marks, adds thereto 6 per cent, of its total gross receipts, and is further under obligation to give the city 50 per cent, of all its surplus net earnings above 10 per cent, per annum. 23 354 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUEOPE CHAP. VI. The ap- proved form of compen- sation. Fares prescribed. Reduction for school- children. Electric lines and rapid transit. And so I might cite other contracts in other cities. Suffice it to say that with few exceptions the German cities manage to obtain payments from street-railway companies up to a point fairly equal to the present rental value of the franchises they hold, besides taxing them as heavily upon their invested capital and their business operations as they would be taxed if they were ordinary merchants or manufacturers. And the franchise payments are so arranged as to increase with the earning capacity of the privilege. The fixed tax or street-maintenance charge, plus the gross-re- ceipts percentage, plus a contingent proportion of surplus net profits, is the approved German form of compensation for street-railway franchises. Municipal supervision extends minutely to such questions as the fixing of fares and the frequency of service. There are exceptions to the rule, but it may be said almost with- out qualification that for minimum distances the fare on German street-cars is 10 pfennigs (2 cents), and that for longer rides the passenger pays fifteen or twenty pfennigs, according to the divisions of the route. On some lines the 10-pfennig fare holds good regardless of distance; but all lines charge that rate for a short ride. In some cities there are special rates for pre- scribed classes. For instance, I know of at least one city where school-children are carried at one third of regular rates, as a part of the bargain between the municipality and the company. I shall not attempt to describe the beginnings of electric transit-systems in Germany, nor to discuss pending plans and proposals for a so-called " rapid- transit " system in Berlin. It is enough to say that a number of German cities have allowed the experi- mental equipment of a trolley line or two, and that the scientific German mind is at work upon every phase of the problem of electric railways, with the THE GERMAN CITY, ITS FUNCTIONS 355 promise of results that will in a few years deserve the CHAP. vi. attention of other countries. At the beginning of this chapter I mentioned Stuttgart's consent to a trolley system. In Dresden a trolley line has recently been completed, and on various suburban routes in Ger- many that type of electric railway is in operation. All thorough students of the problems of life in modern cities are now agreed that the housing of the , . ,, , . ,-r. , The housing people is the question that requires, from this time problem, forth, the deepest consideration and the boldest and most serious treatment. It is a subject that has many phases. It was the unapproached excellence of their statistical work that enabled the Germans to grasp the social importance and pressing nature of this problem. Circumstances that I have recounted were and are causing their cities to grow very rapidly. The temptation was strong upon property-owners to make their tenement-hives hold the largest possible The making swarms. Rear buildings were hastily run up to fill of s ^ ms. rn court-room spaces that ought to have been spared for necessary air and light. The German cities were be- ginning to repeat in aggravated form the mistakes of the great British industrial towns half a century or more ago, which left the housing question unregu- lated by the authorities, with the consequence of frightful overcrowding and horrible slums in which some form or other of epidemic was prevailing al- most constantly, in which infant mortality was shock- ingly great, and in which vice and crime were nurtured as in an irresistibly favorable soil and environment. The German cities count and classify everything with a minuteness that American cities would think superb absurd. In fact, however, this statistical work is of all things the best service that German municipalities render to their citizens. It was not until after 1880 356 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUEOPE CHAP. VI. Minute analysis of mortality returns. The one- room fami- lies and their enormous death-rate. Low death- rates of the well-housed classes. that Berlin began to give the most exhaustive statis- tical attention to the relation of the housing of the people to their condition of health. The mortality statistics were at length made to show not merely the death-rate for the whole city, but also the rate for each portion or ward of the city, and the figures were so classified and compiled as to show the number and proportion of deaths according to the number of rooms occupied by families and according to the lo- cation of those rooms with reference to street-front and to street-level, that is to say, whether the house- hold occupied front or back rooms, and whether those rooms were on any given floor from basement to gar- ret. The density of population in every section was compared with the height of buildings and the amount of unbuilt space left. In 1885 it was found that 73,000 persons in Berlin were living in the condition of families occupying a single room in tenement-houses ; 382,000 were living in houses (I mean by " house " th^e distinct apartments of a household) of two rooms 5 432,000 occupied houses of three rooms; and 398,000 were quartered in the luxury of houses having at least four rooms. It was found that, although the one-room dwellers were only one sixth as numerous as the three-room dwellers, their rate of mortality was about twenty- three times as high, and the actual number of deaths among them was four times as great. Compared with the dwellers in houses of more than four rooms, the mortality of the one-room dwellers was at a thirty- times greater rate. In a total population at that time of 1,315,000, the 73,000 people who lived in one-room tenement quarters suffered nearly half the entire number of deaths. Their death-rate per thousand for the year was 163.5, or about one sixth their entire number, while the two-room dwellers sustained a THE GERMAN CITY, ITS FUNCTIONS 357 death-rate of only 22.5, the three-room dwellers es- CHAP. vi. eaped with the marvelously low rate of 7.5, and the well-to-do people, who had four or more rooms for their household, suffered by death only at the rate of 5.4 per thousand of population. I am of impression that the relation of mortality in cities to the character of the housing of the people was never before shown with such frightful distinct- ness as in these Berlin statistics, which were com- A startling piled and published in 1888. We are wont to regard tion. an annual city death-rate of about 20 per thousand of the total population as normal, and satisfactorily small. We have not, however, become accustomed to the minute analysis of such a rate, which might show that the respectable and normal average was made up of rates for different classes varying from 3 or 4 per thousand to 200 per thousand. Half the mortality of the Berlin one-room dwellers occurred in households where five or more persons occupied the one enclosed space. It would require many pages to give anything like an adequate idea of the wide range of the Berlin in- quiry of 1885. To have discovered that in one great ward of the city the death-rate among children of all variousrates T .3 i-i.- 3 * * ofinfent classes and conditions under one year or age was five mortality. times as great as the death-rate for infants in an- other great ward, was to reveal a fact of thrilling, even of alarming, significance. It was important to have learned that in one locality the deaths of young infants constitute half the total deaths, while in an- other locality only one fourth of the death-rate is due to infant mortality. It was worth while to have as- certained the precise effects of residence in basements and in garrets. The inquiry bore prompt fruit. The municipality in 1888 adopted a new code of building regulations 358 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. vi. that was aimed directly at the conditions of inequality revealed in the extraordinary statistical reports, the regulating character of which I have indicated. Already the building, city was regulating strictly such matters as the strength and fire-proof qualities of buildings, their height with reference to the street width, the harmony of the street frontage, and so on. But now there were established drastic rules requiring that at least one third of every building lot should be left unbuilt as court space for air and light ; forbidding the con- Provisions struction of apartments for human occupancy con- and light, taining less than a prescribed minimum of cubic space, or lacking proper provision for daylight, venti- lation, and heating. The tenement-houses already in occupancy were brought under stricter inspection, and the authority of the municipality was in various ways employed to lessen the evils of overcrowding, and to improve the average character of the housing of the poorest classes. The results are already becoming appreciable. I am confident that the renewed investigations of 1895 will have made possible a very encouraging compari- son with the conditions that existed in 1885. Not the least interesting of the actions that have been taken houses pre- by the Berlin authorities, in conjunction with the a s i"districts governmental agencies of the adjacent territory, has and vicinity, been the laying off of the whole present and prospec- tive area of the Greater Berlin in districts for each of which has been prescribed exactly the character of the houses that property-owners may erect. Thus in one neighborhood there shall be detached villas ; and no one may spoil the character of the district by erecting high apartment-houses. Such regulations, of course, seem irksome to many persons. Yet all Limitations cities must come to the inevitable conclusion that the ownership, rights of masses in crowded communities are superior THE GERMAN CITY, ITS FUNCTIONS 359 to the whims of individuals. The pretense that pri- CHAP. vi. vate ownership of land carries with it any absolute right to disregard general interests, is a baneful heresy that is not to be tolerated when it asserts its impudent claims. Results of the more special inquiries set on foot in connection with the last census of Germany have re- cently become available, and some of them seem to me intensely interesting. For example, it is highly signifi- cant of the efficiency of recent municipal measures to find that the process of depopulating the congested dis- from W tricts in the heart of Berlin has fairly begun. Thus, districts. while the city's total population within unchanged mu- nicipal boundaries had, in the five years from 1885 to 1890, increased from about 1,300,000 to nearly 1,600,- 000, there had been a marked falling off in the five most central districts. In one, there was a loss of 178 fam- ilies for every thousand, nearly one fifth. In two others the decline amounted to 110 families for every thousand, or more than one tenth. Meanwhile the outer districts had grown enormously, two of them doubling their population in the five years. It may be said, therefore, that the general growth of Berlin's Rapidity ,'.,,',, .f -.-, of suburban population has lately been concomitant with a move- movement. ment from the center toward the suburbs that is pro- ceeding at an even higher velocity than the increase in total numbers. The new construction of houses conforms with the strict sanitary regulations to which I have referred, and with the broad and bold projects of the municipality for the control of population-den- sity in all the new neighborhoods. Berlin's population as yet is almost wholly housed in tenement or apartment buildings. The number tenements. of households, or distinct housekeeping establish- ments, was in 1890 about 367,000; and these were included in some 21,600 buildings. The average was 360 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. vi. about seventeen families under each roof, comprising about seventy-five persons. Including the emperor and his nobles, and all the rich families of Berlin, there were only about 2200 households out of 307,000 that had rooms on more than one floor; and of the 2200 nearly 1400 were connected with business rooms. That is to say, the 1400 families had a living-room or two "back of the shop," and some more space up-stairs. Fewer than six hundred families had number of private houses totally separate from business uses, separate , . . ,. ... , - T _ houses. i or their own individual occupancy. JNot one iam- ily in six hundred in Berlin lives in what Ameri- cans call a " house," as distinguished from a " flat " or an apartment in a tenement building. The average size of Berlin's tenement buildings has been increasing materially. The buildings that shelter less than about forty people were not in 1890 so numerous by one tenth as in 1880. Those occupied by from 50 to 100 people had increased about 40 per cent, in number, while those that house from 100 to 300 people had increased from 50 per cent, to 300 per cent., the in- . crease being more rapid according to size. About half the inhabitants of the city now live in buildings containing not fewer than one hundred people. Such a system has its advantages and its disadvantages. It makes the distribution of water and gas easier, and renders perfect sewer connections more feasible. Ev- erything depends upon the question whether or not the building is a proper one of its kind. In 1885 about 120,000 Berliners lived in cellar or basement rooms. The actual number of such subterranean dwellers was about the same in 1890, but the relative number had decreased somewhat. It is the policy of the au- thorities to discourage or forbid as rapidly as pos- sible the occupancy of unwholesome basements. Berlin is not alone in the employment of measures type of apartment houses, Basement dwellers. THE GERMAN CITY, ITS FUNCTIONS 361 to promote improved housing. All the other lead- ing German cities have made similar statistical inves- tigations, and most of them are endeavoring to re- form the evils that they now fully comprehend. Breslau's population is the most seriously congested in all Germany, the number of one-room families being almost incredible. Including some forty thou- sand people who enjoy the privilege of a zubehor (a small uuwarmed, closet-like appurtenance of a room), there were in 1885 not less than 150,000 people, out of a total Breslau population of 287,000, who lived in houses of only one warmable room. It should be re- marked that beside the 73,000 Berliners who lived on the absolutely one-room family basis, there were 498,- 000 who had only one main living-room per household, but were lifted somewhat above the status of the 73,000 by possessing the boon of one or two of those precious closets that the Germans call a zubehor. Dresden appears to the visitor so spacious and lovely that it is hard to believe that its working classes are huddled miserably into one-room tenement apart- ments. Yet it was true in 1885 that 110,000 people, out of a total Dresden population of 228,000, were living in the condition of families occupying one main room. Fortunately most of these Dresden people were able to command the advantage of a zubehor closet as a possible retreat from the otherwise absolute necessity of being born, eating, sleeping, suffering, and dying within the four walls of one stuffy room. Among the smaller cities, the housing conditions of Magdeburg and Gorlitz have been notably bad. Con- siderably more than half of Magdeburg's population has belonged to the status of the one-room dwellers. Hamburg has housed a full quarter of its population on this dense plan, and its compact neighbor Altona has had to confess a much worse condition of affairs. CHAP. VI. Housing in other cities. Breslau's bad condition. As to the so-called 'two-room" families of Berlin. The one<- room popUK lation of Dresden.. Magdeburg and Gorlitz. Hamburg and Altona. 362 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE Leipsic and Munich. visible. CHAP. vi. Leipsie and Munich, the third and fourth cities of Germany, afford strikingly better accommodations for their working-people. Happily, in all these cities the worst is already past. The conditions revealed in 1885 have led to municipal General im- policies that are making appreciably for a better aver- provement * . > n -\ age quantity and quality of house-room. The half- decade shows gains. The suburban policy prevails everywhere. The results of the detailed inquiry of 1895 will have made apparent the beginnings of a housing reform that may be characterized as a rapid evolution, rather than a revolution such as Glasgow and certain other cities have at one time or another instituted. To have understood somewhat the housing condi- tions of which I have been writing is the more read- ily to grasp the principles and appreciate the methods of the general health arrangements and sanitary over- sight that the German cities have established. Wa- ter, drainage, and cleansing systems having already been described, it is plain that the health service of next importance is the provision for controlling in- fectious and contagious diseases. Berlin's sanitary system has been growing more and more perfect for many years. Isolation in crowded tenement-houses being practically impossible, the city has constructed on the most elaborate scale great hospitals for the treatment of all forms of epidemic malady. Disin- fection stations also, fitted up with huge apparatus Disinfection " for the treatment of clothing, bedding, and various movables from homes where cases of infection have been found, are in constant use. Berlin has no further fear of inability to cope with any hitherto dreaded f orm of contagious or infectious disease ; for its health appliances are in readiness for the most dire emer- Isolation of infectious disease. stations, immunity THE GEEMAN CITY, ITS FUNCTIONS 363 gency that experience has taught its medical and bac- CHAP. vi. teriological experts to anticipate as possible. It has for many years enjoyed the services and advice of Professor Virchow as a member of the municipal gov- ernment ; and its health department is manned or im- mediately counseled by a brilliant array of scientific talent. Moreover, the rank and file of the various sanitary services is full of skilled, highly-trained offi- cials. Recent tests have shown that Berlin can defy even the cholera ; and as for typhus, small-pox, and other dreaded scourges, they seem near the point of total extermination. Even consumption has been marked for governmental conquest by Germany's mili- similar . . conditions tant men 01 science. Hamburg, Munich, Dresden, in other Leipsic, and various other German cities have estab- towns. lished similarly complete services for the protection of their people against the epidemic spread of infection. I should rank as next in importance the vast estab- lishments that German cities have been bold enough to provide for the health control of food-supplies. I have already alluded to the magnificent central mu- Health con- nicipal abattoirs and cattle-markets of Munich, opened about the year 1887, with the compulsory clos- ing of hundreds of small private slaughter-houses. Berlin had entered upon this policy several years earlier, and had opened in 1883, on opposite sides of the city, two great establishments, wholly superseding a business that, a few years before, had been dis- tributed through nearly a thousand private slaughter houses and yards. The cost of these Berlin institu- tions, including the great central cattle-markets which come under the same administrative department, ag- gregated a sum, I am informed, approaching 20,000,- 000 marks. The policy adopted was to fix a scale of fees for the use of the slaughter-houses that would pay cost of management, 5 per cent, interest on the p 364 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. VI. No profits permitted. Health inspection. Municipal abattoirs now com- mon in Germany. Housed markets. money borrowed, and 1 per cent, for sinking fund to extinguish the principal of the debt. Thus, while the establishments are fully self-sustaining, they are not permitted to earn any monopoly profits. The number of beeves, sheep, hogs, etc., slaughtered an- nually under Berlin municipal auspices, approaches two million. The service is rendered more cheaply than under the old system, and the consumers of meat have the satisfaction of knowing that every health condition is fully regarded. The public inspectors pass upon the live animals, and further examine the dressed meat. The inspection service is very highly organized, and it is of course an immense advantage, for thorough health measures, to have all the animal food-supply of the city pass, compulsorily, through municipal establishments. Not to enumerate other cities, it is sufficient to add that a like system of exclusive municipal abattoirs and cattle-markets is now the rule rather than the exception in the lead- ing towns of Germany, and that it is by no means confined to the largest places. The Berlin cattle- market, unlike the slaughter-houses, is allowed to earn profits ; and it easily pays a net sum of half a million marks a year into the city treasury. So much for the meat-supply. But it is also the German policy to bring under official oversight so far as possible all other articles of ordinary food- con- sumption. To this end the ancient custom of open public market-places is just now becoming metamor- phosed into a marvelous modern system of vast mu- nicipal market-halls, erected in the populous quarters of the greater cities, and at the convenient central point in smaller places. Berlin has of late been add- ing rapidly to the number of its housed markets, and its debt on account of the recent cost of laud and buildings for this one purpose has reached about THE GERMAN CITY, ITS FUNCTIONS 365 25,000,000 marks. The value of the total invest- CHAP. vi. ment is considerably greater than the outstanding r J 3 Berlin's mar- bonded indebtedness. It is the policy of the market- ket policy. hall administration to rent staDs and stands on a purely commercial basis, and to make the business profitable. The markets are on an admirable financial footing, and already help to lighten rather than to increase the burdens of the general city treasury. The existing Berlin system comprises fourteen of these great provision-markets. Their advantages in aiding the work of food inspection, and in the protec- tion of the poor against unwholesome food of all sorts, as well as against extortionate prices, are too obvious to need any exposition. How recently Ber- lin's policy in this direction has been initiated will be dertakmg. apparent when I explain that only one of the halls (the so-called " Central ") was in use before 1886, while the next seven were opened in that and the two fol- lowing years. The remaining six have been opened, or their construction has begun, since 1890. As yet the municipal cattle-markets and slaughter- houses are more general in German cities than the great market-halls; but the plan of enclosed, sys- tematic produce-markets is now attracting the atten- tion of numerous municipalities. What the French call the approvisionnement of a city population, and what the Germans call the Versorgung der BevolJcerung mit Lebensmitteln, the supply of the population with food, is everywhere on the European continent a subject of constantly increasing municipal concern oversight T . , . of food and intervention. And quite generally the plan of supplies publicly-owned cattle-markets, abattoirs, and whole- good a mum- sale and retail vegetable and provision markets has come into favor, together with thoroughgoing sys- tems of food inspection, which include, besides the expert examining corps that serve in the market- 366 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. vi. places and go from shop to shop, the most perfectly equipped chemical, physical, and bacteriological lab- oratories. There is perhaps no function that the German cities would more unanimously consider as belonging within the sphere of good municipal house- keeping than the anxious and aggressive oversight of the food-supply. This is a service that the private family, especially the poor family, cannot possibly secure on its own account. It is therefore proper that the authorities should intervene. Organization of charity. Uniform in Germany. The Berlin system. Citizen mem- bers of local boards. For the care of the poor and the relief of all forms of distress, whether temporary or permanent, the German cities are superbly organized. The policy under which relief is administered has the advantage of being a national and uniform one. Thus, while the practical working of the policy belongs to the municipal administration, there is perfect harmony of method not only throughout Prussia but also throughout the whole German empire with the ex- ception of Bavaria and Alsace-Lorraine. Let us glance at the organization of Berlin, for example, as a typical city. There is a strong central department of the city government with a magistrate at its head and with competent specialists and general advisers attached to it. But the practical work of relief is administered by about two hundred and fifty local committees, the city being divided for purposes of poor relief into that number of districts. Each dis- trict committee has attached to it ex-officio a member of the municipal council, and a physician who has been appointed as the regular city physician for that neighborhood. In addition to these officers the local committee contains from five to twelve citizens who reside in the district and who have been appointed on the ground of character and trustworthiness. THE GERMAN CITY, ITS FUNCTIONS 367 To be designated a member of one of these local committees for the relief of the poor is regarded as a mark of respect and is esteemed a substantial honor. It shows that a man has good standing with his neighbors, and also that he possesses the confidence and regard of the ruling authorities of Berlin. No man would dream of refusing to serve on such a committee. It is held to be one of the most sacred duties of citizenship. Moreover, the acceptance of the trust is obligatory, refusal carrying with it the penalty of increased taxes and, under certain circum- stances, a suspension of civil and political privileges. No remuneration is attached to these appointments, and the duties connected with them are far from nominal and may not be shirked. Each district is subdivided so that every citizen-member of the local committee is made responsible for a certain number of families and houses. He is expected to know the condition of his little parish. He is fully authorized to administer prompt relief in pressing cases, and is under obligation to examine thoroughly into all cases which require continued assistance. The entire local committee assembles at regular times for full report and discussion upon the condition of the dis- trict ; and reports are carried to the central municipal office from all the neighborhoods. Every new mem- ber of the local committee is carefully instructed as to the scope of his duties and the range of his dis- cretion, and inasmuch as appointments are made with great care the average of efficiency among these visi- tors is very high indeed. There are between two and three thousand citizens who thus serve the Berlin municipality in conjunction with the regularly sala- ried officials. Many of them have acted in this capa- city, as friend, neighbor, and helper of the poor, for a long period of years. Every householder fully un- CHAP. VI. Service an honor and a duty. Minute responsibil- ities. Efficiency of system. 368 MUNICIPAL GOVEBNMENT IN EUEOPE CHAP. vi. derstands the system, and every family in distress knows exactly to whom to apply for relief. The whole system rests upon the principle that the com- The family munity is a great family, which is bound to intervene principle. ^ tue p rom pt h e ip o f those who are rendered unable through misfortune to help themselves ; and there is no loss of self-respect involved in accepting aid at the hands of a permanent local committee made up of good-samaritan neighbors. Each committee has at hand every needed appliance for the prompt sum- moning of assistance, medical and otherwise. The organization is so complete as to make cases of fraud practically impossible, and duplication of relief is a thing of the past in Germany. This system combines in a single permanent and harmonious organization all the good features that one finds in our Associated Charity societies, citizens' relief committees, and public departments for the care AS in Berlin, of the poor. The description I have given of the Ber- cities. lin organization would apply equally well to Hamburg, Frankf ort-on-the-Main, Breslau, Dresden, Leipsic, and, in fact, to nearly all the cities, great and small, of all th portions of Germany. An analogous system exists in country, the country districts, and very interesting provisions for the regulation of vagrancy give the authorities a Vagrants perfect control over the floating population. Berlin and lodging- f- a i i ;j i, j houses. has a good service of municipal lodging-houses and workhouses which enables it to make humane and salutary disposition of the drifting and homeless ele- ment from which no great city is ever wholly free. IAbor Most of the large cities have also lately adopted the colonies, plan of labor colonies, established on municipal farms, for the benefit of certain classes of unfortunate citi- zens. The eminent success of the German cities in Thousands bringing thousands upon thousands of the best citi- zens into permanent and active service in connection THE GERMAN CITY, ITS FUNCTIONS 369 with the administration of poor-relief, is not to be for- CHAP. vi. gotten when one is inclined to criticize German admin- istration as perfunctory and mechanical on account of the high development of routine officialism and bureaucracy. Germany has not been satisfied, however, with the establishment of a more satisfactory method of poor relief than any other country has put into practice. It has seemed to German administrators and philan- against sick- thropists that the whole modern plan of public alms oid 8 age. ought to be superseded by a system of publicly man- aged insurance, to provide against sickness, accidents, permanent invalidism, and the feebleness of old age, a system aiming at nothing less than the ultimate abolition of poverty. Toward this ideal the Germans have been very bravely and creditably making their way for some years. The business of insurance against sickness has now for a decade or more been carried on by numerous German municipalities, in order to supplement the various relief funds of the Mutual trades-unions, and those of the volunteer benefit asso- societies. ciations existing in the different wards and localities of all the larger German towns. It has been the policy both of the general government and also of the muni- cipal authorities to encourage and protect in every way the formation of these neighborhood and trade societies for insurance against illness or accident. They are all carefully registered and supervised ; and thus the public authorities know precisely to what ex- tent these voluntary agencies meet the needs of a given community. The system, as a whole, whether municipal or oth- wise, has had very great development throughout Germany; and at length the German empire has added the crowning touch by enacting a law for the insurance of the working classes against the helpless- 24 370 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. vi. ness of old age. I shall enter upon no discussion of this controverted topic of old-age pensions. It is Thequestion quite too soon as yet to "judge of the results of such of old age * . J pensions, insurance in the German cities. I may merely remark that the practical administration of this system has for the most part been put into the hands of munici- pal and local governments ; and that the cities of Ger- many, great and small, are now, in addition to their many other functions, carrying on or closely super- vising, for the benefit of the masses of working-people, the business of insurance against sickness, accident, invalidism, and old age. All this must seem to most Americans a novel if not a dangerous line of innova- tion. And yet it grows logically and naturally out of the German doctrine of the responsibility of the socialism community f or the popular well-being. The objection relief. i s raised in many quarters that this is socialism. To which I can only reply that every civilized country, for many generations, has fully acknowledged the duty and necessity of some form of public poor-re- lief ; and in some countries, as in England, the relief of the poor has been the heaviest item of public ex- penditure. The funds collected by taxation and dis- pensed for the sustenance of mendicants and paupers have come out of the pockets of the industrious and fortunate classes. Recent German thinking on these subjects has been along the line of enforced thrift to the end that the working classes, through the accu- mulation out of their own wages of funds for insur- ance against various contingencies, may in time become fully self-sustaining, and may thus relieve other classes from the necessity of paying heavy taxes for the relief of misfortune and pauperism. I should wish to give very careful study to the subject of com- pulsory old-age insurance or compulsory sickness or accident insurance before advocating any such sys- THE GERMAN CITY, ITS FUNCTIONS 371 CHAP. VI. Municipal savings- banks. tern ; but it requires no expert knowledge to perceive that old-fashioned poor-relief methods, as they exist in England and the United States, are more socialistic than the modern insurance methods long advocated and now practised in Germany. Communities which would go so far as to inaugu- rate systems for the compulsory mutual relief through insurance funds of their masses of working-people, would naturally have turned their attention at some earlier time to the encouragement of saving and to protection from the extortion of usurers. As a mat- ter of fact, municipal savings-banks are a venerable institution in Germany, and are to be found almost without exception in all the large towns of the em- pire. In most of the important German towns the number of depositors in the publicly managed sav- ings-banks considerably exceeds the whole number of families in the town. This is now true as regards -r, , . T ... ,-. , .. . Number of Berlin. In some cities the depositors are twice as depositors. numerous as the households. The rules and methods of municipal savings-banks differ considerably in matters of detail. Most of them pay a yearly interest of about three per cent. The convenience of deposi- tors is served in the larger places by the maintenance of a great number of branch offices scattered through the different wards and neighborhoods. Thus the Berlin savings-bank system has seventy-five or more receiving offices, and the Hamburg system has about forty. Berlin has more than 400,000 depositors, with total deposits approaching 150,000,000 marks. The Hamburg deposits had passed the 100,000,000 point several years ago, and were rapidly growing in volume. Dresden makes the remarkable showing of nearly 200,000 outstanding depositors' books, with total de- posits well exceeding 50,000,000 marks. Leipsic, Mag- Statistics from various cities. 372 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE Financial policy. CHAP. vi. deburg, Frankf ort-on-the-Main, Hanover, Kouigsberg, and Diisseldorf carry, in proportion to their popula- tion, marvelously large sums iii the municipal savings- banks, distributed among very great numbers of de- positors. Altona and Bremen show statistics almost instances. 6 incredible j and it would seem that in Aachen (Aix- la-Chapelle) almost every man, woman, and child in the city holds a bank-book. At the beginning of the year 1890 105,000 savings-bank books were outstanding in Aachen, with credits against the municipal sparkasse (savings-fund) of more than 75,000,000 marks. The banks are administered by the public authorities at a minimum of expense. Their funds are invested, as a rule, in imperial, national, or municipal interest- bearing securities. It is the universal policy to pay as high a rate as possible to the depositors, and to make the savings-bank department barely self-sustain- ing. In order that the advantages of savings-banks may be practically restricted to the classes for whose benefit they were founded, a limit is in most cities, though not in all, fixed upon the amount that will be received to the credit of any one depositor. Municipal pawnshops (leihhauser) are quite as gen- eral in the German cities as the municipal savings- banks, and some of them are very old. Thus the public loan-office of Augsburg dates from the year pawn-shops. 1601, Nuremberg's was founded in 1618, and Ham- burg's in 1650. Those of Dresden, Munich, Breslau, Frankfort-on-the-Main, and several smaller cities are now more than a hundred years old. Berlin's was established more than sixty years ago. Leipsic and Cologne began the business early in this century, as did Strassburg and a dozen other cities. On the other hand, a considerable number of the rapidly growing industrial centers of Germany have established mu- nicipal pawnshops as a part of the new municipal Public THE GERMAN CITY, ITS FUNCTIONS 373 activities of the past ten or fifteen years. Experience has fully satisfied the German cities as to the feasibil- ity, and the practical benefits to the poor, of an as- sumption by the municipality itself of the function of loan agent. The rules and methods in vogue have been worked out by long experience, and are worthy of the attention of other countries. The more common rate charged to borrowers is 2 percent, a month on small loans, and 1 per cent, a month on sums above about thirty marks (seven or eight dollars) ; but in some German cities the rates are considerably lower. Be- tween the lines of the statistical columns in official reports which show the number and amounts of loans made on pledges of personal and household effects from year to year, one can with very little imagina- tion read whole chapters descriptive of good service rendered to the poor in times of emergency, and of public protection against the class of sharks who in our American cities prey almost unrestrictedly upon the distress of the tenement-house population. If I were attempting an exhaustive topical treat- ment of the working functions of German city gov- ernments, I should still have to enumerate several interesting lines of activity. I have said nothing of the organization of fire departments; nor have I spoken of house insurance against fire, although this is one of Berlin's departments of municipal house- keeping. Upon the important question of parks and open spaces, I may only say that the strong movement everywhere now observable in Germany toward the provision of air, light, and space, toward the exten- sion of municipal areas, and toward the relief of con- gestion in central districts, fully recognizes as a part of its practical program the necessity for the estab- lishment of numerous small parks, playgrounds, and breathing-spaces. A great number of the German CHAP. VI. Rules and methods. Social Tjenefits. Fire depart- ments and fire-insur- ance. Parks and open spaces. 24* 374 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. VI Number of small parks and public gardens in different towns. Recreation and physical culture. Public duty toward the child. cities and towns were in their medieval days sur- rounded by walls, moats and glacis belts ; and these have in modern times been transformed into broad tree-lined boulevards and public gardens. And the recent expansion of these towns has left the ring of boulevards and park-spaces well toward the heart of the municipality, to the inestimable benefit of the population. Most of the municipal parks, squares, gardens, and playgrounds of German cities are small, but they are quite numerous and well-distributed. Berlin has about eighty, Hamburg has more than sixty, Munich forty-four, Dresden thirty-five, Cologne thirty-two, Nuremberg thirty-one, Breslau twenty- eight, Frankfort twenty-five, Chemnitz twenty-four, Stuttgart nineteen, Leipsic eighteen, and so on. I should be glad to devote some space to the varied means employed by German cities for the encourage- ment of harmless recreation and for the promotion of physical culture. But it is enough to say that the German municipality, with its conception of respon- sibility for the sum total of the well-being of its people, does not disregard the fact that recreation is a necessity, and that in crowded cities the subject is one not to be left wholly to personal choice or private management. In conclusion I have but to mention briefly the manner in which the German municipalities are re- sponding to the most serious of all the responsibilities that they recognize. The conception now entertained in Germany of the community's duty toward the child, is a broader one than that which prevails in our American cities. The struggle for existence is more difficult in Germany than in America, though perhaps not harsher and probably less fiercely compe- titive. But at any rate the connection between edu- THE GERMAN CITY, ITS FUNCTIONS 375 cation and ability to earn a livelihood is far more intimate in Germany than here. Every thoughtful man in the empire has recognized the fact that the industrial and commercial as well as the military and political future of Germany depend upon the uni- versality of the best kind of education. The German cities have been trying to make their school systems fit the necessities of their population. They have made elementary education universal and compul- sory. They have introduced much manual training and physical culture into their school courses, and are many years in advance of our American cities in adapting the quality of instruction to the practical ends that common-school education ought to serve. In addition, they have amply provided for the higher education, showing a preference, however, for schools which will furnish Germany with an abundant sup- ply of men of special and technical training. Manu- facturing cities like Chemnitz promote the develop- ment of their principal industries by providing trade schools which are adapted in their courses to the in- dustrial character of the city or vicinity. The fresh and practical character of popular education in Ger- man cities owes very much to the fact that in ad- dition to the permanent school officials who supervise the entire educational system of any given municipal- ity there are numerous local school boards upon which a great number of competent citizens are asked to serve. This service is required upon principles similar to those which call citizens of character to the work of administering poor-relief. Thus in Berlin there are some thousands of reputable citizens who are responsibly and intimately connected with the city's educational system. Here again we find a safe- guard against the mechanical and perfunctory ten- dencies of routine officialism. I am sure that, so far CHAP. VI. Education and liveli- hood. Special and technical . training. Citizens on school- boards. 376 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. VI. Municipal tax-paying. What the tax-payer receives. What the municipal indebted- ness means. as elementary education is concerned, our American cities have more to learn from the methods and results attained by the German cities than we have to teach them. Our progress must be along their paths. The German citizen is a heavy tax-payer. Even if he were relieved from the great burden of imperial and State taxation which military exigencies impose upon him, his dues to the municipal government alone would be formidable enough. Land and houses are heavily taxed ; the income tax is resorted to for municipal as well as for State revenue ; and the whole population is made to contribute in various ways, through indirect imposts upon articles of common necessity if not through direct taxes, toward the cost of these highly-developed municipal organisms. Everywhere and always taxation in any form seems a grievance ; and it is not strange that the German tax-payer should groan. But the other side of the picture is not unpleasant. The German tax-payer finds every pfennig of his money well accounted for. He sees everywhere about him the beneficent results of public expenditure carefully and wisely made. He perceives that through his membership in a municipal household which makes itself responsible for the well- being of the whole community, he is receiving bene- fits which, upon the average, are inestimably more valuable than any that he could have purchased for himself with the money he has had to contribute to meet the municipality's housekeeping bills. He is in no wise appalled by the nominal fact of large muni- cipal indebtedness, because he perceives that almost the entire total amount of the municipality's obliga- tions is represented by investment in productive en- terprises. And these earning departments promise not only to pay their own way and repay all that they cost, but also give assurance of increasing prof- THE GEKMAN CITY, ITS FUNCTIONS 377 its which may be confidently expected to liquidate CHAP. vi. much of the public indebtedness incurred on account of such non-productive services as that of free ele- mentary education. The German cities possess tan- gible municipal property worth at market prices far more than their outstanding bonded indebtedness. Their financial position is absolutely unassailable. The For their indebtedness they have much to exhibit, Their interest-bearing obligations represent foresight, enterprise, business shrewdness, brilliant investment, permanent progress in sanitary appliances, and a lift- ing of the standards of civilized life. Before criti- cizing the German municipal methods too severely, we might well analyze our American city debts in order to ascertain what investments they represent, and what testimony they have to bear concerning the thrift, foresight, and wise intelligence that have con- trolled our American municipal financiering in the past twenty-five years. CHAPTER VII THE FREE CITY OF HAMBURG AND ITS SANITARY REFORMS THE German cities in their municipal activities have not until late years been largely impelled by the sanitary motive. They have done wonderful things, and have shown a splendid capacity and busi- ness thrift. But while the public health has been the The sanitary dominant motive in the development of the municipal mwicipai furious of Glasgow and some other of the British activities, cities, good financial results have seemed to be the chief criterion of success in German municipal gov- ernment. The broad generalization is too sweeping, yet it is upon the whole a defensible one. "While tak- ing the lead of all nations in the scientific study of the problems of the public health, the Germans have not been the most eager people in the world to spend millions of money in the application of hygienic prin- ciples. Fortunately for them, they have the best sci- entific leadership that any country can boast, and at the same time 1 they have by far the best administra- tive mechanism. All that had been needed, therefore, was the motive strong enough to open wide the public its awaken- purse-strings. The last cholera epidemic appears now many. to have supplied it. All over Germany the learned doctors and bacteriologists have since 1892 been dic- tating terms to the awakened municipal authorities. The experience of 1893 made it seem probable that the cholera could never again prevail in uncontrol- 378 HAMBUEG AND ITS SANITAEY EEFOEMS 379 lable epidemic form in western Europe or America. CHAP. vn. The kindred sciences of bacteriological medicine and conquest of public sanitation have, in these last years, grappled ^is^l.' most brilliantly and effectively with the dreaded mon- ster. Berlin, Paris, London, and New York have learned that they can hold the cholera firmly in check. And now the cities that have suffered most in recent years, such as Naples and Hamburg, are prepared to meet the scourge on its appearance, and prevent it from becoming widely epidemic or from interfering seriously with business. The unspeakable fright, therefore, which has heretofore attended the outbreak of cholera in western Europe and America is likely to pass away with the present decade ; so that a sporadic case now and then will have no paralyzing effect upon the environing community. It is clearly fortunate, however, that Europe should have suffered these recent pangs of awful fear. The cholera is a sensational disease. Other maladies, pre- cholera as a ventable to a large extent by public hygienic mea- sures, are far more destructive of lif e than the cholera. But their ravages are more insidious and more com- monplace; and the warning cry of sanitary science acts tardily and feebly upon municipal purse-strings. A high average death-rate, due to bad sanitary con- ditions, is not ordinarily seen to disturb the course of trade, or to lessen greatly the life-chances of the burgh- ers who pay the heavy taxes and control the public funds. But a cholera epidemic ruins business, im- poverishes the comfortable burghers, and threatens to invade their domiciles and rob them of their first-born. Effects of a It acts as the effective tenth plague, and the municipal Pharaoh bestirs himself mightily. Naples had long intended, in a languid way, to reform its sanitary ar- rangements, but not until the cholera epidemic of 1885 supplied the motive force was anything of much 380 MUNICIPAL GOVEENMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. vii. importance undertaken. The improvements set on foot as a result of that epidemic have revolutionized the city, and will have resulted in the saving of many thousands of lives every year ; for the principal effect of efforts to guard against cholera is to abolish, or greatly diminish, mortality from various other causes, itaiy. That epidemic at Naples led, further, to the enact- ment of a new sanitary code for the Italian kingdom, and to many excellent improvements in other Ital- ian cities and towns besides Naples. Far more wide- spread throughout Europe, however, will have been the improved sanitary arrangements resulting from in Germany, the cholera invasion of 1892-93. And it is in Ger- many, doubtless, that the most important effects will appear. Germany's progress in the health administration of cities is well illustrated in the reforms which have re- cently been accomplished at Hamburg. Between the years 1831 and 1873, Hamburg had suffered from four- teen visitations of the cholera. In 1892 it experienced a terrible cholera epidemic, but its new health methods Mw^nitery & ve g 0( l promise of future immunity. I propose, m typicl s i as therefore, in this chapter to describe Hamburg's sani- tary work somewhat in detail, as typical of the new national spirit and policy. For it is to Germany more than to any other country that the world is in- debted for the most important new lessons not only in sanitary science, but also in the practical applica- tions of new hygienic knowledge to the organized work of municipal government. There is very much in Hamburg's conditions and in its sanitary plans and un- dertakings that ought to interest the intelligent people and the officials of our American cities. But it may also be well by way of some prefatory paragraphs to give an outline sketch of Hamburg's general muni- cipal character and governmental structure. Some HAMBURG AND ITS SANITARY REFORMS 381 aspects of the political organization of this great sea- CHAP. vu. port, Germany's second city, are hardly less worthy of attention than its improved health services. Let it be said that Hamburg was most unjustly treated by the major part of the American press dur- ing the summer and autumn of 1892, and that most Americans retain an entirely erroneous impression concerning the city. Until late years it has been ap- preciatively known by comparatively few American visitors. Even the travelers who patronize the fine steamers of the Hamburg- American Company hurry on to Berlin, and learn nothing of this noble old Free Hansa town and magnificent port. In America it has been chiefly known as the place from which so many undesirable emigrants take shipping, and perhaps for that reason it has gained the reputation of being inde- scribably filthy, overcrowded, ugly, and uninterest- ing a place, in short, to be avoided. No impression could be further from the truth. The emigrants go from Hamburg for the same reason that they land at Hamburg's New York : the one, like the other, is without rival as character. the greatest port of its continent. Ships go every- where from Hamburg. Its dock and harbor arrange- ments excite the enthusiastic admiration of every in- telligent visitor. There is no such sight elsewhere in the world. The Liverpool arrangements are far in- ferior. Within a few years there has been expended by the German Empire and the city of Hamburg a sum approaching $40,000,000 in the construction of this vast shipping terminal, the modern conveniences of which make everything along the New York docks seem absurdly effete and obsolete. Hamburg is externally a more attractive and pic- Hamburg as turesque city than Berlin. The dull and somewhat an a "^ tive cheap monotony of the huge new imperial capital is almost painful after a few days of Hamburg's variety 382 MUNICIPAL GOVEENMENT IN EUEOPE CHAP. VII. Its streets and prome- nades. Position as a city-state. and charm. The city's architecture combines the modern with the medieval in the most delightfully unexpected ways. Many whole streets of the high- gabled, timber-framed, quaint-windowed houses of the old sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Hanseatic merchants remain in good condition ; and yet the city as a whole is distinctly modern in its architecture. A great portion of its central area was swept by the historic conflagration of May, 1842, and there fol- lowed a rebuilding with regularized streets and mod- ern structures. Far from being hopelessly congested and void of breathing-spaces, there are a number of tree-lined thoroughfares much broader than are to be found in leading American cities, while in the very heart of the city there are large water spaces and park areas, with extensive girdling promenades, and every facility for healthful outdoor recreation. These pleasure-grounds take the place of the old fortifica- tions that had occupied a wide belt about the inner city. A dignified and splendid city is Hamburg, with its 600,000 inhabitants, its immense commerce with all parts of the world, its unusually intelligent merchant body, its suburbs of handsome villas, its modern growth and enterprise, and its fine traditions and history that bind it to a noble past. Hamburg holds a political position which the city of New York might well envy. It is a city-state, and it has a government exactly adapted to its conditions. There is no meddlesome provincial government or de- partmental prefect to hold the Hamburg administra- tion in tutelage, nor any separate and superior national executive or parliament to order its police affairs, supervise its finances, or legislate touching its consti- tution or any of its chartered powers. Hamburg is a constituent member of the German imperial confed- eration, just as Rhode Island is a member of the sis- terhood of American States. And, like Rhode Island, HAMBURG AND ITS SANITARY REFORMS 383 it is for domestic purposes a sovereign republic. The CHAP. vn. citizen of Providence, Rhode Island, however, finds himself subject to the threefold authority of a muni- cipal government, a county government, and a State government. His municipal affairs are constantly under discussion in the State legislature, which at every session enacts numerous special laws dealing with the administration of Providence. But the Hamburg Ije ^ a}stare government is one and indivisible. The law-making and p^y council are body is at once a State legislature and a city council, identical. The executive organization fits the circumstances of a city-state. It is true that Hamburg is not wholly urban. Considered as a state, it holds a domain of 158 square miles, an area slightly smaller than that of Chicago, while Hamburg considered as a city comprises (by the new legislation of June, 1894) 7665 aMcit y . e hectares, or 30 square miles. But whereas the city had 600,000 inhabitants at the beginning of 1895, all the rest of the territory possessed only 50,000 (in round figures), a large part of whom were in suburbs adja- cent to the town. The domain of the Hamburg state is not all contiguous, a part of it lying at the mouth of the Elbe estuary, about 75 miles distant, with Cuxhaven as its port. But it may be estimated that a hundred or more square miles, or two thirds of the Hamburg territory, lie on the north bank of the Elbe within easy reach of the city, and consti- tute a domain about equal to the joint contiguous areas of Minneapolis and St. Paul. The outlying parts (landbezirk) are grouped in four landherrenschaf- ten, or districts for local administrative purposes, and tive system. minor rural affairs are managed by a further subdi- vision into nearly forty communes or petty townships. But the main interests of the whole area belonging to Hamburg are administered and controlled by the central government, which also administers directly, on its own behalf, all the affairs of the city. 384 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. VII. Concerning the govern- ment in general. Hanseatic traditions. Membership and election of the"Bur- gersehaft." This central government is a somewhat complex structure, yet it is simple enough in its essential fea- tures. In the broad facts of a large elective council and a permanent executive magistracy, the Hamburg government is analogous to those of other German cities. The Hamburg system has marks of its own, however, growing out of the many-centuried and eventful history of Hamburg as a Free City a lead- ing member of that glorious Hanseatic League which dominated the Baltic and North Sea commerce of the middle ages, and which led in the struggle against feudalism of those new forces, gathering in the com- mercial and industrial towns, that were destined to usher in the modern order of things. Thus Hamburg as a city-state of the earlier period, when cities had so distinct a part to play, brings down to our new period of special and distinct significance for great towns much of its tradition of municipal greatness and power, and much transmitted capacity for a well- ordered town life. The Free and Hansa City of Hamburg (Freie und Hanse-Stadt Hamburg], as the republic is officially designated, governs itself primarily through a House of Burgesses (BUrgerschaft) composed of 160 mem- bers. Half of the body, 80 members, is elected by the equal suffrage of all male tax-paying citizens. Since taxes are due from everybody, only paupers or floating elements of population are disfranchised. The other half, however, is not so popularly elected. Forty members are chosen by the ballots of the house-owners of the city of Hamburg, and 40 by a special electorate made up in a somewhat elaborate fashion of judges and some other specified dignitaries of state, and of the members of certain guilds and corporate bodies. The Biirgerschaft as a whole thus represents the general citizenship on the one hand, HAMBURG AND ITS SANITARY REFORMS 385 and the property and commercial interests on the other. Hamburg is peculiarly a city of merchants; and the men concerned with business in the harbor or in the Bourse give the town its administrative character and policy, and wield the weightiest influ- ence in the Biirgerschaft. The burgesses are elected for six-year terms, and half of the body is renewed every three years. Acceptance and service are re- quired by law of those whom their fellow Hamburgers elect to the Biirgerschaft. Executive control of Hamburg's affairs is vested in a body of eighteen senators, elected for life by the Biirgerschaft. Nine of these senators must have been educated either as lawyers or financiers, finance (cameralwissenschaft) being a distinct science and profession in Germany. Seven of the remaining nine must belong to the body of Hamburg merchants (kaufmannschaft). A senator may not decline to accept the responsibility if chosen, but he may retire at the end of six years if he does not wish to serve out his life term. It is evident that the Hamburg Senate, while in many respects analogous to the magistracy of a city like Berlin, is a body of somewhat different character and traditions. It is less technical in its quality and more like the upper house of a general law-making body. It is not a group of highly salaried civil servants, but rather a board selected from the most competent and distinguished of the classes of citizens who give Hamburg its character as a great financial and mercantile center. In many matters the Biirgerschaft and Senate act together. The Senate selects from its own membership, for two-year terms, a burgomaster and a deputy burgomaster, one of whom presides over its deliberations. The Senate usually formulates matters of legislation, and submits its proposals to the burgesses, who are the constitu- 25 CHAP. VIL A govern- ment domi- nated by merchants. The Senate of eighteen. Character of the body. The burgo- master. 386 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUEOPE CHAP. VII. Relations between Senate and burgesses. The working depart- ments. Health. Public works. Police authority. Education. tional law-enacting body. The Senate has a revisory and veto power, which, however, it cannot exercise in matters of revenue and taxation. Deadlocks between the two bodies are determined by a joint arbitration board ; or, as a last resort when constitutional ques- tions are involved, an appeal may be taken to the Supreme Court of the German Empire, which sits at Leipsic. The burgesses maintain a standing commit- tee of twenty members whose duty it is to observe the whole course of administration and report to the full house. The several bureaus of administration are organized and carried on under the Senate's direction, with a senator as the presiding head of each bureau. The Biirgerschaft and Senate cooperate in the appointment of citizen members of each administrative board. For example, the sanitary administration is under the di- rection of a board of health known as the Medicinal- Collegium, over which Senator Dr. Hachmaun presides. Under control of this Collegium are the salaried di- rectors of the various branches of the health work. Another senator presides over the ^Ban-Deputation (Board of Construction or Public Works), which has under its care the whole oversight of building opera- tions, whether above ground or below, and which employs chief engineers, architects, chief inspectors, etc. The Polizei-Behorde (Police Authority) forms an- other bureau of administration, with a wide range of duties and with control of the active police force. Then one finds an educational administration, pre- sided over by a senator and securing the cooperation of competent citizen members of elementary- and high-school boards. There is an Armen-Deputation (Charity Board) similarly organized, through which re- lief work, such as I have described as pertaining to the Berlin municipality, is carried on. A Gefcingniss-De- HAMBURG AND ITS SANITAEY REFORMS 387 putation (Prison Board) has charge of penal adminis- tration, a Quai-Venvaltung and a Hafen-Verwaltung (Quay and Harbor Administrations) have control of various matters pertaining to the docks, harbor, and quays, a Friedkofs-Deputation (Cemetery Board) man- ages the municipal burying-grounds, and various other administrative boards, organized and working under the Senate's auspices and with a senator at their head, have charge of other governmental undertakings. Most important of all, perhaps, is the Finanz-Deputa- tion, which administers the finances of the city-state. Here, then, one finds municipal home-rule in the fullest sense of the term, with no limitations whatever. Though attached by federal bonds to a monarchical empire, the chief members of which are four king- doms, Hamburg is as unqualifiedly republican in its government as any Swiss canton or American State. It may change its constitution whenever it likes (a thorough revision was made in 1860, important changes were again accomplished in 1879, and minor ones were brought about in 1894) without consulting any external or superior authority. Such complete independence, of course, grows out of the fact that Hamburg is a state as well as a city ; and however desirable a large measure of municipal autonomy might be for every other urban community, it is man- ifest that the state must preserve its sovereignty. It would be fortunate for a few cities, however, and particularly for the city of New York, if they could be erected into separate states, with a general law- making body of their own which would also perform the functions of a city council. The Hamburg consti- tution, with certain changes to suit the different cir- cumstances, could be applied to the Greater New York with immense benefit to all the city's interests. It should be remarked that Hamburg's position as CHAP. VII. Various other de- partments. Hamburg's republican home-rule. A position that New York might envy. 388 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. VII. Two other "free cities" in Germany. Bremen and its govern- ment. The Free City of Lubeck. a city-state and a sovereign republic is not unique in Germany, but remains the fortunate heritage of two other cities, viz., Bremen and Lubeck. Frankfort-on- the-Main was also a free city until 1866, when it was annexed to Prussia. The free city of Bremen possesses a domain of 99 square miles, although the town itself comprises only 10 square miles ; and of a total pop- ulation approaching 200,000, nearly three fourths are found living inside the small city district. But, as in the case of Hamburg, the one central gov- ernment suffices for city and state. Bremen's Biir- gerschaft is a body of 150 members, of whom 14 are chosen by the class of citizens who have had a university education, that is to say, by the mem- bers of the learned professions, 42 are chosen by the enrolled merchants, 22 are chosen by the mechanics and manufacturing employees, and the remaining 72 by all the other taxpayers of Bremen, most of whom are unskilled workmen. The Senate, which as in Hamburg's case is the body controlling execu- tive affairs, has 16 members, of whom 10 must be lawyers. The principal tasks of administration are assigned to 12 so-called ministries, over each of which a senator presides, and these are organized much after the fashion of the departments or executive boards of Hamburg. The "Free and Hansa City of Lubeck" is the third of these German city-states, and its organization is very similar to Hamburg's, al- though simpler in the fact that the House of Bur- gesses (120 members) is elected wholly by the equal votes of all the citizens, with no class preferences of any kind. The 14 senators are chosen for life, and their body must contain at least 6 lawyers and 5 merchants. Administrative organization is similar to that of Hamburg. Liibeck's whole domain includes 115 square miles, the town comprising about 12 HAMBURG AND ITS SANITARY REFOBMS 389 square miles, with seven eighths of the total popula- tion. The town itself at the beginning of 1895 had nearly 70,000 people, the number having doubled since 1870; and the rural districts contained a sta- tionary population of 10,000 or 12,000. These three German free cities enjoy the advan- tages of a superb management of their financial in- terests by their ablest citizens. The debt of Bremen is nearly 100,000,000 marks a large sum for such a city; but it represents investment in the magnifi- cent harbor improvements and railway terminal fa- cilities, and in the other advantageous public works, to which Bremen owes its general prosperity as the second German seaport, and as a great focus of inter- national trade. The Hamburg debt in 1894 somewhat exceeded 327,000,000 marks. The recent harbor im- provements account for a considerable proportion of the amount, while other needful and advantageous public works readily explain and fully justify all the rest of it. Hamburg's very life has been the great river Elbe. But the Elbe, which has been its commercial main- stay, has brought death as well as life. The river has always supplied the city with water for drinking and domestic uses, and its unwholesomeness had long been fully confessed. But many things prevented, until recently, the firm attempt to solve the para- mount sanitary problem of the city's drinking-water. Early in the seventies an elaborate investigation re- sulted in a report advising the filtration of the entire Elbe supply. But opposition arose, the discussion was protracted, and nothing was done. The inclusion of Hamburg in the new German Empire, and its ac- cession at last to the German customs-union, led to the concentration of the municipal energy upon the development of the port facilities. The abandonment 25* CHAP. VII. Finances of Bremen and Hamburg. The Elbe and the Hamburg water-sup- ply. Develop- ment of the port. 390 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE tration sys- tem. CHAP. vii. of Hamburg's status as an independent port, and its inclusion in the tariff system of Germany, took prac- tical effect in 1888, and the influence upon the city's traffic and growth was both immediate and very im- portant. Meanwhile, the scientific consideration of the water-supply had not been altogether suspended, and the city's enhanced importance furnished a new reason for action. In 1890 it was actually determined to proceed at once with the construction of an extensive plant for the filtration of a supply of Elbe water equal to the The newfli- entire demand upon the water system for all purposes. Expert investigations, with reinvestigations and all sorts of cross-examinations, had resulted in a plan that was adopted with confidence. It was pronounced feasible by the municipal engineers to have the filtra- tion plant ready for use in 1894. The cholera emer- gency led to prodigious efforts, and the new system was put into operation in May, 1893, nearly a year ahead of time. The last seventy-five miles of the Elbe form an estu- ary of the North Sea, and the tidal movement up as far as Hamburg is considerable, amounting to several feet on the seaward side of the city. The Elbe flows north- ward; and the old waterworks were situated on the southern edge of the city, the intention being that the water should be pumped from a point in the stream that lay above the brackish and polluting influences of the flood tide. The intake was in the middle of the river, just opposite the large pumping-station, high water-tower, and adjoining reservoirs which consti- tuted the old waterworks that served the whole city. As a matter of fact, the intake was not far enough up-stream to escape serious contamination from the recession, at flood tide, of the polluted water of the harbor and lower stream. The old sup- ply of Elbe water. HAMBURG AND ITS SANITARY EEFORMS 391 One must remember that the Elbe carries off the CHAP. vn. entire sewage of Hamburg; and that the stupendous aggregation of ships, of wharves and warehouses, and of manufacturing establishments makes the water of the port about as filthy as possible. The sewer system -n^ sewers of Hamburg is by no means a bad one. The houses fHambur g- are all connected with well-built street-mains, which empty into several large collecteurs, or sewage-canals. These principal conduits in turn converge and join in one huge discharging sewer-tunnel, which is carried well out into the channel of the river, and empties at the lower edge of the city. The discharge is dammed in and held back during the hours of inflow- ing tide, so that the main harbor, and the numerous branching navigable fleete or canals, that make Ham- burg something like Venice, may not be fouled and gradually filled up by subsidence from the immense volume of liquid filth. The sewer-gates are opened sewage dis- only when the ebbing of the tide joins with the ordi- ebb ouide. nary flow of the river to give a sweeping current out to sea. This, at least, is a far better arrangement for sewage disposal than certain American cities lying on tidal water possess, which dispense with collecteurs entirely, and discharge their sewage at numerous points all along the river frontage. But it is far from being a perfect system. For al- though the Elbe estuary is a broad stream, the cities of Hamburg and Altona have become so great that the combined volume of their refuse material is enor- contamina- mous ; and the plan of discharging at ebb tide alone "in*, cannot wholly prevent the subsequent backflow of pollution from the sewers. Quite apart from any and all local sources of contamination at Hamburg, the Elbe water is by no means pure, for the river drains a populous valley, and has many large towns and villages on its banks. Hamburg ought long ago to 392 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE The new intake. CHAP. vii. have extended its intake far enough upstream to make perfectly sure that its citizens would not re- ceive again through their water-pipes the fouled ef- fluent of their drains. But at the time of the cholera visitation of 1892 the old intake was still in use, and was undoubtedly within the sphere, at flood tide, of harbor refuse and city sewage. An essential feature of the new water system, therefore, has been the ex- tension of the receiving-tunnel up the river to a point some miles above the now abandoned intake. This work involved very large expenditure, since the new tunnel had to be constructed under the bottom of the river. The nitration system, however, is the interesting feature of the new Hamburg water-supply. It is by far the largest and most successful "plant" for the removal of impurities from drinking-water that any city has yet instituted. It happens that Hamburg is so situated that it is practically compelled to draw its water-supply from the river. There are no mountain sources accessible. Naples, like Vienna and Munich and Glasgow, has been able to secure abundant water from high and uncontaminated mountain regions. But Hamburg lies in the lowlands, at the mouth of a broad valley. We have a number of cities in the United States that seem to be under the necessity for all time of drawing their water-supplies from the much-polluted rivers on the banks of which they are situated. For these cities the question of an effec- tive method of filtration has the very highest conse- quence. From Minneapolis to New Orleans the cities of the Mississippi Valley are concerned. If the Elbe and the Rhine can be completely filtered, there need be little question about American rivers. A general description of the Hamburg system can easily be given. The city was fortunate in owning Treatment of river water. HAMBURG AND ITS SANITARY REFORMS 393 two large islands in the Elbe, which have been con- CHAP. vn. nected by a narrow embankment, and which extend from a point near the old waterworks up-stream for Theftitra- a distance of about two miles. The uppermost of ^^nbedT these islands, the Bill warder Insel, is the larger of the two. Somewhat further up the river is the new intake, with its well screened and guarded opening. The re- ceiving-tunnel is perhaps ten feet in diameter. On this upper island have been constructed four large reservoirs, or sedimentary basins, as it might be bet- ter to call them, each of which has a capacity approxi- mately equal to the supply of the city for one day. A new pumping-plant on the island lifts the water into these basins. The four are used in rotation. It ment basins. has been found by experiment that the best results are attained by allowing the water to stand undis- turbed for about twenty-one hours. Sluices and valves enable the basins to be used separately and successively. Thus, while Basin I. is engaged in feed- ing the filters that supply the city, Basin II. is full and closed for a day's deposit of sediment, Basin III. is being pumped full from the intake, and Basin IV., which is quite empty, is in process of being scraped and cleansed. When Basin I.'s supply has been drawn off, it in turn is closed for removal of sediment, Basin II. is put into connection with the filters, Basin III. is full and closed, and Basin IV., having been cleaned out, is again receiving a supply from the river. And so the rotation is complete. Each of these sedimen- tary basins has a superficial area of perhaps 25 acres. The screens at the intake mouth of course keep out all large extraneous objects. The settling process in the great basins further disposes of fine sand, and of very much of the mud and silt that discolor the water as originally received. But from the hygienic point of view, it is obvious that nothing of very radical im- 394 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUEOPE CHAP. VII. The fllter- basins. Filtration elsewhere. portance has been gained by the mere fact of a day's rest in a settling-basin. It is in the filtering-basins that the revolutionizing results are attained. The lower island, the Kalte Hofe, lying just above the old waterworks on the east bank of the Elbe, at the Rothenburg suburb, presents a sight best seen from the top of the waterworks tower, and one quite worth the climb of 365 steps. One looks down upon an island perhaps three fourths of a mile long and one fourth of a mile wide, the greater part of which is covered with even rows of rectangular basins, each of which has a surface of 7500 square meters, or about two acres. There are 22 of these open filter- basins. To describe their mechanism in detail would involve engineering technicalities. It will be enough to tell in a general way how they are made and how they work. In principle they are not original. Sand filtration has been in use to some extent for many years. Altona, the flourishing manufacturing city of 150,000 inhabitants that lies solidly against Hamburg on the side toward the sea and is virtually part and parcel of the larger cit} T , had for 30 years used sand filtration to make Elbe water potable. Berlin also filters through sand-lined basins a considerable part of its drinking-water. The London water companies have made successful use of the same system, and other cities have had some experience of this mode of water purification. The Hamburg plant on the Kalte Hofe is notable, therefore, not for the intro- duction of a new principle, but rather for the utili- zation of an old principle in a far more complete and successful working-plant than any other city has yet established, and for exact and novel demonstrations concerning the action of the filters upon disease germs such as were wholly unprecedented and are of inestimable value. HAMBURG AND ITS SANITARY REFORMS 395 Construc- tion of filters. The filter-basins on the Kalte Hofe, like the large CHAP. vn. sedimentary basins on the Billwarder Insel, are con- structed with the utmost care, being lined very solidly with clay, concrete, hard brick masonry, and cement plaster. Across the floor of each filter-basin are many large pipes perforated with countless holes. The basin itself being ready, and the punctured pipes being in place, the process of filling begins. First comes a layer of small, well-selected stones, covering the floor to a depth of about eight inches. Then is spread, to a like depth, a layer of gravel that is, of stones smaller than those forming the bottom stratum, but much coarser than the layer of coarse sand, also eight inches deep, that is next placed above it. Upon these three foundation layers is deposited the princi- pal material of the filter, namely, a layer of fine sand, one meter (nearly forty inches) deep. When the filter is in use, the water stands exactly one meter deep on the meter of fine sand. Ingenious automatic regula- tors so control the inflow and outflow as to keep the water at an unvarying depth of one meter. It would be superfluous to attempt a detailed explanation of Adjustment the admirable adjustment of all the parts of the wa- ter system to one another. It is enough to say that the pumping facilities are well adapted to the re- quirements of the sedimentary basins, that the filter- basins are nicely adjusted to receive and dispose of the quantity discharged from the Billwarder Insel, and that the arrangements of the old water-station on the mainland at the Rothenburgs-ort are fully equal to the reception of the purified effluent of the filters, and its distribution throughout the entire city. It must not be supposed that this system, when once established, needs no further care or attention. The filters are all under constant inspection, and one by one they are cut off temporarily from active service of the va- rious parts. 396 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE Cleansing the filters. Sifting out microbes. CHAP. vii. in order to be emptied into the river and cleansed. Adjacent to the group of filter-basins is an establish- ment fitted up with facilities for cleansing the sand and small stones. Ordinarily, it is found quite suffi- cient to remove a few inches of the fine sand for pu- rification, leaving the rest of the filter undisturbed. It is not, indeed, desirable to take away all the deposits that the sand retains from the water as it trickles through. A certain amount of " scum n must be col- lected before the filter is at its best. It must be re- membered that the chief purpose of the filter is the re- moval of microbes, whose existence can be ascertained only by bacteriological tests. These bacilli are so minute as we laymen are assured by the learned scientists that myriads of them would not feel themselves crowded on the point of the finest needle. A bed of ordinary sand and gravel could therefore hardly be expected to filter out the microbes as if they were so many crawfishes. The bacteriologists tell us that it is the scum, collecting on the sand and filling the interstices between the stony particles, that some- how manages to detain the microbes while the water passes on purified and wholesome. Let no one suppose that this is a mere matter of conjecture, or of an occasional test with dubious re- sults. The effect of the Hamburg filtration upon the bacteriological condition of the Elbe water is a subject of constant examination and precise knowledge. The whole system, during and after the summer of 1893, was operated with reference to the fact that the Elbe had been discovered to contain cholera germs, and that Hamburg proposed to give its people a water free from those germs. To this end, a municipal bacteri- ological laboratory was established, and to its director was accorded an almost dictatorial authority. At th,e time of the epidemic in 1892, the distinguished author- A matter of precise knowledge. HAMBUEG AND ITS SANITAEY EEFOKMS 397 ity Professor Gaffky, of the University of Giessen, CHAP. vn. came to Hamburg to assume temporary charge of san- itary arrangements. He brought with him from Gies- sen, as his assistant, and left behind him in control of the new Hygienic Institute, a young American bacte- riologist, Professor Dunbar. Dr. Dunbar very rapidly a ^f STn 1 / and effectively developed the Hamburg municipal gien tute nsti ' laboratory into one of the most important in the world, and gave it a practical relationship to health conditions that the authorities of Hamburg could not fail to recognize. Dr. Koch came later from Berlin, on behalf of the imperial government, to aid and advise in the struggle to subdue the epidemic, and he was surprised and delighted to discover the rare scientific quality and the comprehensive scope of the work Dr. Dunbar had already accomplished. Dr. Koch there- upon acquiesced very heartily in the proposal that Dr. Dunbar should be given the permanent post of direc- tor of the Hamburg Institute, and thus made the authoritative expert in control of the health condi- tions of the principal German port and the first com- mercial city of the Continent. Dr. Duubar is a native of St. Paul, Minn. ; and when he went to Germany, some years ago, at the age of twenty-one, he could speak English only. In order to accept the official post he now holds, he was obliged to become natural- ized as a German citizen. Dr. Dunbar commands the services of a staff of ex- pert assistants, and his Institute conducts many exper- iments of extraordinary interest. A new method for the discovery of cholera germs in water was devised by him and accepted by Dr. Koch and the other bac- . . teriologists as a great improvement. During the sum- mer and autumn of 1893, the Hamburg Institute tested the Elbe water from day to day, the specimens being taken from widely separated points, and found chol- cholera germs in the Elbe. 398 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. vii. era germs all the way from the mouth to places far in the interior of Germany. Dr. Dunbar seems to have succeeded in proving effectually what has hitherto been much doubted and denied that cholera is prop- agated by means of water rather than air. In the filthy water brought up to Hamburg by the flood tide Dr. Dunbar and his group of experts were Remarkable quite regularly finding from 30,000 to 100,000 cholera Oration? 1 " germs to each cubic centimeter (about one sixteenth of a cubic inch) of water. As many germs were found in the season of 1893 as in the previous year, although Hamburg was kept almost free from fresh outbreaks of cholera. The water of the river above the influence of flood tide was found to contain from 400 to 1200 germs. In July, 1893, the imperial health authorities at Berlin issued a warning to the municipal govern- ments of the country not to supply their citizens with a drinking-water containing more than 100 cholera germs to the cubic centimeter. It was considered that water infected to no greater extent could be used with- out serious danger. It is highly instructive, therefore, to note the fact that the purified water of the new Hamburg filtration-works, as examined from filter to filter and from day to day, was found sometimes to contain no germs at all, and more commonly to con- tain from four to ten germs per cubic centimeter. Only by the most refined methods, never employed until the summer of 1893, could these few scattered germs be discovered, isolated, and accurately counted. Here, then, is the great triumph of the Hamburg filtration-works. The citizens know absolutely that the new system has given them a safe supply, and feel that science is now equal to any emergency that may arise. The purified Elbe water is used for all city purposes, including street- washing, lawn- and garden- sprinkling, and sewer-flushing. It is of excellent HAMBURG AND ITS SANITARY REFORMS 399 quality for all industrial purposes, and as a drinking- CHAP. vn. water it is agreeable as well as safe. An indirect evidence that the cholera epidemic was induced through the use of Elbe water was furnished Use of wells by the fact that the parts of Hamburg which use wells inHambur g- instead of the river-supply were almost or quite ex- empt from the disease. There are perhaps 800 or 1000 wells in use within the city limits. On general health principles wells are to be condemned, and their extermination by most city governments has been fully justified; but, as a choice of evils, the Hamburg wells were better than the unfiltered river-water, and so they were tolerated. Some of the large breweries have very productive artesian wells. At the time of the epidemic their water was piped to many neighbor- ing houses, and the service was afterward continued. At that time also, in the fall of 1892, more than a hun- dred new " driven " wells were made ; but many of them could not be used, on account of the mineral constituents of the water. A part of the work of Dr. Dunbar's Hygienic Institute, in the fall of 1893, was the thorough examination and testing of all the wells of the city. The health authorities were, of course, empowered to close all wells found to be yielding un- wholesome water. The Hygienic Institute has a branch laboratory, with every needed convenience, immediately adjacent to the filtration-works ; and one of the large filters is used exclusively for the Institute's tests and experi- ments. One of Dr. Dunbar's chief assistantsis stationed constantly at the waterworks. There has been con- structed for Dr. Dunbar's use, upon plans of his own, a novel steam craft, to ply on the Elbe as a floating laboratory. bacteriological laboratory. The boat is about forty feet in length, and its remarkable equipment will make it possible to study far more fully than has yet 400 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. vii. been done the actual extent and nature of the influence of flood tide in the Elbe, and also to give frequent at- tention to the health conditions of the great stream in its upper courses. All these new projects and devices will have cost a good deal of money; but shrewd, commercial Hamburg has come to the conclusion that Expert sani- 3 taryknow- improved sanitary services are a highly profitable m- ledge as a * . . good invest- vestment, and that it would be as unwise to spend large sums upon such services without expert scientific direction and experimentation as to erect public build- ings without good architects, or invest heavily in docks and harbor facilities without the aid of civil engineers. Dr. Dunbar is evidently determined to make the largest possible use of the city government's new impulses to- ward the generous support of hygienic inquiry and reform. The circumstances under which cholera again ap- peared in Hamburg about the middle of September, A demon- 1893, only serve to illustrate the value both of the fil- stration in ' * 1893. tration-works and of the Hygienic Institute. Tests made at that time showed the alarming increase of germs in the filtered water as conveyed for consump- tion. It was further discovered that the water was pure as it left the filters, and that the contamination was the result of a bad leakage from the Elbe into the tunnel which conveys the supply from the Kalte Hofe to the pumping- works on the mainland. The leak was at last suppressed, but, unfortunately, a number of cases of illness and death occurred, clearly traceable in origin to this infusion of unfiltered water into the purified supply. The fact that Hamburg had been exempt from cholera all summer, while the river was laden with such deadly infection, speaks volumes for the filtered water which had been in use since May; and the prompt discovery of the leakage was a new demonstration of the practical usefulness of an efficient HAMBUEG AND ITS SANITAEY EEFOKMS 401 bacteriological laboratory. The Hygienic Institute, meanwhile, does not exist solely to fight cholera epi- demies. Bacteriology has various services to perform constantly in the aid of the health authorities of cities. It can turn its attention from one form of infectious disease to another, and can help in many ways to promote wholesome conditions in general. I have already commented upon Hamburg's sewers and its disposal of sewage. It remains to speak somewhat of the scavenging and cleansing of the city. The cholera outbreak seems to have resulted , . ,. -it. j it, iu a vast increase of energy in the conduct of the work. Street-cleansing, under the general control of the police authorities, is managed upon a good system with admirable effect. No American city, so far as I am aware, can compare at all favorably with maligned Hamburg in the matter of clean streets. Good pav- ing is the rule, and this of course facilitates the con- stant washings and sweepings to which the streets are subjected. Asphalt and smoothly laid square stone blocks are the prevailing material of the street sur- face. Besides the thorough night cleansings, there is a day force of sweepers regularly at work on the prin- cipal thoroughfares to remove horse manure, etc., quite in the approved manner of Paris and Berlin. Every main street has its entire and radical cleansing as often as once in twenty-four hours, and all other streets, no matter how quiet and little used, are carefully swept and cleansed several times a week. The sprinkling in summer is no less thorough, while in winter the re- moval of snow and ice is so efficient and prompt as to be noteworthy. In all details the public cleansing and street maintenance have been vastly improved since 1892, with the deliberate sanitary motive. The city also laid energetic hands upon the question of the disposal of domestic refuse. Garbage had 26 CHAP. vn. General use- the Hygienic cleansing andscaven- gi ng . Effective streetwork - 402 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. vii. hitherto been carted out and dumped upon land in the vicinity of the city, some kinds of refuse, however, being carried out to sea in barges. Since 1893 the garbage has been burned, large municipal crematories having been constructed. There is no reason why Disposal of Hamburg should not establish a factory, such as one refuse, finds in various European cities, for the preparation of a marketable fertilizer and other salable commodities, from the collected garbage, street-sweepings, ashes, and waste material in general of so great a city. This will probably be done in the early future. The fright to which the cholera subjected the popu- lation has been of inestimable aid to the sanitary police in their efforts to compel the people to maintain do- mestic cleanliness. There remain in Hamburg many Housing of the very narrow, badly lighted streets of the middle conditions. a g es> w ith small-windowed old houses, ill arranged for subdivision into tenement apartments and for the occupancy of numerous families. Obviously, it is no easy task to keep these streets free from conditions favorable to the spread of infection. But a wonder- ful improvement has been made, under rigidly en- forced sanitary regulations, in the average wholesome- ness of domestic life among the working-people. The whole code of regulations concerning the building and occupancy of houses could not well be revised in a day as an emergency measure, for too many far-reaching considerations were involved. The Hamburg building code had been made over in 1882 ; but now it was per- ceived that its thorough remodeling would be ne- cessary, with a view to many sanitary improvements. Reform of Some ref orms, however, could not be delayed ; and in e law's.'" 8 April, 1893, a series of brief amendments to the build- ing code of 1882 was adopted, to remain effective until a deliberate treatment of the entire subject could be had. The size and form of interior court areas HAMBURG AND ITS SANITARY REFORMS 403 were prescribed, with stricter insistence than before CHAP. vn. upon opportunities for light and air. Sanitary plumb- ing arrangements in tenement-houses were explicitly required. Most important of all, the occupancy of cellars and basements for residence purposes was made subject to greatly needed regulations. The census of 1890 had shown that 36,542 people in Ham- cellar dweii- . in S a m burg were living in cellar dwellings 6 per cent. Hamburg, of the total population. In 1885 the number had been 31,381. Special attention had been called dur- ing the cholera season to the extraordinarily high rate of mortality in these damp subterranean abodes. To abolish cellar dwellings peremptorily and immedi- ately in a city like Hamburg is, unfortunately, a prac- tical impossibility. Even in Berlin, with its enlightened sanitary rules and methods, there were 117,702 cellar occupants in 1890, 7 per cent, of the entire mass of compared Berlin ers ; and Altona, which is actually a contiguous ami Aitona! part of the Hamburg metropolis, afforded nothing better than cellar homes for 8.7 per cent, of its people. Of cellar residences it is always to be understood, how- ever, that some are much worse than others. It is the object of recent sanitary enactments in Europe to pro- hibit the residential use of the worst classes of cellars. Thus the new Hamburg rules prohibit the occupancy of The new cellars under houses that do not front upon the street. rules! 18 Cellars in the low parts of the town near the Elbe and other waterways must not be inhabited. For- merly cellars of considerable depth and very badly lighted were to some extent occupied for living pur- poses. But the rule of April, 1893, declares that the cellar floor must not be more than one meter (about 3 feet and 4 inches) below the level of the surrounding ground, while special provisions are also made for the best possible admission of light and prevention of damp floors. These regulations apply to cellars and 404 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUEOPE CHAP. VII. One-room dwellings. Hospitals for isolating infection. Transport service. Disinfection stations. basements that are used for workrooms or domestic kitchens, as well as to those that are occupied as dwellings; and in all such cases there must be a sewer in the adjoining street, with which proper con- nections have been made. Apart from the cellar residences, the overcrowding of families in one-room apartments remains a serious evil in Hamburg, and one that will call for future legislation. But the average housing conditions tend to improve very visibly. The epidemic of 1892 found Hamburg ill prepared with facilities for the isolation of cases, and for the disinfection of contaminated articles and houses. Or- dinary hospitals had to be used for cholera patients, and extra accommodations had to be provided by means of hastily erected emergency barracks in all parts of the town. Meanwhile, a vast new epidemic hospital on the pavilion plan was projected, and it is now completed and in working order. It is one of the largest and best appointed hospitals for infectious diseases to be found anywhere; and it will play an important part in the future suppression, at the very outset, of threatened epidemics. Urgent necessity, moreover, led to the organization of an excellent transport service for the removal of patients from their homes to the hospitals; and this has been put upon a permanent basis with very superior appliances. It will be found as useful in helping to check the spread of other maladies as in times of cholera out- break. The disinfection stations, also, are a new feature of Hamburg's sanitary administration, and they are excellent specimens of establishments of that sort. Two central ones were fitted up in existing buildings adapted for the purpose, while a much larger and more complete one has since been made ready for HAMBURG AND ITS SANITAKY REFORMS 405 use. They are equipped with large oveus for the CHAP. vn. disinfection by heat of bedding, clothing, draperies, carpets, etc., and have facilities for the detention and personal disinfection and cleansing of the unattacked members of a family whose house is undergoing dis- infection after the stricken members have been re- moved to hospital or to cemetery. The disinfection station is headquarters for the closed vans that are The staff of sent to remove persons and infected articles, and also 'officials. 011 for the disinfection officials whose task it is to take charge of a house and put it in good sanitary con- dition. Each one of these officers is supplied with a compact, portable metallic box, in which there is a curiously complete collection of scrubbing-brushes, chemicals, and implements and devices for the thor- ough cleansing of a condemned habitation. Food examination lies within the scope of Dr. Dun- T Food inspec- bar's municipal laboratory, and a staff of assistants is tion - steadily engaged in this branch of the work, which has taken on some important developments. The milk-supply of Hamburg, in particular, has now been brought under the close municipal oversight that is so desirable in all large towns, a very elaborate, law to that end having been enacted in April, 1894, after overseeing more than a year's inquiry and deliberation. Nothing supply. could better illustrate the deliberate and permanent nature of the new sanitary activity of the Hamburg authorities than the manner in which they have dealt with this question of the regulation of the traffic in milk. Undoubtedly, under present conditions, the importance to a city population of a pure and whole- some milk- supply is surpassed only by the importance of a pure and wholesome water-supply. The new ^^ e in f rules begin at the very source of supply, regulating new rules, the care of cows on the farms, requiring cleanliness in the stables, ordaining that the milker's hands must 26* 406 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. VII. Cleanliness required in beer-shops. A new use for the po- lice power. always be washed as well as the cow's udder, and in other details fixing a standard none too fastidious yet altogether novel to the average dairyman. The standards for specific gravity and for percentage of cream are rigidly fixed, and the penalties for watering or other adulteration are severe and certain. The cleanliness of the milk-shops and utensils of distribu- tion in the city are as carefully prescribed as the con- ditions on the dairy farms. The general result can but be visible in the improved health of the Hamburg children. A more novel but for a German city hardly less desirable sanitary intervention is embodied in the rules issued by the police authorities of Hamburg in August, 1894, regarding the sanitary condition of the apparatus used in public-houses and refreshment places which keep beer on draught, and also in the minute prescription of rules for the cleansing of the vessels from which the guests of such houses drink their beer or other beverages. The German bacteri- ologists had discovered a real source of danger in the transmission of disease germs by means of imper- fectly washed beer glasses, mugs, and pewters; and Hamburg now prescribes a daily scalding and scour- ing, besides the rinsing with pure running water after each emptying of the vessel. Do these seem trivial matters, beneath the dignity of the public authorities of a great city? The wisest men think otherwise. They know of no better possible use to make of the police power of government than to prevent the transmission of deadly disease germs in places of public resort through culpable negligence of enlight- ened health rules. It is quite as permissible a police function to see that beer- venders keep their glasses clean as to prevent brawling and violence in the streets and in practice a far more important one to HAMBURG AND ITS SANITARY REFORMS 407 the social well-being. Of course I use the term po- lice function in its broad sense. Bacteriology is fast changing the practical character of the tasks of inter- vention that have to be exercised in the name of the police authority of the state, as it supplies us with new knowledge; so that Hamburg now concerns itself with seeing that dairymen wash their hands before milking, and that saloon-keepers scour their tankards, while the sanitary inspector and the disin- fection officer are more important by far than the night-watchman or the ordinary patrolman. There had been a chemical laboratory for public purposes under the police authority of Hamburg for a long time; but this was metamorphosed into the Hy- gienic Institute in 1892. It has since been found con- venient to create a new chemical laboratory, with commodious quarters in the City Hall, to relieve the Hygienic Institute of the many hundreds of ordinary tests and analyses that the business of food inspection requires. The special and critical inquiries, involving more difficult processes, are undertaken by the Hy- gienic Institute; while the chemists who have their station in the Town Hall cooperate constantly in the daily work of the officers of food inspection who are busy in the markets, in the great new municipal abat- toirs, in the milk-shopsj in the beer-halls and drinking- places, and wherever articles of food and drink are sold to the Hamburg public. In the spring of 1893, as a part of the new health system of the Hamburg authorities, there was estab- lished a harbor sanitary service, with a chief medical officer, assistant physicians, and a staff of inspectors. Steam and naphtha launches were provided, and an active examination was begun of the health conditions of all the ships and floating craft that came into the port. The inquiry included the health of persons on CHAP. vn. Bacterioi- tory. The harbor 408 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUEOPE CHAP. VII. Important results. New rules for practice of medicine. Arrange- ments for cooperation in aid of pub- lic health. board and the cleanliness and sanitary arrangements of the vessels. In the year 1893 there were made to sea-going ships not less than 22,640 visits, and to river and canal craft 42,867 visits, the aggregate number of persons on board being 468,000, the whole number of people being added for each examination made. Apart from the discovery each year of some hundreds of cases of illness requiring removal to hospital, this new harbor health service is making itself particularly valuable by reason of its successful efforts to improve the sanitary conditions of emigrant-carrying passen- ger ships, of the quarters occupied by the crews of freighting vessels, and of the inland craft which pro- vide the only home of thousands of families. Finally, in January, 1895, there came into force a new Arzte-Ordnung, a code of rules and regulations touching the practice of medicine in Hamburg, and denning the duties of the entire medical profession with respect to the report of cases of infectious and contagious diseases, of deaths, and of births, and otherwise bringing the private practitioners into rela- tions of more efficient cooperation with the public health authorities. These regulations are of an ad- vanced character, involving some new methods, and their benefits will be felt in many directions. The scheme, among other things, requires the medical practitioners of Hamburg to form themselves into a body and elect a Chamber of Physicians (Arzte-Kam- mer) composed of fifteen members. This Chamber will appoint three of its members to represent it in the Medicinal-Collegium (the public Board of Health). The Chamber will also deliberate and advise when questions are submitted to it by the health authorities, and in various ways will bring its expert knowledge and ability to the service of the public adminis- tration. HAMBURG AND ITS SANITAEY EEFOEMS 409 It is as yet quite too soon to attempt a conclusive pre- CHAP. vn. sentation, in the form of vital statistics, of the results of Hamburg's new sanitary regime. But the evidence afforded by a comparison of the death-rate is highly significant, and it would have an importance even sen- sational in its character if the improvement it indicates should,- happily, continue permanently. It would Testimony of seem that the death-rate has declined fully 20 per e rate. cent, from the average of the preceding decade, since the extraordinary precautions of the cholera summer of 1892 were put into effect. It is not to be forgotten that a great epidemic almost always sweeps away so many very old, very young, and otherwise specially susceptible persons that a subsequent lowering of the death-rate would result without any aid from better hygienic surroundings.. But when due allowance is made for this very important factor, it would still seem reasonable to attribute a considerable part of the reduced death-rate of Hamburg to the city's im- proved sanitary condition. Taking the period of thirty years from 1865 to 1895, Hamburg's average death- rate has declined from 30 or more per 1000 per annum to 20 or less. And this has been accomplished in the face of a very rapid growth of population, a develop- ment of the port as a great internatignal rendezvous, and the rise of an enormous emigration movement which has assembled at Hamburg about a million per- sons per decade, many of them ill-conditioned Russian Encouraging peasants. There will remain much to be done in the future, particularly in the improvement of the hous- ing conditions of the poorest third of the population. But with hygienic science pointing the way to prac- tical reform, there will be no retrogression, but rather a constant progress. CHAPTER VIII THE TRANSFORMATION OF VIENNA Vienna's re- making since 1860. Compared with Chicago. IF comparisons were not of so little meaning unless supported by ample and precise details, I should be tempted to assert that the metamorphosis of Vienna since 1860 has been more remarkable in its extent and completeness than that of any other important capital or great commercial town of Europe or of the world. From the point of view of commerce and private en- terprise, certainly the rebuilding of Chicago and its general progress since the great fire of 1871 would have precedence. But when organized municipal and social advancement as well as physical transformation and expansion are considered, Vienna would seem on many accounts to be the world's most notable example of a splendidly appointed metropolis rapidly evolved through the adoption of modern ideas and principles. If the municipality of Chicago, after the fire, had purchased the whole tract that had been swept clear of buildings, and had proceeded to lay out an ade- what Chi- quate central district, with suitable spaces for public cago might * . have done, buildings, with parkways and public gardens, with a broad inner boulevard circle or ring-street, and with a series of avenues radiating from the ring-street like spokes from a hub, it would have been entirely feasible to sell the available building sites front- ing on this ideal system of central open spaces and main distributing arteries for sums large enough to 410 THE TKANSFOKMATION OF VIENNA 411 repay the entire outlay, and perhaps also to erect a CHAP. vin. few monumental buildings on the grounds reserved for public edifices. Chicago's glimpse of architectu- ral glories came with the transient structures that made up the " White City" of the Columbian Exhibi- The lesson of tion. But on the tabula rasa of 1871 there might "city." 1 have been reserved at the very core of the city a zone of garden spaces in which, gradually, a series of mu- nicipal, county, State, and national edifices could have been erected, together with such monumental struc- tures as private beneficence or citizens' associations might choose to build for libraries, science and art museums, special educational purposes, auditoriums, academies of music, or commercial exchanges. Since the marvelous creations of 1892-93, Chicago has had a clear comprehension of the magnificent effects that may be produced as the result of a large initial plan which arranges public edifices with reference to their relations to one another and their general surround- ings. Chicago is inevitably creating its series of C b h 1 - c ^f- 1 s d monumental public edifices; but they can never be ingsmevit- 47 abiy seat- effectively grouped, with a due environment of open tered. spaces and park effects, as they might easily have been if the strenuous conditions of 1871 had permitted the exercise of a wise forethought, or even if the con- temporary experiences and policies of the great Eu- ropean towns had been half understood or appreciated in America. The great fire of London had come too early by several generations ; and the modern art of city-making played little part in the reconstruction. But Chicago had the greatest opportunity that has come to any city of magnitude in our times, and that opportunity was not improved. The next best op- portunity that has come to any modern city fell to v ^rtunity P the lot of Vienna ; and it is the chief part of my task in this chapter to tell in a summary way how effec- 412 MUNICIPAL GOVEENMENT IN EUEOPE CHAP. VIII. Vienna the result of gov- ernmental initiative. The era of Francis Joseph. tively that opportunity was seized, and how won- drously the city has been transformed through the many-sided impulse to progressive undertaking's that grew out of the plans adopted for building the new metropolis. I would not for a moment disparage the new Chicago, that marvelous product of private ini- tiative and commercial energy. Yet the contrast it makes when compared with the new Vienna which owes its character wholly to governmental and mu- nicipal policy, direction, and vigor is for my pur- poses too instructive to be ignored. It would be gra- tuitous to offer much censure or praise in the case of either city. One is great chiefly through the agency of its governmental organs. The other is great through the indomitable force of its private citizens as indi- viduals or in various associated capacities. Each has manifested its own genius. But it is evident that Chicago would have been the gainer if it could have borrowed some of Vienna's genius for munici- pal action. It was the political upheaval of 1848 and the events immediately following that prepared the way for the new order of things in Vienna. The medieval muni- cipal liberties had long been lost, and the citizens were practically without voice in the management of their town affairs. But with the accession of the young monarch Francis Joseph I. to the imperial throne of Austria in 1848, a new era dawned. The country was granted a liberal constitution. Vienna was named in that constitution as the seat of government and the residence city of the sovereign. This act was soon followed by the gift to the city of a municipal con- stitution which reestablished the local autonomy on a broader basis than any of the medieval charters had afforded, this new constitution being embodied in an imperial statute of March, 1850. It was not, THE TRANSFORMATION OF VIENNA 413 however, until after 1860 that the new municipal gov- CHAP. vm. ernment entered upon a fully organized career. It Municipal engaged the interest and secured the zealous service 8e iS? rn of the best men in the professional and commercial life of the city, and they have brought its ordinary administration to a high state of efficiency, while carrying out extraordinary undertakings with the most brilliant success. It must not be supposed that municipal self- government for Vienna has ever meant any such thing as universal suffrage. A tax-paying qualifica- tion has always excluded the great mass of common laborers. The minimum, which had previously been higher, was in 1885 reduced to five florins. This limi- tation, together with that which requires that voters shall be twenty-four years old, admits to the munici- pal suffrage about one person in twenty-five of the population, and excludes more than three-fourths of the adult men. Thus the Vienna electorate is a body of about sixty thousand voters. Regardless of tax-pay- ing, the law admits various classes of citizens by virtue of their professions and occupations. First, however, comes the list of men who hold the tradi- tional "burgher right" of Vienna a distinction that no longer carries with it much practical significance. By virtue of their callings are admitted : (1) the clergy and all religious teachers; (2) high officials, active or men enrolled. retired, of the empire, the province, or the city ; (3) military officers and certain others connected with the army ; (4) lawyers, doctors, and pharmacists who have been duly graduated; (5) civil engineers, architects, and other graduates of technical and special high schools; (6) professors and schoolmasters of all ranks. These personages, together with the citizens who pay at least five florins of direct taxes, make up the body of voters. But even this select body about 414 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUKOPE CHAP. VIII. The three- class system. Method of electing council. Six-year terms, and renewal by thirds. sixty thousand men out of a total population ap- proaching a million and a half is subdivided into three classes of very unequal membership, though of equal power. The first class is composed of the tax- payers who pay a tax of at least 200 florins, the second class includes those whose tax payment is not less than 30 florins, and to the third class belong all the other voters. This Austrian plan does not produce so great an inequality among voters as the Prussian sys- tem, which gives a third of the power to the men who pay a third of the taxes. But it makes the vote of a member of the first class worth three times as much as that of a second-class voter, and nearly nine times that of a voter of the third class. Thus, assuming that the Vienna electoral rolls con- tain 60,000 names, we may in round figures estimate 4500 as in the first class, 14,500 in the second, and 41,000 in the third. Vienna is divided into nineteen perma- nent districts bezirken which bear an important relation to the carrying out of all administrative work, and which are also election districts. The voters of each class in a given bezirk are enrolled as a separate wahlkorper, or voting body. Each wahlkorper directly elects its own share of the members of the municipal council. The Vienna council is a body of 138 mem- bers ; and to each bezirk is assigned a number of rep- resentatives that is divisible by three. Councilors are elected for six years, and one third of the body is re- newed every two years. Thus, a bezirk which is en- titled to nine members will have three places to fill at every biennial election, and the voters of each wahl- korper will elect one member. The three bodies vote on different days. For example, in a recent election the third-class voters in each bezirk chose their coun- cilors on October 22, the second-class voters assem- bled on October 25, and the first-class voters concluded THE TRANSFORMATION OF VIENNA 415 the election on October 29. It cannot be said that CHAP. vin. this three-class system commends itself seriously to Three-class the people of Vienna, and some day a democratic wave not ap- will sweep it away. It is not approved even by those Who belong to the two higher categories; but the state has been unwilling to grant the municipality so democratic a measure as a uniform suffrage for local purposes, because there would inevitably ensue an agitation for electoral reform and equal suffrage in elections to the Landtag of Lower Austria and the imperial Reichsrath. The electors of one class in Vienna not infrequently choose as their representative in the council some citizen of their bezirk who belongs to another class ; and thus the threefold division does not make the character of . . , . , , . . , , , Vienna coun- mumcipal government as aristocratic as might be ciiors. supposed. If, however, one cares to use the word aristocratic in its original and etymological sense, it may fairly be applied to the municipal parliament of Vienna, for the gemeindesrath of 138 members is a body of citizens possessing, upon the average, a very superior qualification for their public duties. As in the Berlin council, some of its members are university professors political economists, publicists, or scien- tists of eminence ; and, as in the London county coun- cil, some are statesmen of national or international repute. But the majority are business men. The council is a deliberative body, in full control of the general affairs of the city, including its finances and all its plans and policies. Its sessions are frequent and open to the public, and its members are not paid. It carries on its work through standing committees, as is usual with such bodies. Its business is largely influenced and directed, how- ever, by the burgomaster, who is its presiding officer Burgomaster , . , , , , -i and assist- and is chosen by the council from among its own ants. 416 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUEOPE CHAP. VIII. The " stadt- rath." The execu- tive magis- tracy. Vienna sys- tem more ap- plicable to England or America than Berlin system. Position of the burgo- master. members for a term of six years. A first and a second vice-burgomaster are also named for three-year terms. Further than this, the council selects twenty-two of its members who with the burgomaster and the two vice-burgomasters form a stadtrafh of twenty-five members. This smaller body is in effect a large stand- ing committee of the full council whose business it is to carry on the administration in matters of practical detail. Thus while the full council creates offices to be filled, the smaller stadtrath selects the appointees. It reports everything that it does to the large body, and the burgomaster is always its leading spirit. The executive work of the municipality is carried on by the expert permanent officials who constitute the salaried department chiefs and are collectively known as the magistracy. The burgomaster stands at the head of the civil service, and the magistrates, as in the cities of Germany, form a magisterial coun- cil under his direction. But this body has less initia- tive than the magistracy of Berlin or the other Ger- man cities, and it concerns itself rather with efficient executive work than with questions of municipal policy. Thus the Vienna system with some modifi- cations might readily be adopted in England or Amer- ica, whereas the Prussian system could only with difficulty be adjusted to the conditions of the English- speaking countries. In England the aldermanic ele- ment of a town council could assume the duties of the Vienna stadtrath on a moment's notice ; while the town clerk, the medical health officer, the bor- ough surveyor (chief of the public- works department), and the other important officials and superintendents of departments would form a magisterial corps under the mayor's direction. The Vienna burgomaster, like the mayor of a French town, is the real head of the local administration, and is a personage of executive THE TRANSFORMATION OF VIENNA 417 authority, in which respect he differs from the English CHAP. VIIL mayor. But, on the other hand, he is not a profes- sional civil servant like the burgomaster of a German city, but rather a citizen magistrate, first elected to the council by his fellow-voters, and then made bur- gomaster by his fellow-councilors. He is provided with a residence in the City Hall while he holds the post, and is remunerated to whatever extent the coun- cil may choose to vote him allowances, the office not being a salaried one. Before 1890 Vienna consisted of ten districts or be- zirken. In that year a great suburban belt was an- The nineteen ... districts as nexed, and a rearrangement of the divisions was established made. There are now nineteen. The constitution of Vienna attaches a high importance to these dis- tricts, and their boundaries can be altered only by an act of the Austrian parliament. In the opening chapter of this volume I have commented upon the advantages of the permanent arrondissements of Paris for the purpose of localizing administrative work and bringing the more common functions of municipal government as near as possible to the people. The bezirk in Vienna is still more strongly marked and I8tratlon - individualized than the arrondissement in Paris. Each division has a bezirlcsausschuss (district board), con- sisting of eighteen members elected for six years, each of the three classes of voters in the district choosing six members. Each district board chooses a chair- man or superintendent. The board has not a wide ' range of discretion or authority; nevertheless it is useful in many ways. It concerns itself with the ef- ficiency of municipal work in its district, and affords an influential means through which the needs of a particular locality may find expression. The burgo- master has the right of the floor in all the district boards, and members of the stadtrath often attend 27 418 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUEOPE CHAP. VIII. Each provin- cial diet of Austria makes local- government laws. Lower Austria's system. The old Vienna and its girdle of fortifications. the local meetings. There are municipal buildings in the different districts, in which are maintained the branch offices of various public services and executive departments. It would not be easy to give in brief outline the principal features of local and municipal government for Austria in general, because each Landtag or Diet of the sixteen provinces which make up the Austrian half of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy is competent to create its own system. Thus the Diet at Prague con- trols the Bohemian system, and the legislature which meets at Briinn has exclusive authority over the local- government arrangements of Moravia. The provinces as a rule have established systems which classify com- munes by their population and provide uniform in- stitutions. Lower Austria makes an exception of Vienna, which requires special legislation from time to time. But apart from one or two other towns which have special charters, all the localities of Lower 'Austria are subject to the rules of the general municipal code, which provides for the election of councils and grants a very considerable measure of local home-rule. It is sufficient for present purposes, so far as Austria is concerned, to devote our attention to the municipal structure and achievements of Vienna. When Francis Joseph, then eighteen years old, came to the throne in 1848 and took up his residence at Vi- enna, he found his capital in a most uncomfortable plight. The town itself where the royal establish- ments were located, where the nobility and all the principal people lived, and where all the business of Vienna was transacted occupied a space of about one square mile. It was surrounded by massive old forti- fications, and outside the walls lay a broad and deep moat, beyond which extended a belt of glacis ground, kept clear of buildings on military considerations. THE TRANSFORMATION OF VIENNA 419 On the outskirts of this military zone were thirty or CHAP. vm. forty forlorn villages which were beginning to grow T 116 J . suburban together and to form a continuous mass of mean villages, houses and they were the worst-appointed suburban neighborhoods to be found almost anywhere in Eu- rope. Francis Joseph's municipal constitution of 1850, to which I have already referred, united these suburbs with the inner city and consolidated them into seven permanent wards or bezirken, the old city forming a separate bezirk. Subsequently a rearrange- Extension of ment increased the number of bezirken to ten, and Clt y lmnts - since the extension of boundaries accomplished in 1890, an outer ring of nine additional bezirken has been added. The new boundary line as fixed by Francis Joseph in the earlier period of annexation was an outer ring of military defenses that had been created in the eighteenth century. For several decades it had been felt that the inner fortifications were opposing a most vexatious and harmful barrier to traffic and intercourse. The gate- ways were infrequent and wholly inadequate. Popu- congestion lation and commerce had been growing fast, and w 'waiis. e rentals for the limited accommodations inside the walls were becoming enormous. Every available foot of ground was built upon, new stories were added to old buildings, retail trade was compelled to find upper floors, and population was compacted in an intolerable manner. Under existing circumstances nobody would live in the suburbs who could live inside the old city ; and only one remedy for the situation was possible. A. long discussion en'ded in the memorable order signed by the emperor on December 20, 1857, for the destruction of the fortifications. The whole community now rose to the height of the great occasion. Vienna was the most inconvenient, ill-regulated, and unimposing capital in all Europe. 420 MUNICIPAL GOVEENMENT IN EUEOPE CHAP. vin. It had now an opportunity to become perhaps the very Vienna's handsomest and most convenient. Paris had been brilliant opportunity, hampered by the fact that its new avenues must in great part be cut through solidly built areas, that its chief architectural monuments were already built or located, and that it could not apply its art of modern city- making upon a swept area. But Vienna possessed in the broad encircling belt of walls, moat, and glacis an area greater than that of the entire inner city. That which had obstructed communication be- tween the heart of the metropolis and the outlying members was now to facilitate it. The walls were to be removed, the moat filled up, and the space thus gained, together with the broad glacis belt, was to be laid off in streets, building sites, and public gardens in such a manner as to make intercourse between the central and the outer districts as free as possible. The whole arrangement was planned systematically; and in the two or three years that were required for demolition and the clearing and leveling of the zone, the most talented landscapists and architects of the day were engaged upon competitive plans for the final laying out of the ground. One might easily make a long story of this stadt-erweiterung project; but it must suffice here to present the summary results. The central feature of the plans that were adopted was a great encircling street, the so-called Riug-strasse. It is in fact a polygon rather than a circle that the Ring- strasse describes, its angles which are not entirely regular giving it an octagonal appearance. Upon this broad and elaborately constructed thoroughfare was made to front a series of gardens and open park spaces ; and roomy sites were reserved for a number of great public buildings. The ground that remained was laid off in regular cross streets and parallel streets, and building sites were sold to private purchasers. A system- atic plan. The Ring- strasse. THE TRANSFORMATION OF VIENNA 421 After some preliminary difficulty touching matters of detail, there was generous cooperation between the imperial and the municipal governments in the great task of transforming Vienna; but the particular scheme known as the stadt-erweiterung was taken in hand and administered by a commission appointed by the emperor and accountable to the central govern- ment. The fortifications themselves were unquestion- ably the property of the general government, although there was room for a difference of view concerning the reversionary title to the glacis ground. In any case the city council argued that street plans and improvements were properly a municipal function, and that the busi- ness should be delegated to the city authorities. The emperor, however, was firm, and the council yielded gracefully. Everybody in Vienna has long ago admitted the wisdom of the emperor's policy. He saw clearly that the best service he could render the city authorities themselves would be to relieve them of responsibility for the special and extraordinary task of constructing the new zone, in order that they might be free to de- vote their energies to a hundred other important tasks which needed concurrent attention. The prestige of the imperial commission, moreover, made it easily possible to carry out a liberal policy which the town council could hardly have ventured to pursue. The land comprised in the cleared zone was so valuable that it might have seemed extravagant on the part of an elected citizens' body to devote so much of it to or- namental and unproductive public purposes. It is not conceivable that the gemeindesrath would have been able to agree upon so splendid a plan as that of the imperial commission. But a more niggardly plan would have been a less successful financial policy in the end. It was simply the emperor's object to make 27* CHAP. VIII. The project managed by imperial authorities. A wise policy. Town coun- cil could not have adopted so liberal a plan. 422 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN ETJEOPE CHAP. viii. the improvement scheme self-sustaining, on as magnif- icent a scale as possible. About four fifths of the en- tire area was retained for public uses, and the remain- Fund from ing one fifth was sold as building sites to private sale of build- ' ing sites, purchasers for a sum that has been stated in round figures at 200,000,000 florins about $80,000,000. Out of that fund the commission made new streets and sewers and proceeded to erect a series of public build- ings which with those built by the city and other public authorities on sites provided by the commission now render the Vienna Ring-strasse the most im- posing street in the world. Such a sum would not build many Albany capitols, New York court-houses, or Philadelphia city halls ; but public buildings are less expensive in Austria. Eighty million dollars is a vast sum in Vienna; and when expended upon pub- lic edifices and their artistic adornment with the en- lightened taste, constructive skill, and administrative honesty and thrift which characterize that city, noble Harmonious results might well be expected. The architectural llts ' character of all private construction upon the erweiter- ungs-grund was strictly regulated in the interest of har- mony, and nothing mars the symmetry of the whole, or detracts from the effect of sumptuousness and mag- nificence. The new monumental structures facing upon the The great Riug-strasse include the Rathhaus (city hall), a sur- ^onnments 1 P ass i n gty beautiful specimen of the modern Gothic, on strass ng P ene d i Q 1885; the Austrian parliament buildings, in pure Grecian style, opened in 1883 ; the main build- ing of the University of Vienna, a magnificent Renais- sance structure, completed in 1884; the royal theater, unequaled in Europe, and opened in 1888; the Votive church, finished about 1870; the palace of justice, opened in 1882; the imperial museums of art and science, two magnificent Renaissance buildings, opened THE TRANSFORMATION OF VIENNA 423 since 1890, between which, with ample space for effect, CHAP. vm. is the colossal monument to Maria Theresa ; the new imperial palace, not yet finished ; the imperial opera- house, finished before 1870; various palaces, museums, art schools, garrison and arsenal buildings, and showy structures for commercial-exchange or other business purposes. The Ring-strasse has been criticized as grouping together too many magnificent structures toucwngthe in different styles of architecture, the individual build- ings thus failing to produce the full impression they might convey if more entirely isolated. I am not disposed to think that the facts justify the criticism, in view of the generous garden spaces which give each great structure an ample approach. But it is not with questions of pure taste in architecture that this particular survey of the new Vienna is concerned. It is enough for me to remark that the beautiful Ring- strasse, nearly two hundred feet wide, is lined with the most imposing array of modern structures to be found anywhere in the world, although the street was not opened until 1865. The magical transformation that the erweiterungs- fund has been enabled to bring about might well fur- nish the land-nationalization advocates with an illus- tration of the possibilities that lie dormant in the " unearned increment." The little fraction of the old fortification- and parade-grounds that the government sold to private buyers had apparently sufficed to cover the rest of the area with beautiful streets, incomparable public edifices, and charming gardens adorned with fountains and statues, in which are open-air concerts free to all the people, besides refreshment pavilions and much else to afford popular entertainment ; and still there remain, it is said, some millions of florins in the unexhausted erweiterungs-fund ! It is not true, however, that this fund has paid nearly all the bills 424 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUEOPE CHAP. VIII. The fund did not pay all the bills. Impetus to private con- struction. Remarkable policy of exemption from taxes. for Vienna's remaking. The municipal treasury has shared in much of the cost of streets and public works, and it paid for the city hall j while the imperial Aus- trian government and the provincial authorities of Lower Austria have also borne the cost of placing their own structures upon the sites that the erwei- terung project freely assigned them. But the im- pulse proceeded, nevertheless, from the imperial pol- icy and its shrewd and attractive methods for securing cooperation in all directions. If the project had only succeeded in arousing the municipal, provincial, and national authorities to a large participation in the making of a new metropolis, but had not also awakened the enthusiasm and stim- ulated the activity of private builders, it would have fallen far short of its full purpose. What Vienna needed more than monumental edifices was proper house-room for its rapidly growing population, and accommodation for its merchants and traders. In fact the erweiterung improvements gave a tremendous impetus to private construction, not only on what was known as the erweiterungs-gruud, but also in other parts of the city. Several magnificent new suburbs were built, in sharp contrast with the prevailing mean- ness of the suburban architecture of the previous pe- riod. All this building activity was greatly accelerated, if not chiefly prompted, by laws exempting new houses from taxation. Thirty years' exemption was granted those buildings erected in the first five years upon the erweiterungs-grund, and twenty-five years' was al- lowed in case of buildings completed in the next five years. These conditions naturally gave an enhanced value to the sites that the commission offered for sale, and helped to swell the accruing fund. But shorter exemptions were also extended to all parts of the city, the period being from fifteen to eighteen years, THE TRANSFORMATION OF VIENNA 425 according to the promptness with which the work was taken in hand and accomplished. From time to time these encouragements were renewed for the benefit of subsequent builders, although the period of ex- emption was finally reduced to twelve years. In a city like Vienna, where the taxes upon a house are expected to amount to about half the rent, such ex- emptions constitute a most substantial bonus; and inasmuch as the inducement was applied also to any considerable enlargement and improvement of houses already existing, it may easily be believed that the result was an almost entire reconstruction of the city. The situation afforded an opportunity for the shifting of population from the interior to the outer bezirken, and the commercial structures of the inte- rior were very generally rebuilt or improved. On the erweiterungs-grund the banking and monetary institutions promptly undertook or fostered large building operations, and a great number of joint- stock building companies began to vie with each other in the speculative erection of buildings in all parts of Vienna, their shares being listed on the Bourse and bought and sold every day. The reac- tion carne in 1873, when many companies and indi- vidual speculators failed. But meanwhile the city had been marvelously and permanently altered for the better. The authorities had made the most exacting regula- tions as to the character of new buildings, and nowhere else, so far as I am aware, has recent con- struction been so solid and durable. Stone staircases to the very top floor, great strength of walls and floor-joists, double fire-walls, good provision for air and light, prohibition of garret and cellar residences, proper connection with the city's new water-supply and new sewers, these and other requirements CHAP. VIII. Extended to all parts of the city. The city re- constructed. An era of building speculation. Stringent building regulations. 426 MUNICIPAL GOVEENMENT IN EUEOPE CHAP. viii. having to do with safety and health were joined with similarly strict rules regarding street-lines, balconies, height and generally harmonious appearance of fa- 9ades, to make a building law of the most Draco- nian description. Now that the city has extended its limits very greatly, these building regulations have been somewhat modified in their application to the smaller class of houses built upon side streets in outlying neighborhoods; but they remain stringent. A high authority in Vienna has told me that in his opinion the building laws are too severe because tend- ing to make rents excessively high for poor families. But I doubt the correctness of his view, whether as a general statement or as a particular Viennese obser- vation. If in these chapters on European cities I have devoted much space to official demolitions and value of the interferences that are involved in a wholesale measures, reconstruction by public authorities of the dwellings of the people, it is not because these undertakings seem to me desirable in themselves. It is to obviate the necessity for them that the best possible building regulations ought everywhere to be put in force. The relief of the inner bezirk from its choked Relief of the an d congested state, which followed the removal of mner city, ^g b arr i ers> the construction of great business blocks upon the Ring-strasse and the other new streets, and the outflow of trade and population over a widened area, made it feasible to reform the tangled street system of the " old Vienna." Many of the interior thoroughfares were broadened and straightened, new paving was laid after the new sewers had been duly constructed, and the renovated Innere Stadt entered upon a new era of business prosperity. The outer street system also was revised and improved. The thirty-four gemeinden or village com- munities which had been annexed, consolidated, and THE TEANSFOEMATION OF VIENNA 427 arranged as the nine environing wards or bezirken, CHAP. vni. and which contained four fifths of the population, The outlying had sprung up originally on the lines of country roads approaching the old town ; and these several haupt -strassen or main roads were now developed into great radial thoroughfares, pouring their streams of traffic into the broad Ring-strasse, upon which the influx could easily be distributed. These roads had formerly been almost impassable for the mud in winter and the dust in summer ; but they were now well paved, well sewered, well lighted, and in all respects arranged as convenient highways of commu- nication between the center and the suburbs. Per- haps no other city of equal size is so conveniently appointed as regards the daily movement of popula- tion to and from the center as the new Vienna, Nearly all important institutions, parliament, law- courts, university and other educational establish- ments, central post-office, bourse, municipal and administrative buildings, imperial establishments, officers' barracks, chief theaters, cafes, and places of resort and amusement, with banks and leading business establishments, are either in or near the Ring-strasse; while the inner district is full of business establishments of every character. The network of streets in the old town connects at perhaps forty points with the Ring, while the series of about fifteen main radials extending outward (of course these are not geometrically regular), draw from the Ring and empty into it as from a great receiving and distributing reservoir. Blockades and obstruction are practically impossible with this street system. The street railways do not invade the inner city, but all their operations center upon the Ring. The incomer on any given spoke is carried along the 428 MUNICIPAL GOVEKNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. vm. perimeter of the hub until he reaches the point Arrange- nearest his destination, and in like manner when mentof / street-rail- returning he enters his car at any point on the Ring and is carried around to the desired radial and thence outward. There has more recently been built a great outer concentric street, the so-called Gilrtel- strasse (girdle street), folio wing the line of the boundary defenses ; and upon this street there is also operated a street-railway line that crosses the radials and forms a harmonious part of the general system. With the growth of the city, leading up to the annexation in 1890 of another wide zone lying beyond the Gurtel- strasse, the transit system has been further extended to accommodate the half million people in the newer suburbs. There has now been projected by the municipal Projected authorities a rapid-transit system to consist in part of rapid-transit ., ... /> i . T I-T system, steam railways and in part of electric lines, which will connect the stations of the existing railway lines and give the metropolis a service of fast trains extending to all its parts. The electric lines will cross the inner city at right angles, and there will be an inner circuit, with nine or ten stations (running parallel with the Ring-strasse, but at a little distance outside of it), with about half a dozen lines radiating from it, not to mention an outer circuit known as the giirtel line. The project includes still other circuit and single lines, and the system is to be constructed gradually during a period of years, although a considerable part of it has been marked for comple- tion before the beginning of 1898. The Vienna Tramway Company, which operates almost the entire ordinary street-railway system, has a franchise that was in 1887 extended to the end of the year 1925, in consideration of large money payments to the municipal treasury and various agreements favor- THE TRANSFORMATION OF VIENNA 429 able to the community. The company runs working- CHAP. vm. men's cars morning and evening with reduced fares, street-raii- * a far makes special concessions to school children, provides methods. transfer or " correspondence" tickets, and arranges all its numerous radial lines on a zone system with a charge of 5 kreutzers (equal to an English penny or two American cents) for each zone. A 10-kreutzer fare (equal to 4 cents) pays for a ride regardless of the num- ber of zones, and entitles to a transfer ticket for any part of Vienna. Four kreutzers (equal to If American cents) is the price of a workingman's ride, regardless working- of distance, in the special laborers' cars. The public me tic 8 kets? ap authorities have a voice in the fixing of fares and exercise a general oversight. The system as a whole is a remarkably complete and symmetrical one, and its able management suggests that of Berlin. "When the municipal rapid-transit system is superadded, Vienna will be exceptionally well supplied with means of communication. The various public works that belong to the period of Vienna's reconstruction cannot even be catalogued j^^ in this rapid sketch ; but some of the most important terminals. should be recounted. This was the era of railway building ; and the Austrian state system established its terminals, bridged the Danube, and contributed to the city's development. One of the largest of the municipal undertakings was the improvement of Danube navigation. The natural course of the great stream as it flows across Lower Austria is through ,.,,,. Danube im- extensive marshes, which allow it no well-defined provement. banks; and there are in some places a dozen chan- nels winding among low islands which are at times completely submerged. Such was the character of the Danube in the vicinity of Vienna, where its course lay several miles 'east of the old city, describing an outward curve. A vast sum of money was success- 430 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUEOPE Encourage- ment of commerce. CHAP. VIIL fully expended in cutting a straight new channel which brings the river much nearer the city, gives it proper depth and definite banks, makes good landing- places feasible, and permits the railway system to operate a shore-line and to make convenient freight transfers with the two hundred steamers and the eight hundred great barges operated by the Danube Steam Navigation Company. The municipality and the general government have done everything in their power to promote the railway and shipping interests which have their terminals along the new Danube channel ; and the town itself maintains, among other ventures, a great storage warehouse in which it rents space to merchants or other shippers. The Danube canal which passes through the heart of the city, and the Wein-fluss, a swift stream from the neighboring hills, both required the expenditure of large sums for embankments, regulation of flow, and numerous permanent bridges. Several great Danube bridges were also built as a part of the city's program of expansion. Sanitary reforms, meanwhile, went hand in hand with schemes for the adornment and the commercial development of the city. The greatest of the public- health projects was that of a new water-supply. Vienna was ill supplied with good drinking-water, and forms of disease that are propagated by contam- inated water were prevalent. Typhus, cholera, and other infectious diseases found Vienna peculiarly congenial. A magnificent supply of water was intro- duced, at the cost of many millions of florins, from great springs in the Alps, eighty miles distant. The quality of this water is perhaps superior to that which any other large city in the world furnishes to its people. In the decade 1848-57 the average yearly death-rate of Vienna was only a fraction less than 42 Bridge building. The Alpine water- supply. THE TRANSFORMATION OF VIENNA 431 per 1000. The Alpine water was first introduced in 1873. For the decade from 1878 to 1888 the average yearly death-rate was 28.57. This improved showing was due in no small part to the pure mountain water, which has not lent itself to the spread of cholera, typhoid, or other disease germs. The Alpine water system, however, did not stand alone as a sanitary reform. The sewer system was thoroughly rearranged, and main drainage-tunnels were constructed by means of which the entire sewage of the city was conveyed to a point below the city and there discharged into the Danube. Vienna's hygienic and administrative experts have satisfied themselves that where a city's sewage can be swept away by a large stream like the Danube, no profitable use can be made of it for fertilizing the soil. A Berlin or a Birmingham must of necessity provide sewage-farms. But when a great stream with sufficient current, or the adjacent sea, can be made the receptacle, it seems to have been everywhere found more economical to throw away the manurial elements of sewage than to use them. Perhaps this conclusion may be changed by future experience or new discoveries. Approved methods of sanitary administration were introduced, and great hospitals for infectious diseases were built. The whole question of food-supply was brought under very active municipal supervision. The authorities created great public slaughter-houses and cattle-yards, and were soon able not only to make it certain that the supply of animal food was in wholesome condition, but also to make the price of meat much cheaper than it had been. A system of municipal wholesale and retail markets was also pro- vided, with excellent appointments and with the pur- pose of improving the quality and cheapening the price of all the staple articles of food required in CHAP. VIII. Improve- ment in gen- eral health. Sewers and sewage disposal. Various sanitary reforms. 432 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. vm. Vienna. This series of measures has undoubtedly aided in the remarkable improvement that has taken place in the general health. The municipal cemetery arrangements were modernized and developed. Street cleansing and general scavenging were accorded a place of dignity and importance in the municipal housekeeping. A great establishment was created for the healthful and economical disposition of dead animals ; and it produces fertilizers and various minor products, such as glue and plasterers' supplies, the whole undertaking being an example of the municipal economies that are likely everywhere to assume a considerable importance in years to come. Whereas the Vienna death-rate before 1860 was above 40 per 1000, it is now not more than 24. In 1892 it was 24.3, in 1893 it had fallen to exactly 24, and in 1894 to 22.8. This, as compared with conditions prevailing some thirty years earlier, means a saving of more than Good effect twenty thousand lives each year, an avoidance (accord- of health . iiii/v.BV'ui measures, ing to the most careful calculations) of probably more than six hundred thousand cases of illness, and an incalculably valuable conservation of the productive and economic as well as the civilizing forces of the community. The new era has witnessed the creation in Vienna of a very remarkable educational system, with the erection of nearly a hundred large structures in the bezirken for purposes of elementary instruction, and organization the establishment of a great number of institutions of school . system, for secondary and special education. There is a gen- eral school-board for administrative purposes, partly appointed by the municipal authorities and partly delegated from the nineteen bezirken school-boards. In each bezirk the voters elect a group of school directors who serve, with several appointed members, upon the neighborhood school-board. The financial THE TRANSFORMATION OF VIENNA 433 control of the system is vested in the city council, and the burgomaster is at the head of the school adminis- tration. But the neighborhood elective boards enlist the aid and interest of a large number of citizens, and the schools are enthusiastically supported. Public charity, also, while centrally organized through the regular municipal government, has its ordinary and practical work carried out in the several bezirken by means of local boards, the members of which are in large part directly elected by the voters of the district. It will not be necessary to describe in detail a system of poor relief and medical aid which is marked rather by good organization and satisfactory results than by any very novel principles or methods. I have already intimated that the architectural expansion of Vienna was attended and in large part caused by a rapid access of population. Between 1860 and 1890 the number of people within the boundaries had grown from 500,000 to 800,000, while outside the external line of fortifications a new series of suburbs had grown up which in 1890 were found to contain nearly half a million inhabitants. Many good reasons were adduced why these neighborhoods ought to be incorporated with Vienna. The boundary lines were accordingly extended to include them; and the new municipal area comprises nearly seventy square miles, the old limits (before 1890) having included only about twenty-one square miles. The population of Vienna in 1895 may be conserva- tively estimated at 1,500,000. Decentralizing tenden- cies in Austria, several periods of severe business depression from which recovery has been slow and painful, the growth of the Hungarian railway system and of Budapest at its center, with other causes that I will not attempt to enumerate, have seemed of late CHAP. VIII. Neighbor- hood boards. The work of relief and charity. Growth of population. Depressing tendencies. 28 434 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE The saving fact in the situation. CHAP. viii. somewhat to becloud the once brilliant prospects of Vienna. It is now clearly evident to my mind that if it had not been for the rebuilding of the city and its entire transformation under the impulse of the erweiterungs-project, Vienna would now be in a very critical commercial condition, if not in a hopelessly disastrous one. But these great reforms, coming at a time when a happy conjunction of circumstances favored their execution on a bold and courageous plan, have given Vienna an assured position that no political misfortune or new commercial rivalry can take away. My praise of the Vienna municipality, and of the efficient and intelligent conduct of its affairs, has been based upon the unalterable record of its charac- ter and its performances during a period of liberal government lasting through nearly a quarter of a century. The political reactions of 1894 and 1895 have made upheavals, the results of which it is too early to forecast. The wave of anti-semitism has for the moment overwhelmed the liberal majority in the municipal council of Vienna, and the antago- nisms of race and religion seem to threaten the best interests of the school system, and in other ways promise to disturb the reasonable and harmonious working of the city's administrative departments. But I cannot believe that the anti-liberal and anti- semite victory of the autumnal municipal campaign of 1895, and the new policy thus sanctioned, repre- sent the deliberate purpose of the people of Vienna. Political re action of 1894-95. CHAPTER IX BUDAPEST: THE RISE OF A NEW METROPOLIS TO the world at large, Budapest, the capital and metropolis of Hungary, is the least known of all the important cities of Europe. No other falls so far short of the appreciation it merits. Several reasons may be assigned for this comparative obscurity; among which are remoteness from the chief thorough- has not been appreciated. fares of travel and commerce, the isolation of the Magyar language and literature, and the subordination of all things Hungarian to the Austrian name and fame. But the most important reason is the simplest of all: the Budapest of to-day is so new that the world has not had time to make its acquaintance. Its people justly claim for it the most rapid growth in recent years of all the European capitals, and are fond of likening its wonderful expansion to that of Chicago and other newly-created American cities. . When Kossuth found refuge in America after Hun- gary's tragical struggle for independence, the sister towns of Buda and Pest, lying on opposite sides of the Danube, together had hardly more than a hun- Growthsince , *,. ..,. themiddleof dred thousand people. The consolidated municipality the century. had by the census of 1891 a population of more than half a million. But remarkable as is the increase of population, it seems to me far less remarkable than the physical and architectural transformations that have accompanied the town's growth in numbers. 435 436 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. ix. Budapest is not merely four or five times as populous as it was in the middle of the current century, but it has blossomed out of primitive and forlorn conditions into the full magnificence of a splendidly appointed modern metropolis. Rapidly developing cities usually A finely have the misf ortune to grow wronglv. through lack appointed . ' . ' city- of foresight and wise regulations on the part of the governing authorities. Budapest has not wholly escaped; but it would be hard to find another large town whose development has been kept so well in hand by the authorities, and has been so symmetrical and scientific from the point of view of approved city- making. In many particulars of appointment, as well as in general plan and tout ensemble, American cities might learn not a little from Budapest. Political reasons have quite as much to do as com- mercial causes with the making and unmaking of The play of European cities. Thus Vienna, which may well con- political forces. test with Paris the claim to preeminence for beauty and splendor, owes almost everything, as I have shown in the preceding chapter, to the political events that followed the revolutionary movements of 1848. Vienna became the seat of government of a newly organized empire, and acquired a most liberal municipal consti- tution. Its prestige grew enormously, and it absorbed wealth and population from all parts of the Austrian dominions. The imperial government and the mu- nicipal authorities vied with one another in projects for the embellishment of the capital, the chief of these projects being the Ring-strasse and its incomparable array of public buildings. Meanwhile Hungary was chafing under the disappointment and humiliation of defeat, and was making little, if any, progress. But the Austro-Prussian war of 1866 humiliated in turn the so-called oppressor of Hungary. The Hungarians opportunity, were now in a position to demand all that Kossuth BUDAPEST, A NEW METROPOLIS 437 The dual monarchy. and his compatriots had struggled so desperately in CHAP. ix. 1848 to gain. To the counsel of the Hungarian pa- triot and sage Francis Deak, one of the great men of modern times, is due the fact that, instead of absolute separation from Austria, Hungary accepted the form of dual monarchy that has existed since 1868. Hun- gary became a constitutional monarchy of the most liberal sort, having its own parliament, its own cabi- net, its own entire administration, with Budapest as capital. The Emperor of Austria became King of Hungary. The two parts of the confederation were absolutely coordinate. Their military and diplomatic services were of necessity united like those of a single empire ; but the delegations from the two parliaments which meet annually to vote the joint budget, and to order the joint services, sit in alternate years at Vienna and Budapest. It is true that the Emperor's ordinary residence is in Vienna, and that Vienna is the seat of administration of the confederate empire ; but the Emperor is careful to spend much of his time, with his family and his court, in Hungary. In short, politically, the two capitals are as nearly on a par as it is possible to make them. This change in the political wind had a most sur- prising effect upon Budapest. Hungary was at last free and self-governing, and in possession of liberal Newlifefor institutions. The hopes of 1848 were now to find Budapest. realization. The whole life of the nation was invig- orated, and that life centered in the capital. Ambi- tious young politicians had no longer to seek a career in Vienna. Home rule gave them full scope in Buda- pest. Social life was also awakened. The Hungarian nobles, who, with every other element in the popula- tion of the empire, had been contributing to the architectural splendor and social brilliancy of Vienna, were now disposed to build their palaces in their own 28* 438 MUNICIPAL GOVEENMENT IN EUROPE capital. The decen- tralizing tendency in Austria. CHAP. ix. capital ; for they had acquired seats in the upper house A home-rule of the Hungarian parliament, while Vienna was hence- forth to be regarded as their capital hardly more than Berlin or Paris. The transformation and embellish- ment of Vienna as the sole capital of Francis Joseph's dominions had just begun fairly to show results, when the new order of things cut those dominions in two parts, and made Budapest the rival capital, with slightly the larger of the two territorial divisions. It is true that Hungary had a smaller population, and industrially was far less advanced than the prov- inces of which Vienna remained the capital ; but the curtailment was obviously detrimental to Vienna in many ways. Moreover, Vienna has felt the effects of decentralizing tendencies in the provinces remaining to her ; for the Bohemians are developing their beau- tiful local capital Prague, the Austrian Poles are expending their energies upon their own Cracow, the Moravians are improving Brunn, the Italians are showing preference for Trieste, and other provincial centers are beginning to assert themselves. In Hun- gary, on the other hand, Budapest has no rivals ; all roads lead to the capital. There is in Hungary a compactness and unity that form a marked contrast with the scattered and discordant provinces which have their political center in Vienna. Budapes 1 is now the capital of a nation of seventeen millions of progressive and ambitious people, and this new politi- cal fact is of itself sufficient to account for much of its growth. The commercial conditions also are not to be over- looked. Hungary is an agricultural country, lying for the most part in the rich valley of the Danube and its principal tributaries. Central Hungary is a vast level plain, an uninterrupted stretch of culti- vated fields. One rides across it late in June or early Unity of Hungary. BUDAPEST, A NEW METKOPOLIS 439 in July to find it looking much like Illinois or Iowa, the chief crops being wheat, maize, oats, barley, and hay, growing luxuriantly and extending as far as the eye can reach, without fences to break the sweep of vision. In these favored recent times the agricul- tural production has much increased, and Budapest is the market for the farm surplusage. As a grain- receiving point it is to the Hungarian plain what Chicago is to Illinois and Iowa, or what Minneapolis is to Minnesota and Dakota. It is hard to realize how commercially undeveloped all this Hungarian coun- try was only a few years ago, and what meager facilities it had for reaching the markets of Europe with its surplus food products. The new govern- ment at Budapest set itself to work to develop agri- culture and trade, without any particular fear of being charged with socialistic activities. Somebody had to take the initiative. The country was poor and without capital. To secure a system of railroads it was necessary to grant heavy subsidies to Eng- lish, French, and German capitalists, who formed com- panies and established lines. But the government found subsequently that it could better afford to take over the roads, and put them under a consolidated public administration, than to pay annual subsidies to a dozen private companies. The results have justified its policy. In every possible way the government has made the State railway system conduce to the development of Hungarian industries. Under the railway administration there has been established at Budapest a great government manufactory, not only of locomotives but of all sorts of heavy machinery, including agricultural machines, a special product being threshing-machines. It is only recently that machinery has been introduced in the farming opera- tions of southeastern Europe, and the innovation CHAP. IX. Budapest as a grain market. The State railroad system. The govern- ment as a maker of farm machinery. 440 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. ix. makes headway somewhat slowly against the preju- dices of the peasantry. Thus, in a recent summer, in the hay-fields of the Hungarian plain, I saw many a row of mowers, wearing the long white cotton tunics of the region, and swinging their scythes in unison, quite as described by Tolstoi in the famous mow- ing chapter of "Anna Karenina." Indeed, I did not happen to see a single mowing-machine at work. But I am assured that mowing- and reaping-machines are largely used in some parts of the country, and that their use is steadily increasing. As all the railroads center in Budapest, every effort to develop Hungarian agriculture benefits the com- mercial capital. The grain shipments, however, are Danube chiefly by water, on the Danube and its tributa- commerce. r j es ^ a g re at fleet of roofed grain-barges plying on these waterways between Budapest and the wheat- fields. Some of these barges, which are of a con- struction peculiar to the Danube, have a capacity of six hundred tons of grain. The government has exerted itself to improve navigation, and great river improvements have been made at Budapest, to which I shall again refer. While the growth of Budapest has been influenced by causes already described, it BudLplst/s cas a l so l> een aided by the development of the flour- industry milling industry. Within twenty-five years the pro- cesses of flour-making throughout the world have been revolutionized by reason of certain Budapest in- ventions, of which the most important is the so-called "middlings-purifier" and gradual-reduction system, and the next in importance the substitution of steel rollers of various sizes and patterns for the old-time millstones. These inventions have resulted in giving the industry of flour-making to large mills, thus anni- hilating small mills by tens of thousands. The new ideas were quickly borrowed by Minnesota millers, BUDAPEST, A NEW METEOPOLIS 441 and by them were largely developed and improved j CHAP. ix. and Minneapolis and Budapest have grown contempo- raneously as the two great milling centers of the world. Minneapolis leads in the collective capacity of its mills and in the annual product; but it has a larger field in which to operate, and possesses facili- ties which Budapest lacks. The mills of the Hunga- rian capital are, however, a series of magnificent establishments, fitted up with automatic machinery invented and manufactured in the city, provided with electric lights, and well supplied with ingenious contrivances to prevent fire. Their finest grades of flour are sent to all parts of the world except the United States, and command the highest prices. One A municipal of the municipal institutions of Budapest is a huge elector. brick grain-elevator, the only one in all Hungary at the time it was built, occupying a conspicuous place near the Danube bank and convenient also to railway tracks. It was built by the city some years ago as an object-lesson in the modern American methods of handling grain. Although it is to see new things rather than old that one visits Budapest, it may be well to say that the town once possessed a Roman fortress and colony, The old time and that its commanding site has involved it in mili- fortress. tary operations from time immemorial. It is only two hundred years since the Turks were driven out of Hungary, after an occupation of a century and a half. The fortress and rugged promontory are upon the right, or south, bank of the Danube, and pertain to Buda. Pest lies upon the flat north bank, and beyond it stretches the illimitable plain. In the old times Buda was the large town, while Pest was only an insignificant village ; but all the modern conditions of growth have favored the Pest side, which is now four times as populous as the other. The Buda or 442 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. ix. Of en (Ofen is the German name for Buda) bank is, however, picturesque in the highest degree. The Blocksberg promontory rises abruptly, a sheer mass of rugged rock, nearly a thousand feet above the The citadel grand stream that washes its base ; and it is crowned and the new . , - .,_., . , Pantheon, with a now useless citadel. For a long time, the Hungarians had promised themselves that some day a classic pantheon in honor of Hungary's long list of great men should be erected on this commanding acropolis. And now one of the chief events of the millennial programme of 1896 is to be the dedication of this Pantheon, in which will be placed the statues of personages whose name and fame give luster to a thousand years of Hungarian history. Adjoining the Blocksberg, but not so high, and rising less steeply from the river's brink, is the fortress hill, upon which stands a vast royal palace. Its cheerful buff-colored paint and long rows of green window-blinds suggest a summer resort hotel ; but it is really a very impos- ing structure, and its situation could hardly be more commanding. About it, on hillsides and in valleys, Buda and its li es the town once called Buda. On the retreating hillsides. s } O p es o f the Blocksberg, and upon the sides of the higher mountains that lie in the rear, are many pleasant villas. Buda and its neighboring hills have long been famous for their vineyards and their wines. From the Blocksberg or any other of the neighboring heights, the view up and down the Danube, and over the stately city of Pest on the opposite bank, is enchanting. It would, of course, be erroneous to say that all the progress, all the improvements, and all the good The period buildings of Budapest date from the new Hungarian of progress. cons titution of 1868, or from the municipal consolida- tion of Buda and Pest which followed that political event, and which was consummated in 1873. Between BUDAPEST, A NEW METKOPOLIS 443 CHAP. ix. Budapest 1848 and 1868 not a little progress had been made. The Archduke Joseph had done much for the sister towns. Population had increased materially ; the magnificent suspension-bridge had been built; the patriotic Count Stephan Szechenyi had founded the National Academy to foster the Magyar speech and literature, and had built for it a fitting renaissance palace at this time, when the Germans were " in the saddle," and when even the University of Budapest was a German institution with German professors in its chairs. Although, with Russian aid, the Aus- trians had crushed the Hungarian movement of 1848, so that the people's leaders had to choose between exile and the halter, while for some years the whole Hungarian nation was made to feel the heavy weight of the Austrian yoke, it is nevertheless true that the awakening of that year of revolutions resulted in a progress which left many marks in two dec- ades. But after this is said the fact remains that nearly all the systematic, appreciable advances of Hungary have been made in the years that have fol- lowed the happier events of 1868. In Budapest, de- liberate projects were adopted for the beautifying and National development of the city as a fit capital for an ambi- tion hfises. tious young state. The exiles of 1848 came back with wisdom and experience to take the helm. Count Andrassy, who had been sentenced to be hung, now became prime minister. The reaction was most ener- getic. For the time being, all things German were at a heavy discount. The German officials were hus- tled out to a man. The University was reorganized on a Hungarian basis, and the whole corps of German professors was unceremoniously dismissed. Such being the national mood, it is easy to under- stand that the moment was propitious for large plans. Vienna was carrying out its stadt-erweiterung projects 444 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. IX. City improve- ment plans. Essential nature of the Danube. The quays and promenades. Public buildings on river-front. in the most magnificent way; and while Budapest could hardly hope to become a Vienna, there was a unanimous determination to modernize and improve the place to the highest possible degree. The minis- try and the municipal authorities cooperated, and building operations were intrusted to a mixed com- mission of the national and city governments. As was proper alike from esthetic, sanitary, and com- mercial considerations, the river was made the cen- ter of improvements, and was constituted the prime thoroughfare, the chief open space and place of re- sort, and, in short, the unrivaled attraction of the city. It became to Budapest what the Grand Canal is to Venice something more essential than the Seine to Paris or the Thames to London. Magnifi- cent stone quays and retaining- walls were built, ex- tending for nearly three miles on the Pest side and also for a long distance on the opposite shore. These were thrown well out, the broad channel being thus com- pressed somewhat to secure a clean, sweeping current. Up and down along the broad promenades facing the water have been erected palatial buildings. The quays are high, and stairs, built continuously for a long distance, lead down to the lower level of the landings, upon which the heavy traffic is confined. The rows of buildings are broken at intervals by open park spaces, in which are effectively placed the statues of various Hungarian notabilities. A number of handsome public buildings are included in the row upon the quays of the left bank, and toward the upper end of the row has been built the magnificent new Parliament house, in which the first session will occur in 1896. Further down are the National Acad- emy, the city's so-called " Redoute building," the old Rathhaus (city hall), the vast new Custom-house, and various other establishments. For the distance BUDAPEST, A NEW METROPOLIS 445 of perhaps a quarter of a mile below the suspension- bridge the quay is a shady promenade, a chair-lined corso, upon which all driving is prohibited, and where on summer evenings many hundreds of fashionable people congregate, patronizing the cafes and restau- rants, the tables of which are set under the trees in the open air. The Hungarians are even more fond of out-of-door eating and drinking than the Viennese; and Budapest is a city of magnificent cafe's. But, to proceed with a description of the improve- ment plan, the inner and ancient Pest, known as " the city," and lying upon the river-bank, has been sur- rounded by boulevards in the form of a polygonal " ring-strasse "; while by demolitions and reconstruc- tions the interior tangle of narrow streets has been brought into something like a modern system. From the sides and angles of the inner ring-strasse broad radial boulevards have been thrown out in straight, or measurably straight, lines to the outer edges of the metropolis, and the lands lying between these great spokes are divided by street systems almost as regular and rectangular as those of American cities. Handsome as is the broad inner ring of boulevards, lined with fine buildings, it is far surpassed by the newer " grosse-ring," which crosses the radials about a mile further out, and which describes an arc that, from the new Margaret Bridge to the point where it again meets the river, is four or five miles long. It is very broad and finely paved, and is already lined for the greater part of its course with massive, pre- tentious structures, while building operations are now busily closing the gaps all along the line. Still other ring boulevards in a concentric series are to be constructed in the future. The finest single street in Budapest, the gem of the improvement works and the pride of the citizens, is CHAP. ix. Street reforms. rhe two 446 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. IX. The An- drdssy street. Character of paving. the Andrassy-strasse, a broad boulevard connecting the inner city with the " Stadtwaldchen." The An- drassy-strasse is perfectly straight, and two miles long. It was planned with consummate art, and is one of the most beautiful and effective streets in Europe. Some enthusiastic people pronounce it with- out exception the handsomest of European streets, and certainly it tempts one to use superlative lan- guage. It is divided into three parts by the " Octa- gon-platz," where it crosses the larger ring-strasse, and by the " Rund-platz," or " circus," at a point where another encircling boulevard is eventually to cross. As it emerges from the Octagon-platz and the Bund-platz the street grows successively wider, although this would hardly be noticed by the casual passer. The first third of the distance is devoted to fine buildings, of varied architecture but general conformity, built solidly on the street line. The next third contains houses having narrow fore-gar- dens of a prescribed width. The last third extend- ing for two thirds of a mile is devoted to separate villa-like residences, all at similar distance from the sidewalks, and, with infinite variety of architectu- ral detail, conforming to the regular street plan. The vista from the entrance of this street to its end in the shady Stadtwaldchen is very beautiful. The broad central driveway is paved with wooden blocks on a solid concrete foundation. The sidewalks are of as- phalt, the narrower driveways next the sidewalks are paved with square-cut stone blocks, and the eques- trian courses, which are between the central and the outer driveways, are graveled. Although there are no individual buildings on the Andrassy-strasse which cannot readily be matched in any other important city, the average of architectural merit is very high ; and the absence of anything that can mar the general BUDAPEST, A NEW METROPOLIS 447 The prin- cipal park. effect is an important element in the success of this CHAP. ix. public improvement. It should be said that the Buda side has also its boulevard system, and that the cost of expropriations and of construction in this remod- eling of the street-system has aggregated a large sum. The Stadtwaldchen is a beautiful park of about a thousand acres which plays a most intimate part in the life of the Budapest people. Fortunately it is not remote or difficult of access, and is to Budapest what the " Prater " is to Vienna. It contains a charming lake for skating in winter and for pleasure-boats in summer. It has its areas of deep and quiet shade, its zoological corner, and, above all, its collection of cafes, refreshment-stands, shooting-galleries, " roller-coast- ers," arenas, Punch and Judy shows, summer theaters, wax- work exhibitions, and " side-shows " in bewilder- ing variety, all very cheap, all very good of their respective sorts, and all very delightful to the plea- sure-loving thousands who resort to the park in the spring and summer afternoons. Here is located also one of the municipal government's hot sulphur- water bathing establishments. Of small parks and open spaces the city has a number, though not so many as should have been reserved. The Elisabeth Park is especially worthy of mention. Certainly it would be unpardonable to omit mention of the " Margareta Island." The " Margareten-Insel " The Marga- lies in the Danube, at the upper end of the city. In an- reta Island " cient days it belonged to an order of nuns, the ruins of whose convent still remain. In the fifteenth century the Turks drove the poor nuns away, and the janizary pashas established their harems there. On the expul- sion of the Turks the island became city property, but a generation ago it was given by the municipality to the Archduke Joseph for a hunting-ground. The present archduke keeps it in beautiful order as a 448 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. IX. Parks on the Buda hillsides. Budapest's council of 400. The tax- payers' element. Too large a body. pleasure-ground for the public. It is nearly two miles long and about half a mile wide, and it deserves the enthusiasm with which the Budapest people re- gard it. It is full of a variety of magnificent trees, has tasteful flower-gardens, is also the seat of min- eral baths elaborately appointed, with two or three adjoining hotels, and has the restaurants without which no pleasure-ground would be complete in south- ern Europe. Among the hills of the Buda side, also, are parks and pleasure-grounds; and the population is blessed with much beautiful weather and a great number of holidays in which to enjoy its open-air advantages. Budapest has a municipal council that is as large as a " town-meeting." If any other city in the world has a council of 400 members, I have not yet learned the fact. Pest began in 1868 with 200 members; but when the consolidation was effected in 1873 the plan of adding 200 members chosen from the higher ranks was adopted. It was provided that the whole body of electors, besides choosing 200 common members in the nine wards, should choose 200 more from a list of the 1200 largest taxpayers. In the making of this list men of liberal education are rated for double the taxes they actually pay, in order that brains and learning may have recognition. A standing com- mittee makes out a list of the aristocratic 200, and it so happens that the great voting public always elects the entire list thus selected. The whole coun- cil retires en masse at the end of each six years' term. The body is of course much too large for efficiency. Possibly a hundred will be found at one ordinary meeting, and at the next meeting a hundred again, but quite a different hundred. The committees also are much too large to be workable, some of them having thirty or forty members. The actual execu- BUDAPEST, A NEW METEOPOLIS 449 tive work is performed by a magistracy composed of a burgomaster, two vice-burgomasters, and ten other so-called magistrates, all chosen by the council for terms of six years. Each magistrate has his special administrative department. These and several other high executive officials are ex-officio members of the council. Two officials, the Director of Archives and the Director of the Municipal Bureau of Statistics, are appointed for lif e. The advisability of reducing the membership of the council is generally recognized, and when the opportune moment for a revision of the municipal constitution comes, it is quite possible that the aristocratic 200 will be cut off at the first stroke. But the inefficiency of the present unwieldy council is counterbalanced by the efficiency of the smaller mag- isterial and executive corps, so that Budapest cannot by any means be called a badly governed city. Apart from Budapest, the municipalities of Hun- gary are organized under the terms of a general stat- ute which makes a difference between the smaller places the communes (gemeinden) and the munici- pal corporations. The smaller places are self-gov- erned upon principles similar to those that obtain in the organization of the municipalities, but their sys- tem is less elaborate. The basis of things in all cases is a municipal council, which in the little rural ham- lets and villages varies in size from 10 to 20 members, in the larger communes from 20 to 40, and in the fully developed municipalities from 48 to 200. Hungary lias no large cities except Budapest, but it has about twenty large towns which by the census of 1890 had an average population approaching fifty thousand. The voters are those who have paid a small tax. The general rule prevails throughout Hungary that one half of the communal or municipal council shall be elected by the whole body of voters, and that the 29 CHAP. IX. The execu- tive magistracy. Efficiency of adminis- trative corps. The Hun- garian system in general. Size of councils. MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. IX Largest tax- payers occupy half of the coun- cil seats. Recognition of educated men. Some peculiar provisions. other half shall be made up of the largest local tax- payers who are eligible by virtue of citizenship, resi- dence, age, etc. It is this arrangement, doubtless, that has influenced the Hungarian parliament in ordaining that the councils shall be so large. Thus in a town whose council consists of 200 members, the first hundred is made up of men who have a right to their seats by virtue of the fact that they head the tax-list. They hold their seats for no definite period, because the tax-lists are revised every year, and cir- cumstances make changes in the personnel of the hun- dred who are nearest the top. While these tax-payers have a right to sit in the council, it does not follow that they will care regularly to exercise the right. The more stable element of the body consists, there- fore, of the half regularly elected by the voters. As in Budapest, so in all the towns and communes of Hungary it is true that professional men and all men who follow callings that imply considerable education are listed at double the amount of taxes they actually pay, in order that their classes may be reasonably sure of a good share in the make-up of the governing bod- ies. It is only in Budapest that the aristocratic half of the council is chosen by election from a larger list. Elsewhere it suffices that a man is a member of the group of largest tax-payers. Under certain specified circumstances a large tax -payer who is non-resident or otherwise unable to serve may name his own substi- tute. Sometimes a large tax-payer prefers to hold his council seat as one of the elected members of the body ; in which case the next largest tax-payer comes forward as a councilor. It is an interesting fact, moreover, that any firm, company, or other organiza- tion that pays taxes on property may, as a legal per- sonage, exercise the local franchise through some one holding its power of attorney or authorization. In BUDAPEST, A NEW METEOPOLIS 451 Budapest, where the whole electorate (composed of CHAP. ix. all tax-paying citizens who can read and write) has a right to vote for 200 out of the list of 1200 largest tax- wider range payers, the room< for selection is so wide that the in f Budapest. results are very different from those that are found in other towns, where absolutely the largest tax-payers always fill half the places in the council without election. The standing executive committees and the chief officials carry on the practical work of adminis- tration in a manner that is much alike throughout the entire Austro-Hungarian empire. The chief heads of Executive departments, who form with the burgomaster a mag- s y stem - isterial council, and who, like the German magistrates, are practically life members of the municipal service, have seats in the general town councils, with the right to speak and vote. The social aspects of municipal administration have a growing interest and importance, and Buda- pest's experience and undertakings are worth relating, successful Before 1870 the average annual death-rate was 45 per administra- 1000 inhabitants, and in epidemic years it reached 50. The rate is now about 25 ; and this remarkable reduc- tion has been effected in the face of the rapid growth of the city's population. It means the saving of at least ten thousand lives a year. The rate is no longer a very high one even when compared with western Europe or America ; and it is to be remem- bered that Budapest is the capital of a country that borders on the Turkish empire. The death-rate in most Eastern countries is vastly higher than in Western countries. Thus in Russia, and in the Danubian and Balkan states, the rate is higher than in Hungary. That Budapest, the crowded city, has managed to bring its death-rate to a point below that of the country as a whole is a most exceptional and note- death-rate is worthy fact. From 45 per 1000 a very few years Hungary's. 452 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUEOPE CHAP. ix. earlier, the Budapest rate had fallen to 41 in 1876, 40 in 1877, 31.2 in 1884, 29.4 in 1885, 27.9 in 1892, 26.8 in 1893, and 24.4 in 1895. How has this gratify- ing improvement of the general health been effected ? By a series of municipal measures not yet fully com- pleted. The first of these measures was an improved The question water-supply. The Danube water was pumped into reservoirs and filtered by the natural process through sand, with good results. The town grew so fast that the water question again became a pressing one, some quarters being obliged to accept an unfiltered supply, and it was determined to provide a new and permanent system, various plans being proposed, and artesian wells being tried with good results. As the sequel has proved, one of the most fortunate The bureau features of the municipal reorganization that followed of statistics. Hungary's assumption of home rule was the establish- ment of a bureau of statistics. Mr. Joseph Korosi was made statistician for life ; and he completed twenty- five years of service in 1894. His reports, monographs, brochures, and special investigations, pertaining to almost every conceivable municipal question capable Mr Korosi-s ^ statistical treatment, are without a parallel in the work. -world for their complete, exhaustive, and timely character; and the social and sanitary reforms of Budapest have followed the lines laid down by the statistical bureau. Until Mr. KOrOsi's work began, the high mortality of Budapest was not known. Its citizens thought it an extremely healthy place. The statistical office was denounced as slandering and injuring the city when it first discovered and pub- The findings Hshed the facts. But Mr. KOrflsi persevered, and his remarkable census of 1871 attempted to account for the high mortality. He made a thorough study of the conditions of the population, and found overcrowding very prevalent, and, worst of all, a very large element BUDAPEST, A NEW METROPOLIS 453 of the population in damp underground residences. There followed a series of regulations to prevent these evils. Living in cellars was forbidden, and new quar- ters for the poor were constructed. But the badly housed population was too large to be shifted at once, and it became necessary to permit the reoccupancy of the drier and less objectionable subground domiciles. In 1881 the cellar abodes had been reduced to 7.6 per cent, of the whole number, while in 1891 the propor- tion had fallen to 5 per cent. In Vienna, meanwhile the cellar dwellings in 1891 were only 1.2 per cent, of the whole number, by virtue of the reconstruction of the people's dwellings that I have already described. The very striking fact about the homes of the common people in Budapest is the prevalence of one- story houses, which are subdivided as tenements in such a way as to give each family only one main room, with a very small kitchen annex. Housing reforms in Vienna have resulted in the general crea- tion of the large tenement-house of several stories, as in Berlin and Paris. And in Budapest the new tendency is in that direction. But the old custom of one-story houses that has always prevailed in south- eastern Europe is still chiefly characteristic of house architecture on the side streets and in the unfashion- able bezirken of Budapest. Before 1870, four fifths of all the buildings of all descriptions were of one story, and barely 2 per cent, had two flights of stairs. In 1891, two thirds were still one-story buildings; but the three- and four-story structures had begun to multiply. In 1881, 62 per cent, of all the families were living on ground floors, and this proportion in 1891 had fallen to 59.5. In Vienna, 26 per cent, of the house- holds were on the ground floor (erdgeschoss), while in the large German cities the average is from 13 to 20 per cent. Up one flight in Budapest are 21 per cent, of 29* CHAP. IX. Reduced percentage of cellar dwellings. Compared with Vienna. One-story tenement houses. High tene- ments in Vienna. Gradual change in Budapest. Households on different floor-levels in Budapest, Vienna, and Berlin. 454 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. ix. the families, while 9.4 are on the third floor, and only 5 per cent climb more than the two staircases. In Vienna, by way of contrast, 26.5 per cent, are up one flight, 21.2 are up two, and 24 ascend three or more. In Berlin, on the other hand, 35 per cent, of the house- holds are three or more flights above the street floor. Not counting the small kitchen annexes, or an occa- sional windowless closet, Mr. K6r5si found in 1891 that the one-room dwellings were nearly 62 per cent, of the whole number, and that two-room dwellings were nearly 21 per cent., while those with three to five rooms were 15.3 per cent., and those with more dwei e iings m than five rooms were only 2.2 per cent., or about one in fifty. In Breslau and one or two other large Ger- man towns the house-room is shockingly scant for the population ; but in Budapest it is more restricted, un- questionably, than in any other large town of the civilized world. How very different the housing con- ditions of Vienna have become under the impetus of the tax-exemptions and the working of the new build- ing rules, may readily be shown. The comparative Vienna's figures present a striking contrast between the two trast. capitals. It will be interesting, perhaps, to include in a table an analysis of the housing conditions of the other large towns of the Austrian empire, chief of which is Bohemian Prague, after which come Ital- ian Trieste, German Gratz, Polish-Hebrew Lemberg and Cracow, near the borders of the Russian empire, and the thrifty, winsome Moravian capital, Briinn. For every 100 dwellings (space occupied by a dis- tinct household) the census inquiry of 1891 found : Dwellings In Suda- Tien- Trir Lem- Cra- with pest. na. Prague, este. Gratz. berg. c&w. Briinn. 1 room 61.7.. 5.3 .16.4. .11.7. .17.6. 36.5.. 31.4.. 4.6 2 rooms .20.8. .28.1. .35.3. .32.7. .30.5. .24.3. .26.1. .41.9 *! ! mS 1 1 53 -- - 35 - 8 - 38 -- - 38 -6. -31.0. .30.0. .42.1 4-5 rooms 6.6 ) 6 and more rooms 2.2. .13.5. .12.5. .17.6. .13.8. . 8.2. .12.5. .11.4 BUDAPEST, A NEW METEOPOLIS 455 When account is made of the extraordinary preva- CHAP. ix. lence in Budapest of the one-room dwelling, the success of the health administration in its reduction of the death-rate by nearly one half becomes the more credit- able. It must be borne in mind, however, that Buda- Mitigating pest's one-room families are chiefly in one-story houses, stances. where sunlight and air penetrate more freely than they could in many-storied slums ; and that Budapest spreads its population over a comparatively wide area. The municipal territory has long been greater than that of any other European capital, comprising nearly eighty square miles, and thus being larger even than Vienna's newly extended bounds. It is not to be in- T * Large mum- ferred that the population is evenly distributed over c>P al area - this large territory, for much of the outlying region is made up of gardens, vineyards, farms and forests. But the tendency is towards a comfortable outflow over ample building space. And it is evident that the gradual replacement of one-story tenement-houses by those of three or more stories will greatly relieve the population-pressure upon a given area. The city itself, in view of Mr. Korftsi's latest disclosures, has resolved upon a remodeling of some of the poorest quarters, and the work is to be inaugurated in 1896 as a part of the noteworthy programme of improve- A new pro- ments with which it has been determined at Budapest ^oushfg re- to celebrate Hungary's millennial. These new reforms will not be as costly at Budapest as corresponding ones have been in various other European cities, for the twofold reason that the demolitions will chiefly affect one-story houses, and that real-estate in Buda- pest commands only moderate prices. The next gen- eral census, that of 1901, will certainly show a conspicuous improvement in the housing conditions of the Hungarian capital, even though it may be fifty years before Vienna's favorable position as to average amount of house-room can be attained. 456 MUNICIPAL GOVEENMENT IN EUKOPE CHAP. ix. The town as a r owner! ate Lots sold to private builders, taSs hi Abattoirs markets, An American would certainly expect to find real- estate speculation rife in a city growing so rapidly as Budapest; but there seems to be practically none. This state of affairs is due, at least in large part, to the fact that much of the vacant land in and about the town belongs to the municipality, having been public property for a long time. As the growth of the town requires, the authorities from time to time sell build- ing sites to the highest bidders. The modern school of land-reformers would condemn this alienation, and would insist that the fractions of the social domain should be leased rather than sold; but the south- eastern European is a firm believer in private land- holding, and loves to possess his own house and bit of garden. The municipal corporation of Budapest is fortunate in possessing all the ground that it needs for hospitals and public objects. This remark, how- ever, does not apply to the Buda side of the river, the old town of Buda having at an early day parted with all its landed possessions. Most Hungarian towns, it may be observed, as well as those of Servia, Bul- garia and the Danubian provinces in general, continue to hold as municipal property an environing area of common land formerly used for village pasturage and fuel-supply, and now to be reckoned upon as a grow- ingly valuable municipal asset. The food-supply of Budapest has been brought under suitable public control. The great municipal slaughter-house is one of the establishments in which the citizens take especial pride. It is very imposing architecturally, is finely appointed, and, as a public monopoly, is made to contribute to the municipal coffers while serving a sanitary end. Connected with it are the public cattle-markets, which well repay a visit on the weekly market-day for their splendid herds of the long-horned white oxen of Hungary and BUDAPEST, A NEW METEOPOLIS 457 Servia. The produce-markets of Budapest, as of all other towns of southeastern Europe, are attended by great numbers of peasants in national costume, and are as picturesque as any scenes in the Orient. The imposition of new sanitary rules and regulations upon the conduct of business in the market-places has been a marked gain for the health of the people. To continue with the new social establishments of the municipality, some mention must be made of the magnificent general hospital, built with separate brick pavilions, according to the most approved plans, and occupying spacious and beautiful grounds. In a wooded area on the edge of the city, sufficiently iso- lated without being inconveniently remote, has been built the new municipal hospital for epidemic dis- eases, which conforms to all the latest requirements of sanitary science. Budapest is at length bringing infectious diseases under control. The so-called u prophylactic " measures of obligatory reports by physicians, of prompt isolation of every case, of visits and instruction by the authorities to insure proper care and treatment, of control of the children of families in which are cases of such disease, and finally, of disinfection by the public authorities, are employed with success. Budapest had a cholera visitation in September, 1892, that ended in February, 1893, with a record of 935 cases of illness and 525 deaths. The epidemic was remarkably well managed by the authorities. It was demonstrated that nearly eveiy case of attack resulted from the use of unfikered or imperfectly filtered water, those who were drinking pure water having entire immunity. It has also been shown by Mr. Korosi that typhoid, scarlet fever, diphtheria and other infectious diseases are three or four times as prevalent in the parts of the town that are not supplied CHAP. IX. Produce- markets. General hospital. Epidemic hospital. Prophylac- ticmeasures. Cholera epi- demic of 1892-93. Another demonstra- tion in favor of filtered water. 458 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. ix. with filtered water as in those that have the best quality. As a result of these demonstrations, the city government has given prompt attention to a betterment of the entire supply. Attention has been given to street and domestic scavenging. The sewer-system, though not complete The sewers, and perfect, is greatly improved. The Danube is so large a stream that it suffices to carry off all the refuse of the city, and no separation or " treatment n of sewage is necessary. Another important health- Public baths, measure has been the establishment of free baths in the Danube, for summer use, these institutions being well patronized, and also the utilization by the authorities, for the benefit of the poor, of some of the hot sulphur springs, the curative properties of which in certain diseases are very famous. As a result of the various efforts to improve the health and social condition of the people, put forth intelligently and humanely by the public authorities, Budapest is fast exchanging its oriental unwholesomeness for the comparative healthfulness of an occidental city. Meanwhile Mr. Korosi's elaborate statistical analyses throw light from time to time upon every doubtful point, and his unequaled library of inter-municipal statistics enables him to furnish his constituency with stimulating comparative data. The illumination of Budapest has been a monopoly The city and in the hands of a private gas company whose original supply. charter expired in 1881, and which obtained a renewed charter for some fifteen years longer. The city has ob- tained gas for street -purposes at reduced rates ; has obliged the company to mitigate its charge to consu- mers in accordance with a sliding scale based upon the increase in aggregate consumption ; and moreover has collected very heavy taxes from the company. It re- served the right to take over the plant and business BUDAPEST, A NEW METEOPOLIS 459 at an appraised valuation, but was awaiting the de- velopment of electric lighting ; and there was a strong probability that the municipality would decide to enter upon the business of manufacturing and selling the new illuininant, as a part of its varied programme of expansion fixed for the year 1896. Street transportation has also been kept under con- trol by the municipality. A united tramway system (horse-traction) pays street rentals and large taxes, The company's fares are fixed by law, and it is re- quired that working people shall be carried at reduced rates in the morning and evening. At the expiration of existing charters, the street-railway lines and their equipment will become the property of the city, with- out indemnity to the private owners. Upon the greater ring-street and several of the radial avenues the Budapest Electric City Railway Company operates a model system of lines upon the plan of an insulated trolley carried in a metallic underground conduit. The first of these lines was opened in 1889, and the company has steadily extended its tracks, under fran- chises that are conspicuously favorable to all public interests. From the technical point of view, the un- derground electrical current has been an unqualified success in Budapest, this Danubian city deserving credit for having led all the world in the adoption of advanced and perfect appliances in electrical street transit. The financial affairs of the company are as open to inspection as the accounts of any municipal department. After paying large taxes to the city, contributing to insurance and sick funds for its em- ployees, making liberal yearly payments to a reserve tax fund, placing a considerable sum in the ordinary reserve fund, besides provisions for interest, and for a sinking-fund to redeem its bonds, the company was able in 1894 to pay the shareholders a dividend of 8 CHAP. ix. Electric gtreet railways. Finances of the com- pany. 460 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. ix. per cent, on the stock. This, however, was not be- cause the company is extraordinarily prosperous, but in part because of excellent management, and above all things because the stock represents only the actual investment. The capitalization of the system is only 4,000,000 florins. An American street-railway com- pany would hardly have been content to construct such a system and put it into operation without attempting to make it earn dividends on from five to ten times the amount that the Hungarian laws permit to stand as the capital to be remunerated. Street-railways of all kinds have been excluded from the Andrassy-street ; but this beautiful avenue is the most direct approach to the park in which the An under- exhibition of 1896 is to be held ; and it was decided trie road, that an underground road from the heart of the town on the Danube front ought to be constructed under the Andrassy-strasse to the exhibition grounds. Con- sequently, the horse railway company and the electric company applied for a joint franchise under which they were ready to unite in constructing, as a trunk- line connecting with both their systems, the most perfectly appointed underground road ever yet built, with electric motors, electric lighting, superior venti- lation, and every convenience that ingenuity could suggest. It was expected that the project would be executed. Various narrow-gauge steam railways and A co*npfete d electric overhead trolley lines run from Budapest to tran tem sys ~ neighboring towns ; and the whole region is gradually acquiring the varied and complete transit facilities of a metropolitan district. Two or three new bridges across the Danube will have been begun in 1896, and these links will permit the better union of the street- railway systems of the two halves of the town. The prospects for Budapest's continued growth as a Danubian metropolis are very bright. As the center BUDAPEST, A NEW METEOPOLIS 461 of the Hungarian State-railway system, its commercial importance is constantly enhanced by the development of the resources of the country and the corresponding increase of traffic. And it is no longer doubtful that the capital will be the gainer to an enormous extent by the new "zone tariff" put in operation on the State-railway system in August, 1889. This remarka- ble innovation in railroading entirely changes the passenger-ticket system. From Budapest as a center 14 zones are described, the first having a radius of 25 kilometers (about 15 miles). The second is a belt lying between the inner circle and an outer one drawn with a 40 kilometer radius ; i. e., its width is 15 kilo- meters. Successive zones have a radius from the Budapest center of 55, 70, 85, 100, 115, 130, 145, 160, 175, 200, and 225 kilometers, while to the fourteenth zone are assigned all distances on any of the Hungarian State lines that lie more than 225 kilometers away from the capital. For any point in each of these zones the fare is the same. The new rates are greatly reduced, being in some cases one half and in other cases less than one fourth the former rates. The average reduction is not far from two thirds. Rail- way bookkeeping is of course simplified by the new system, and traveling has received an unwonted stim- ulus. It is now conceded that the innovation is a success from the point of view of railway financiering ; and it is even a more brilliant success from the point of view of the commercial and social progress of the capital city. It has given new movement and life to the sluggish population of the outlying parts of Hun- gary. The annual number of persons traveling by rail at once increased several-fold. The working- men's tickets are so cheap, moreover, that it becomes readily feasible to mobilize labor at any point in Hungary where it is needed. Great results in like CHAP. IX. Benefits from the "zone-tariff" system. Main features of the system. 462 MUNICIPAL GOVEKNMENT IN EUEOPE CHAP. IX. "Vicinity tariff." Growth of the city's population. Educational system of Budapest. manner are following the more recent adoption of zone tariffs and reduced rates for freight traffic. The "vicinity tariff" makes short rides very inex- pensive and promotes the growth of outer suburbs, while bringing hosts of country people to the city on business errands. The statistical record of the changes in Hungarian habits of travel that have been brought about by the zone system and the era of low fares inaugurated by the lamented Gabriel von Baross, Hungary's daring and talented young minister of commerce and transportation, discloses the remark- able extent of an innovation that is destined to foster the rapid social and industrial development of the country, and above all to redound to the prosperity of Budapest. The city's population had grown from 355,682 on the last day of 1880, to 506,384 on Decem- ber 31, 1890. There is much reason to think that the census of 1900 will show an even greater gain for the last decade of the century. Budapest in the millen- nial year 1896 would seem justified in estimating the population at nearly or quite 600,000. The educational, literary, and artistic progress of Budapest has been as striking since 1870 as its mate- rial progress. The educational system has been re- formed and revivified from the bottom to the top. At the very apex is the University, under national aus- pices and support, an institution fairly comparable with the better universities of Germany. It suffered somewhat by the precipitate expulsion of the German faculty and the too sudden transformation from a German to a Hungarian basis. But it has recovered, and now has a truly national character and influence. Another important official educational establishment, the Royal Polytechnic Institute, with technical courses in engineering and applied science, flourishes at Bu- dapest. Then comes a series of collegiate establish- BUDAPEST, A NEW METROPOLIS 463 ments, gymnasien and real-schulen, some of which are national and municipal, while others are denomina- tional with public subventions. Below these are the advanced schools for boys and girls, corresponding in their work to our upper grammar- and lower high- school grades, and having certain industrial and prac- tical features. On the same level are the mercantile and trade schools. And then come the numerous elementary schools, the accommodations of which are intended to be equal to the requirements of the Com- pulsory Education Act; for throughout Austria and Hungary elementary education has for a number of years been obligatory upon all. The children learn perfectly both the Hungarian and the German lan- guages, and not infrequently they learn something of either French or English. Because devotion to their speech, and admiration of those who use it well as writers or orators, have always played so essential a part in the actual gov- ernmental and institutional life of the Hungarians, I may be pardoned for a word of digression about it. The Hungarians, like all the people of southeastern Europe, are ready linguists. But the ease with which they acquire other languages does not diminish their loyalty to their own. The Hungarian, or Magyar, speech has no affinity with the other languages of the Austro-Hungarian empire. It is more closely related to the Turkish than to any other tongue. It is a con- cise language, flexible, musical, and has a rich vocab- ulary ; and its most enthusiastic defenders are men who cannot be charged with ignorance of the capa- bilities of the three leading languages of western Europe. An extensive and growing Magyar litera- ture exists, and the book-shops of Budapest teem with new productions in all fields of thought. The press of Budapest is also very active. Indeed, the Hunga- CHAP. IX. Compulsory attendance. Influence of the Magyar language. 464 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. ix. rians claim that nowhere else in Europe is journalism journalism so free, and so influential in molding opinion and and m g en V t! rn guiding affairs. An extraordinary number of the leading men in the municipal government and in the national parliament are or have been journalists. A Budapest writer has lately remarked that " all the men who can be regarded as distinguished and important in the field of Hungarian politics stand in close rela- tion to the press: Louis Kossuth was a journalist; Francis Deak entered upon his work of adjusting Hungarian and Austrian relations with a series of newspaper articles; and in the list of journalist statesmen stand the names of the brilliant Anton Csengery, Baron Sigismund Kemeny, Moritz Jokai, Max Falk, Louis Csernatony; in a word, the most important of the public men of Hungary are journal- ists, for even the Prime Minister Tisza himself, in his time, when leader of the opposition, cultivated public opinion through the columns of a Hungarian jour- nal." In Budapest alone there are now more than 230 different periodicals published in the Hunga- rian language, while there are at least forty in the German tongue. And there are a dozen important daily papers. The musical and artistic activity of Budapest is very considerable, and it also has received great im- petus from the causes which have led to the recent expansion of all interests in the Magyar capital. The government maintains a National Theater that has a^mrafci- played an important part in the patriotic and intel- pai theaters. ] ec tual life of the people, encouraging poetic and lit- erary activity, and upholding the national speech. Even more successful, if possible, in these respects is the Volks Theater, which, supported by the municipal government and conducted upon the most popular plan, fills a prominent place in the life of the commu- BUDAPEST, A NEW METROPOLIS 465 Historical nity. The most imposing structure devoted to musical CHAP. ix. and dramatic art is the new Royal Opera, supported Royal opera. by the government, in the Andrassy-strasse. It is one of the two or three finest opera-houses in Europe, its magnificence hardly coming short of those in Vienna and Paris. If Budapest were possessed of no other attractions whatsoever, its remarkable hot springs and mineral waters, unequaled for the variety of their curative properties by any other group of medicinal springs in the entire world, should give the place great fame. Its warm spring baths are very ancient. The Romans utilized them, and they called Buda "Aquincum" (Five-waters), with reference to the five springs that were known and used. The Huns also prized the healing waters ; and finally the Turks, during their period of domination, built great public baths, and regarded the waters as possessed of the highest virtue. Some of these baths now belong to the municipality and others are private property. For the most part they lie on the Buda side of the river. Especially noted are the " Kaiser-bad," the " Lucas-bad/' and the " Konigs-bad," belonging to the Josephsberg group, and lying at the base of that conspicuous eminence. To the same group belong the baths of the Marga- reta Island. Comfortable hotels adjoin these springs, and the bathing establishments for the most part are commodious and even luxurious. A more beautiful health-resort than the "Margareten-Insel"can be found nowhere. Another group includes the " Raitzen-bad," the "Bruck-bad," and the "Blocks-bad," lying a little distance further down the river and in the vicinity of the Blocksberg promontory. On the other side of the city, in the Stadtwaldchen Park, the municipal authorities have a hot-sulphur-bath establishment, supplied with water by an artesian well nearly three baths " so 466 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUEOPE CHAP. IX. The bitter- water springs. Prospective municipal revenue from baths, etc. thousand feet deep. The saline constituents of these various sources are different, and some of the springs are recommended for one class of diseases, and some for another. The waters are used either externally, internally, or both, according to the case to be treated. There are in use some interesting old remains of Turkish bath-house architecture, notably one belong- ing to the municipality, the "Rudas-bad." The modern buildings are not magnificent, but* they are handsome and comfortable. On the edge of Buda, in a little plain surrounded by high hills, are the well-known " bitter-water " springs which have made the name of Hungary more famous perhaps than any other article of export. These curative mineral waters are bottled in vast quantities and sent to all parts of the world. The " Hunyadi " water, the " Franz-Joseph," the " Konigs- bitter-wasser," and the " Rakoczy," are the best-known of these potent Budapest waters. It would be super- fluous to discuss here their remedial qualities. But the baths, springs, and wells I have named, with various others in the immediate vicinity, constitute a marvel- ous endowment bestowed by nature upon this beauti- ful city, and beyond all doubt will be a source of very great wealth and fame in the future. As at Bath in England, these healing waters of Budapest may be- come at some time a property yielding a direct and large municipal revenue. They are already prized as a municipal asset of large prospective value. They also begin to bear a definite relation to the labors of the public health department and of the hospital and medical relief services, while enabling the city to give its citizens virtually without cost the luxury and benefit of a wonderful variety of public baths. Enough has been said, perhaps, to show that Buda- pest has become in recent years one of the best- BUDAPEST, A NEW METROPOLIS 467 appointed of modern cities. Its streets are handsome CHAP. ix. and clean, asphalt being the prevailing material of the new pavements ; its drainage is good ; its health-system is producing beneficent results ; its water-supply is to be enlarged and perfected; its local transportation system is not merely adequate but exceptionally good ; its building regulations are at length producing a well-constructed and handsome city; and its provi- sions for education and recreation are highly credit- able. Its public buildings are of good architecture p^^ and of considerable variety. A splendid new build- architecture. ing has been erected for the housing of the municipal government, the offices having been heretofore dis- tributed among several city buildings. One of these, the famous " Redoute building, 7 ' is an imposing struc- ture containing a vast public hall for balls and enter- tainments, the ground floor being used as a fashionable restaurant and cafe. Of such buildings as hospitals, schools, academies of art and science, the city has a most creditable supply. I have mentioned already the new Hungarian Pantheon ; and the celebrations of 1896 are also to include the opening of a palatial Museum of Art and History, a Museum of Artistic Handwork, and a new Palace of Justice, as well as the new Parliament buildings (which have cost 16,000,000 florins), and a permanent Exhibition Hall. Thus the Danube Valley has at length begun to show development under the magic of modern politi- cal, social, and industrial forces; and its progress progress in within the coming half -century bids fair to exceed that of some newer regions of the Western world. Budapest proposes to wrest from Vienna the commer- cial ascendency of the lower Danube valley ; and it is possible that there may be in store for it a very bril- liant political future as the capital of a Danubian confederation that shall include Hungary and the 468 MUNICIPAL GOVEENMENT IN EUROPE CHAP. ix. smaller states of the Southeast. That this is the ambition of many Hungarians is perfectl}' well known; and Hungary is preparing to play an uuprecedentedly important role in the political life of Europe. But whatever may be the political future of the Austro- Hungarian empire and of the Balkan peninsula, it is now certain enough that Budapest is to take and Budapest's hold its place among the great cities of the civilized place and influence, world. Moreover, the example of Budapest is des- tined to quicken municipal progress in Sofia, Belgrade, Bucharest, Athens, and Odessa, and even in Constan- tinople itself. The early decades of the twentieth century will witness wonderful transformations in these and in other towns of southeastern Europe. APPENDICES 30* APPENDIX I THE BUDGET OF PARIS (AS INTRODUCED FOR THE YEAR 1894, CONDENSED.) ORDINARY RECEIPTS. FRANCS. The Commune's levy of addi- tional centimes, the dog tax, and certain other special impositions 32,692,100 Certain payments from the State of interest on funds in the Treasury, etc., etc.. 5,962,300 Octroi 149,259,548 Feesf or registration of births, marriages, etc., etc 250,000 The public markets 8,030,825 Public scales 300,000 Abattoirs 3,420,000 Entrepots 3,086,400 Income from municipal prop- erty... 1,982,400 Taxes on funerals 913,010 Concessions, ground in ceme- teries 2,334,365 Legacies and gifts for public charity 31,428 Concessions on streets and in public parks 3,430,960 Public vehicles (cabs, street- cars, omnibuses, etc.) 5,994,200 Sewer taxes 900,000 Sale of old materials by pub- lic works department 329,700 Individual payments for part cost of paving and various public improvements 4,315,186 Appropriations from State and Department of the Seine toward maintenance of streets 4,400,000 Special street-cleaning and scavenging tax 3,120,000 Aggregate payments from Paris Gas Company 16,500,000 Receipts from waterworks. .. 15,666,550 Operations of the vidangeurs (night-soil companies), etc. 3,201,300 Various receipts in connec- tion with the educational institutions 4,671,573 Contribution of State to ex- penses of municipal police. 10,489,950 Miscellaneous receipts 2,781,325 New resources to be created. 6,793,200 Total Ordinary Receipts. 290, 856, 320 471 ORDINARY EXPENDITURES. FRANCS. Municipal debt, interest and amortisement 110,900,528 Sums due the State, for col- lection of taxes, etc 6,371,200 Administration of the octroi. 9,190,160 General administrative ex- penses 9,617,564 Retirement pensions, etc 1,333,431 Expenses of the arrondisse- ment mairies 872,600 Cost of management of city property, markets, etc 1,496,956 Inhumations 1,356,870 Military affairs and services of protection 923,135 " Garde republicaine " 2,658,800 Public works department, sal- aries, etc 4,755,335 Architecture and fine arts . . . 4,446,690 "Voirie" 1,554,465 Street system 24,397,360 Parks, public lighting, etc. . . 12,322,645 Waterworks and sewer de- partment 8,556,080 College Rollin and subven- tions to higher instruction . 1,542,790 Public school system 25,892,113 Public charity of all kinds. . . 26,848,940 Miscellaneous outlays 429,484 Prefecture of police 29,520,330 Fire department 2,611,400 Municipal laboratory 371,550 Commission to examine ca- pacity of " cochers " 27,500 Reserve funds 1,058,393 Special reserve " non-dispon- ible " 1,800,000 Total of Ordinary Ex- penses 290,856,320 APPENDIX II CONDENSED BUDGET (STADTHAUSHALT) OF BERLIN DEPARTMENTS. 1891-'92. 1892-'93. INCOME. In marks. OUTGO. In marks. INCOME. In marks. OUTGO. In marks. I. KAMMEBEI-VEBWALTUNG, Comprising rentals of real estate owned by the city, etc. 866,217 5,186,279 465,450 2,254,320 368,838 12,320,370 5,537,061 320,020 18,491,936 550,941 12,122,610 2,052,126 1,469,250 959,032 472 155,903 838,754 4,607,276 465,450 2,405,065 330,065 12,740,371 5,821,205 396,388 16,151,882 558,105 12,331,233 2,066,357 1,038,052 988,036 155,082 II. DEPAKTMENT OF MUNICIPAL WORKS, 1. (a) Net surplus earnings (b) Income from accumu- lated gas-works reserve 2. Waterworks, net surplus profits 3. Sewer-works, net deficit of department 4. Central cattle-market, net 2,382,379 2,526,765 III. TAX DEPABTMENT, 1. Bent tax I 29,249 2,780 338,731 I 21,754 6,657 295,592 2. House tax 3. Dog tax 4. Municipal income tax 5. Malt tax IV. CAPITAL AND DEBT DEPABT- MENT, Total receipts and outgoes on account of various de- partments of public works. V. EDUCATIONAL DEPABTMENT, Common schools, higher in- struction, etc 13,857,349 13,136,712 8,415,319 4,137,841 14,267,265 13,644,849 8,774,517 4,495,468 VI. POOR-BELIEF DEPARTMENT, Aggregate accounts of all forms of charitable aid . . . VII. HEALTH AND HOSPITAL DE- PARTMENT, Various institutions and agencies -. APPENDIX II. BUDGET OF BERLIN 473 1891-'92. 1892-93. DEPARTMENTS. INCOME, OUTGO. INCOME. OUTGO. In marks In marks. In marks. In marks. VIIL PARK AND GABDEN DE- PABTMENT, Total of ordinary items 21,324 519,019 44,220 864,394 Establishment of Victoria Park 2,500,000 2,194,275 IX. BUILDING DEPARTMENT, 1. Administration, repair, and construction of muni- cipal buildings 3,007,813 6,326,341 2,607,189 6,145,027 2. Street and bridge work. . 5,572,906 13,919,527 7,477,473 14,328,596 X. COSTS OF ADMINISTRATION, Various fees and salaries of 758,498 6,751,381 972,242 7,175,611 XI. POLICE ADMINISTRATION. Including municipal night- watch, and fire department. 569,163 3,290,154 584,398 3,331,669 XII. LIGHTING, CLEANING, AND SPRINKLING OF STREETS . 127,545 2,283,976 164,121 2,915,452 XIII. VARIOUS RECEIPTS AND EX- PENSES 8,930,152 3,695,385 11,391,251 1,030,681 GENERAL TOTAL 84,471,095 81,436,322 84,007,960 79,979,379 GROSS REVENUES AND EXPENDI- TURES. The above accounts include only the net balances of gain or loss for the eight departments that have their own distinct treasuries. These are (1) the Gas-works, (2) Water- works, (3) Sewers and sewage farms, (4) Cattle-markets, (5) Abat- toirs, (6, 7, and 8) various market establishments. Total incomes and outgoes of these special treasuries 65,538,524 54,204,087 61,403,640 51,231,433 Operations of the Central Munici- pal Treasury, as shown above . . 84,471,095 81,436,322 84,007,960 79,979,379 Total .. 138.491.518 124.122.308 133.864,592 119,663,804 APPENDIX III. THE FRENCH MUNICIPAL CODE. CHIEF PROVISIONS OF THE LAW OF APEIL 5, 1884, ON MUNICIPAL ORGANIZATION. TITLE I. THE COMMUNES. ART. 1. The municipal corps of each commune is composed of the mu- nicipal council, the mayor, and one or more adjuncts. ART. 2. A change in the name of a commune is effected by order of the President of the Republic on demand of the municipal council, the council- general and the Council of State consenting. ART. 5. A new commune cannot be erected except by virtue of a law, upon the advice of the council-general, the Council of State consenting. TITLE H. THE MUNICIPAL COUNCILS. CHAPTER I. FORMATION OP THE MUNICIPAL COUNCILS. ART. 10. The municipal council is composed of 10 members in communes of 500 inhabitants or less ; of 12 in those of 501 to 1,500 inhabitants ; 16 " 1,501 to 2,500 " 21 " 2,501 to 3,500 " 23 " 3,501 to 10,000 " 27 " 10,001 to 30,000 " 30 " 30,001 to 40,000 " 32 " 40,001 to 50,000 " 34 " 50,001 to 60,000 " 36 " 60,001 or more. In towns divided into several mayoralties [Paris and Lyons] the number of councilors will be increased by three for each mayoralty. ART. 11. The election of members of the municipal council is by a gen- eral ticket (scrutin de liste) for the entire commune. Nevertheless, the commune may be divided into electoral sections, each of which will elect a number of councilors- proportioned to the number of registered electors, but only in the two following cases : (1) When it is composed of several distinct and separate groups of inhab- itants; in this case, no district may have less than two councilors; (2) When the total population of the commune is more than 10,000 in- 474 APPENDIX HI. THE FRENCH MUNICIPAL CODE 475 habitants. In this case, a section cannot be composed of parts of territory belonging to different cantons or municipal arrondissements. Parts of ter- ritory having their own property (des biens propres) cannot be divided be- tween different electoral districts. No one of these sections may have less than four councilors. In every case where the division into sections is authorized, each must be composed of contiguous territory. ART. 13. The prefect may, by a special order published at least ten days in advance, divide the commune into a number of voting precincts which will concur in the election of the same councilors. An electoral ticket will be delivered to each elector ; this ticket will indi- cate the location of the polls at which he is to vote. ART. 14. The municipal councilors are elected by direct universal suffrage. All French citizens of the age of twenty-one years and upwards, not com- jig within any case of incapacity provided for by law, are electors. The electoral lists include : (1) all electors who have their real domicile in the commune and have lived there for at least six months ; (2) those who have been entered on the list for one of the four direct taxes or on the list for the road duty (prestations en nature), and, if they do not reside in the com- mune, have declared their intention of exercising their electoral rights there. The members of the families of the electors comprised under the head of the prestation en nature, even though they are not personally included, and the inhabitants who, by reason of their age or their health, have ceased to be subject to this duty, are also registered by the terms of this paragraph; (3) those who by virtue of article 2 of the treaty of May 10, 1871, have chosen French nationality and declared their residence to be fixed in the commune, in conformity with the law of June 19, 1871 ; (4) those who are subject to an obligatory residence in the commune in the capacity either of ministers of religious bodies recognized by the State, or of public officials. Citizens who, not fulfilling the conditions of age and residence above in- dicated at the time of the making of the lists fulfil them before the final closure, are likewise registered. Absence from the commune resulting from military service will not in- volve any prejudice to the rules above set forth for registration on the' electoral lists. ART. 15. The assembly of electors is convened by order of the prefect. The order of convocation is published, in the commune, at least fifteen days before the election, which must always take place on Sunday. It fixes the place where the balloting will take place, as well as the hours at which it is to oe begun and concluded. ART. 16. When there is occasion to elect successors of municipal coun- cilors elected by sections, in conformity with article 11 of this law, these elections will be held by the sections to which the councilors belong. ART. 17. The polls are presided over by the mayor, the adjuncts, the municipal councilors in the order of the list, and, in case they are pre- vented, by electors designated by the mayor. 476 MUNICIPAL GOVEKNMENT IN EUEOPE AKT. 18. The president alone has police authority over the assembly. This assembly cannot consider other matters than the election which is as- signed to it. All discussion and all deliberation are forbidden. ART. 20. The balloting continues only one day. AKT. 30. No one is elected on the first ballot unless he has received : (1) an absolute majority of the votes cast; (2) a number of votes equal to one fourth the number of registered electors. On the second ballot, the elec- tion is by relative majority, whatever the number of voters. If different candidates obtain the same number of votes the oldest is declared elected. In the case of a second ballot the assembly is convened bylaw on the following Sunday. The mayor makes the necessary announcements. ART. 31. All the electors of the commune and the citizens entered on the list for direct taxes, or proving that they should be so entered on the first of January of the year of election, of the age of twenty-five years and up- wards, are eligible to the municipal council, subject to the restrictions ex- pressed in the last paragraph of this article, and in the two following ar- ticles. However, the number of councilors who do not reside in the commune at the time of election must not exceed one fourth of the members of the council. If it exceeds this number, the preference is determined according to the rules laid down in article 49. i Soldiers and employees of the land and sea armies in active service are not eligible. ART. 32. The following cannot be municipal councilors : (1) Persons deprived of the electoral right ; (2) Those who are provided for by a judicial council (conseil judiciaire) ; , (3) Those who are exempted from contributing to the communal taxes and those who are aided by the bureaus of beneficence ; (4) Domestics attached exclusively to the person. . ART. 33. The following are not eligible in the jurisdiction in which they perform their functions : (1) The prefects, sub-prefects, secretaries general, and councilors of the prefecture ; and, in the colonies governed by this law, the governors, di- rectors of the interior, and members of the privy council; (2) The commissaries of police and police officers ; (3) Magistrates of courts of appeal and of tribunals of first instance, with the exception of , substitute judges to whom examination (Vinstructiori) is jiot entrusted; . (4) The incumbent justices of the peace ; (5) The accountants of the communal funds and the contractors for municipal services; (6) The public school teachers ; ((7) The employees of the prefecture and of the sub-prefecture ; (8) The engineers and conductors of bridges and embankments (chausstes') charged with service on the city and parish roads (voirie urbaine et vidnale), .and jthe ^overseers of roads ; APPENDIX HI. THE FRENCH MUNICIPAL CODE 477 (9) Ministers in the exercise of a legally recognized form of worship ; (10) Salaried agents of the commune, among whom are not included those who, being public functionaries or exercising an independent profession, receive pay from the commune only by reason of the services which they render in the practice of their profession. ART. 34. The functions of municipal councilor are incompatible with those : (1) Of prefect, sub-prefect, and secretary general of a prefecture ; (2) Of commissary of police and police officer; (3) Of governor, director of the interior, and member of the privy council in the colonies. The officials named in this article who are elected members of a municipal council will have ten days' time, beginning with the proclamation of the result of the ballot, in which to choose between the acceptance of the man- date and continuance in office. In default of a declaration addressed within this time to their superior officers, they will be considered to have chosen to continue in office. ART. 35. No one can be a member of more than one municipal council. Ten days' time, counting from the proclamation of the result of the bal- lot, is allowed to a municipal councilor chosen in more than one commune in which to make his declaration of choice. This declaration is addressed to the prefects of the departments interested. If, within this time, the councilor-elect has not made known his choice, he is assigned by law to the council of the commune in which the number of electors is the least. In communes of 501 inhabitants or more, ancestors and descendants, brothers, and marriage relations of the same degree, cannot be simultane- ously members of the same municipal council. Article 49 is applicable to the case covered by the preceding paragraph. ART. 41. The municipal councils are elected for four years. They are renewed in their entirety, on the first Sunday in May, throughout France, even when they have been elected in the interval. ART. 42. When the municipal council is found to be reduced by unex- pected vacancies to three fourths of its members, complementary elections are held within the period of two months, counting from the last vacancy. However, in the six months preceding the entire renewal, the comple- mentary elections are not obligatory except where the municipal council has lost more than half its members. In the communes which are divided into districts, partial elections are always held when a district has lost half its councilors. ART. 43. A municipal council can be dissolved only by a decree issued by the President of the Republic in the council of ministers and published in the Journal officiel, and, in the colonies governed by this law, by order of the governor in privy council, inserted in the official journal of the colony. In case of urgency, it may be provisionally suspended by an order issued by the prefect, who must immediately report to the Minister of the Interior. 478 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE The duration of the suspension cannot exceed one month. In the colonies above specified, the municipal council may be suspended by an order issued by the governor. The duration of the suspension cannot exceed one month. ART. 44. In case of the dissolution of a municipal council or the resigna- tion of all its actual members and when no municipal council can be created, a special delegation performs its functions. In the eight days following the dissolution or the acceptance of the res- ignation, this special delegation is appointed by decree of the President of the Republic, and, in the colonies, by order of the governor. The number of members composing it is fixed at three in communes where the population does not exceed 35,000 inhabitants. The number may be increased to seven in towns of a greater population. CHAPTER II. FUNCTIONS OF THE MUNICIPAL COUNCILS. ART. 46. The municipal councils meet in ordinary session four times a year : in February, May, August, and November. The length of each session is fifteen days ; it may be prolonged by the authorization of the sub-prefect. The session during which the budget is discussed may last six weeks. During the ordinary sessions the municipal council may consider any matter which comes within its powers. ART. 47. The prefect or the sub-prefect may order an extraordinary con- vocation of the municipal council. The mayor also may call the municipal council together whenever he considers it necessary. He is bound to con- vene it when requested so to do by a majority of the municipal council. In either case, at the time when he summons the council, he gives notice to the prefect or the sub-prefect of the meeting and the reasons which render it necessary. The order of convocation contains a statement of the special and stated objects for which the council is to assemble, and the council may consider only these matters. ART. 48. Every order of convocation is issued by the mayor. It is men- tioned on the record of proceedings, posted on the door of the mayoralty and addressed in writing to the residences, three days at least before the day of the meeting. In case of urgency, the delay may be shortened by the prefect or the sub-prefect. ART. 49. The municipal councilors rank in the order of the list. The order of the list is determined, even when there are electoral dis- tricts : (1) by the date of the first election ; (2) between councilors elected the same day, by the greatest number of votes obtained ; (3) and, in case of equality of votes, by priority of age. ART 50. The municipal council may deliberate only when a majority of its members exercising their functions are present at the meeting. When, after two successive convocations, duly issued with an interval of APPENDIX HI. THE FEENCH MUNICIPAL CODE 479 at least three days, the municipal council is not assembled in sufficient number, the proceedings held in accordance with the third convocation are valid, whatever the number of members present. AKT. 51. Questions are decided by an absolute majority of those voting. In case of a tie, except in the case of a secret ballot, the vote of the presi- dent is decisive. The vote is taken publicly on demand of one fourth of the members present ; the names of the voters, with their votes, are entered upon the record. The voting is by secret ballot whenever one third of the members present request it, or in the case of an election or nomination. In the latter case, after two secret ballots, if none of the candidates has obtained an absolute majority, a third ballot is taken, and the election is decided by relative majority ; in case of a tie, the oldest is declared elected. ART. 52. The mayor, or, in his default, his substitute, presides over the municipal council. In the sessions in which the official statements of the mayor are debated, the municipal council elects its president. In this case, the mayor may, even though he is no longer in office, take part in the discussion ; but he must retire at the time of the vote. The president reports the proceedings directly to the sub-prefect. ART. 53. At the beginning of each session the municipal council appoints one or more of its members to perform the functions of secretary during its continuance. ART. 54. The sessions of the municipal councils are public. Never- theless, on demand of three members or of the mayor, the municipal coun- cil, by a rising vote without debate, decides whether it will resolve itself into a secret committee. ART. 59. The municipal council may appoint, in the course of each ses- sion, committees charged with studying questions submitted to the council either by the administration or by the initiative of one of its members. The committees may hold their meetings in the interval between the sessions. They are convened by the mayor, who is their president by law, within the eight days following their appointment, or in a shorter time on a demand of a majority of the members composing them. In this first meeting, the committees appoint a vice-president who may convene and preside over them, if the mayor is absent or prevented from acting. ART. 60. Every member of the municipal council who, without reasons recognized as legitimate by the council, has missed three successive sessions, may, after having been permitted to make his excuses, be declared by the prefect to have resigned, subject to appeal within ten days of the notifica- tion to the council of the prefecture. CHAPTER III. POWERS OP THE MUNICIPAL COUNCILS. ART. 61. The municipal council regulates by its deliberations the affairs of the commune. 480 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE It gives its advice whenever such advice is required by the laws and reg- ulations, or when it is demanded by the superior administration. It protests, if there is occasion, against the quota assigned to the com- mune in the levying of the apportioned taxes. It votes on all subjects of local interest. It makes out each year a list containing a number double that of the as- sessors and substitute assessors to be appointed ; and from this list the sub- prefect appoints the five assessors required by article nine of the law of 3 frimaire an VII, and the five substitute assessors. ART. 63. The following are null by law : (1) Proceedings of a municipal council bearing upon a subject foreign to its powers or carried on outside of its legal meeting. (2) Proceedings in violation of a law or a regulation of public adminis- tration. ART. 68. Proceedings bearing upon the following subjects take effect only after having been approved by the superior authority : (1) The conditions of leases the duration of which exceeds eighteen years ; (2) The alienation and exchange of communal property ; (3) The acquisition of immovables ; new buildings; the entire or partial reconstruction of buildings ; the projects, plans and estimates of important repairs and of maintenance, when the expense, added to the expenses of the same nature during the current fiscal year, exceeds the limits of the or- dinary and extraordinary resources which the communes may raise without special authorization ; (4) Contracts; (5) A change in the use of communal property already devoted to a pub- lic service ; (6) Waste pasture land ; (7) The classification, reclassification, straightening or lengthening, the enlargement, abolition and naming of streets and public places, the crea- tion and abolition of walks, squares or public gardens, market places, shooting places, or race courses, the establishment of plans for the laying out and leveling of the municipal public ways, modifications of the plans of construction adopted, the tariff of highway duties (droits de voirie), the tariff of fees for stands and locations on any part of the main public high- ways, and, in general, tariffs of the various dues to be collected for the profit of the communes by virtue of Art. 133 of this law ; (8) The acceptance of gifts and legacies made to the commune when there are charges or conditions or when they give way to the demands of the families ; (9) The communal budget; (10) The supplementary credits ; (11) Extraordinary contributions and loans, except in the case provided for by Art. 141 of this law; (12) The octrois, in the cases provided for by Art. 137 and 138 of this law ; APPENDIX III. THE FBENCH MUNICIPAL CODE 481 (13) The establishment, the abolition or the removal of fairs and markets other than the simple markets of supply. ART. 70. The municipal council is always asked to give its advice on the following matters : (1) Regulations relative to public worship ; (2) Regulations relative to the distribution of public aid ; (3) Projects for the laying out and leveling of the main thoroughfares in the interior of cities, towns, and villages ; (4) The creation of bureaus of beneficence (bureaux de bienfaisance) ; (5) The budgets and accounts of hospitals, alms-houses, and other chari- table and benevolent establishments, and of vestries and other managing boards of religious bodies whose ministers are salaried by the State ; au- thorizations to acquire, alienate, borrow, exchange, sue or compromise (transiger), requested by the same establishments; the acceptance of gifts and legacies which are made to them ; (6) In short, all matters on which the municipal councils are required by the laws and regulations to give their advice, and those on which they are consulted by the prefect. When the municipal council, regularly summoned and convened for the purpose, refuses or neglects to give its advice, the matter may be decided without it. ART. 71. The municipal council considers the official reports which are annually submitted to it by the mayor, in conformity with Art. 151 of this law. It hears, debates and acts upon the accounts of the receivers, subject to final disposition, in conformity with Art. 157 of this law. TITLE III. THE MAYORS AND THE ADJUNCTS. ART. 73. There are in each commune a mayor and one or more adjuncts elected from among the members of the municipal council. The number of adjuncts is one in communes of 2,500 inhabitants or less, and two in those of 2,501 to 10,000. In communes of a greater population, there will be one additional adjunct for every additional 25,000 inhabitants, but the number of adjuncts will not exceed twelve except in the city of Lyons, where the number is fixed at seventeen. The city of Lyons continues to be divided into six municipal arrondisse- ments. The mayor specially delegates two of his adjuncts to each of the arrondissements. They are charged with keeping the civil registers (regis- tres de I'etat civile) and with the other duties fixed by the regulation of the public administration of June 11, 1881, made in execution of the law of April 21, 1881. ART. 74. The functions of the mayors, adjuncts, and municipal council- ors are performed gratuitously. They are entitled only to reimbursement for the expenses which the execution of special mandates (mandate speciaux) makes necessary. The municipal councils may vote to reimburse the 31 482 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUEOPE mayor for the expenses of representation out of the ordinary resources of the commune. ART. 76. The municipal council elects the mayor and the adjuncts from among its own members, by secret ballot and by absolute majority. If, after two ballots, no candidate has obtained an absolute majority, a third ballot is taken and the election is decided by relative majority. In .case of a tie, the older is declared elected. ART. 77. The meeting in which an election for mayor is held is presided over by the oldest member of the municipal council. For every election of a mayor or adjuncts, the members of the municipal council are convened according to the forms and delays prescribed by Art. 48; the order of convocation contains special mention of the election which is to be held. Before this convocation, there will be held any elections which may be necessary to complete the municipal council. If, after the complementary elections, new vacancies occur, the municipal council will proceed never- theless to the election of the mayor and the adjuncts, unless it is reduced to three-fourths of its members. In that case, recourse will be had to new complementary elections. They will be held in the course of one month, dating from the last vacancy. ART. 78. The results of the election are made public within twenty-four hours, by means of a placard on the door of the mayoralty-house. They are, within the same length of time, reported to the sub-prefect. The agents and employees of the financial administrations, paymasters general, special receivers, and collectors, agents of the forests, those of the post and telegraph, and the guards of public and private (particulier) es- tablishments, cannot be mayors or adjuncts or perform their functions even temporarily. The salaried agents of the mayor cannot be adjuncts. AKT. 81. The mayor and adjuncts are elected for the same term as the municipal council. They continue in the performance of their functions, except as provided by Arts. 80, 86, and 87 of the present law, until the installation of their successors. However, in the case of entire renewal, the functions of the mayor and adjuncts are, from the installation of the new council until the election of the mayor, performed by the municipal councilors in the order of the list. ART. 82. The mayor alone is charged with administration ; but he may, under his supervision and responsibility, delegate by order a part of his functions to one or more of his adjuncts, and in the absence of the adjuncts or in case they are prevented, to members of the municipal council. These delegations remain in force until they are revoked. ART. 83. In case the interests of the mayor are found to be in opposition to those of the commune, the municipal council designates another of its members to represent the commune either in courts of law or in contracts. ART. 84. In case of absence, suspension, removal or any other hindrance, APPENDIX III. THE FRENCH MUNICIPAL CODE 483 the mayor is provisionally replaced, in all his functions, by an adjunct, in the order of appointment ; and in default of adjuncts, by a municipal coun- cilor, designated by the council or else taken in the order of the list. ART. 85. In case the mayor refuses or neglects to perform any of the acts which are prescribed for him by law, the prefect may, after having de- manded it of him, proceed to the duty in person, or by a special deputy. ART. 86. Mayors and adjuncts may be suspended by order of the pre- fect for a time which shall not exceed one month, and which may be ex- tended to three months by the Minister of the Interior. They cannot be removed except by order of the President of the Republic. Removal involves, by virtue of law, ineligibility to the functions of mayor and those of adjuncts, during one year from the date of the order of removal, unless a general renewal of the municipal council takes place in the mean time. ART. 87. In the case provided for and regulated by Art. 44, the president and, in his default, the vice-president of the special delegation performs the functions of the mayor. His powers come to an end at the installation of a new council. ART. 88. The mayor appoints to all the communal offices (emplois) for which the laws, decrees, orders and ordinances in force at the time do not fix a special law of appointment. He suspends and dismisses the incumbents of these offices. He may cause the agents appointed by him to be sworn and commis- sioned, but on condition that they are approved by the prefect or sub-prefect. ART. 89. When the mayor proceeds to a public adjudication on account of the commune, he is assisted by two members of the municipal council de- signated in advance by the council, or, in default of this designation, named in the order of the list. ART. 90. It is the duty of the mayor, under the control of the municipal council and the supervision of the superior administration : (1) To preserve and administer the property of the commune, and to per- form, in consequence, all acts conservative of its rights ; (2) To manage the revenues, to supervise the communal establishments and the communal accounts ; (3) To prepare and propose the budget and order the payment of ex- penses ; (4) To direct the communal works ; (5) To make provision for measures relating to the municipal highways ; (6) To sign agreements, to make leases of property and contracts for com- munal work, in the manner established by the laws and regulations and by Arts. 68 and 69 of this law. (7) To make in the same manner, deeds of sale, exchange, partition, ac- ceptance of gifts or legacies, acquisition, or bargain, when these acts have been authorized in conformity with this law ; (8) To represent the commune in courts of law, either as plaintiff or as defendant ; 484 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE And, in general, to execute the will of the municipal council. ART. 91. The mayor is charged, under the supervision of the superior ad- ministration, with municipal and rural police authority, and the execution of orders of the superior authority relative thereto. ART. 92. The mayor is charged, under the authority of the superior admin- istration : (1) With the publication and execution of the laws and regulations; (2) With the execution of measures of general safety ; (3) With the special functions which are assigned to him by law. ART. 94. The mayor issues orders for the purpose : (1) Of ordering local measures on the matters entrusted by law to his vigilance and his authority ; (2) Of publishing the laws and police regulations and calling the attention of the citizens thereto. ART. 95. The orders issued by the mayor are dispatched immediately to the sub-prefect, or, in the arrondissement of the chief town of the depart- ment, to the prefect. The prefect may annul them or suspend their execution. Those orders which contain permanent regulations do not take effect until one month after the sending back of the duplicate authenticated by receipts given by the sub-prefect or the prefect. Nevertheless, in case of urgency, the prefect may authorize immediate execution. ART. 97. The municipal police authority has for its object the public order, safety and health. It includes especially : (1) Whatever concerns the safety and convenience of passage on the pub- lic streets, wharves, places and ways, which includes cleaning, clearing, the removal of obstructions, the destruction or repair of dangerous build- ings, prohibiting the exposure of anything on window-sills, or other parts of buildings which might cause any injury by falling, or the throwing of any- thing which might injure passers-by, or cause noxious exhalations ; (2) The duty of suppressing violations of public quiet, such as quarrels and disputes accompanied by disorder in the streets, tumults in places of public assembly, mobs, nocturnal disturbances and gatherings which dis- turb the sleep of the people, and all acts of a nature prejudicial to the pub- lic tranquillity ; (3) The maintenance of order in places where there are great assemblages of people, such as the fairs, markets, public rejoicings and ceremonies, spec- tacles, plays, cafe's, churches and other public places ; (4) The mode of conveyance of dead persons, burials and exhumations, the maintenance of order and decency in the cemeteries ; but it is permis- sible to make distinctions or particular rules by reason of the belief or the religion of the deceased or the circumstances which accompanied his death ; (5) Inspection as to honesty in the sale of goods sold by weight or mea- sure, and as to the wholesomeness of eatables exposed for sale ; APPENDIX IIL THE FRENCH MUNICIPAL CODE 485 (6) The duty of preventing, by suitable precautions, and of stopping, by the distribution of necessary assistance, accidents and calamities, such as fires, floods, epidemic or contagious diseases and distempers, if necessary calling for the intervention of the superior administration; (7) The duty of provisionally taking any necessary measures against lu- natics whose condition might compromise the public morality, the security of persons or the preservation of property ; (8) The duty of preventing or remedying untoward occurrences which might be occasioned by the straying of harmful or ferocious animals. ART. 98. The mayor has police authority over the national and depart- mental routes, and over the interior ways of communication, but only in matters concerning traffic in the said ways. He may, on the payment of fees fixed by a tariff duly established, subject to the reservations stated in Art. 7 of the law of 11 frimaire an VII, give permits for stands or temporary stations on the public ways, on the rivers, ports and wharves, and in other public places. Individual alignments, building permits, and other street permissions are given by the competent authority after the mayor has given his advice, whenever he is not competent to give them himself. Privileges in the public streets by precarious title or essentially revocable, the granting of which is included in the powers of the mayor, and having for their object especially the laying in public soil of pipes for the passage or conveyance either of water or of gas, may, in case of a refusal of the mayor not justified by the general interest, be accorded by the prefect. ART. 99. The powers which pertain to the mayor, in virtue of Art. 91, are no hindrance to the right of the prefect to take, for all of the com- munes of the department or any of them, and in all cases in which they have not been provided for by the municipal authorities, all measures rela- tive to the maintenance of the public health, safety and tranquillity. This right cannot be exercised by the prefect with respect to any com- mune until after a demand in due form of law to the mayor proves of no avail. ART. 103. In cities having more than 40,000 inhabitants the organization of the body charged with police service is regulated by a decree of the Pres- ident of the Republic, upon the advice of the municipal council. If a municipal council should not allow the funds necessary for the ex- pense or should allow only an insufficient sum, the grant necessary will be entered on the budget by a decree of the President of the Republic, the council of state consenting. In all communes, the inspectors of police, the brigadiers, under-brigadiers, and the police officers named by the mayor must be approved by the sub- prefect or the prefect. They may be suspended by the mayor, but the pre- fect alone may remove them. ART. 106. The communes are civilly responsible for injury and damage resulting from crimes or offenses committed by open force or violence in their territory by mobs or assemblies, armed or unarmed, whether to per- sons or to public or private property. 31* 4.86 MUNICIPAL GOVEENMENT IN EUEOPE The damages for which the commune is responsible are apportioned among the inhabitants resident in the said commune by means of a special list, including the lists of the four direct taxes. ART. 107. If the mobs or armed assemblies were composed of the inhabit- ants of more than one commune, each one is responsible for the injury and damage caused, in the proportion fixed by the tribunals. ART. 108. The provisions of Articles 106 and 107 are not applicable : (1) When the commune is able to prove that all measures in its power were taken for the purpose of preventing the mobs or assemblies, and of ascertaining the perpetrators ; (2) In communes where the municipality has not the disposition of the local police or the armed force ; (3) When the damages caused are the result of an act of war. ART. 109. The commune declared responsible may exercise its recourse against the perpetrators of the disorder and their accomplices. TITLE IV. THE ADMINISTKATION OF THE COMMUNES. CHAPTER I. THE COMMUNAL PROPERTY, WORKS AND ESTABLISHMENTS. ART. 110. The sale of the movable and immovable property of the com- munes other than that which is in public use may be authorized on the de- mand of any creditor, having a writ of execution, by a decree of the Presi- dent of the Republic, which fixes the manner of sale. ART 116. Two or more municipal councils, by the mediation of their presidents, and after having notified the prefects, may make an agreement between themselves on matters of communal utility comprised within their powers and which interest at the same time their respective communes. They may agree to undertake or maintain at common expense works or institutions of common utility. ART. 117. Questions of common interest are debated in a conference in which each municipal council is represented by a special commission elected for this purpose and composed of three members elected by secret ballot. The prefects and sub-prefects of the departments and arrondisse- ments in which the interested communes are situated may always take part in these conferences. The decisions which are there reached take effect only after they have been ratified by all the municipal councils inter- ested, and subject to the reservations stated in Chapter 3 of Title IV. of this law. CHAPTER II. JUDICIAL ACTIONS. ART. 121. No commune or part of a commune may appear in court to sue without being authorized by the council of the prefecture, except in the cases provided for by Articles 122 and 154 of this law. After a judgment is given the commune cannot sue before another degree of jurisdiction except by virtue of a new authorization by the council of the prefecture. APPENDIX III. THE FRENCH MUNICIPAL CODE 487 ART. 122. The mayor may always, without previous authorization, insti- tute or defend any action of possession, and perform all conservatory acts or acts interrupting forfeitures. ART. 128. When a section of a commune proposes to institute or defend a judicial action, either against the commune of which it is a part, or against another section of the same commune, a distinct syndical commis- sion is formed for the section and for each of the sections interested. ART. 129. The members of the syndical commission are chosen from among the eligibles of the commune and elected by the voters of the sec- tion who live within it and by those persons who, not being on the electoral lists, are landed proprietors in the section. ART. 131. The section which has obtained a judgment against the com- mune or another section is not liable to the charges or taxes imposed for the payment of the resulting costs and damages. The same is true of any party suing a commune or section of a commune. CHAPTER III. THE COMMUNAL BUDGET. SECTION I. RECEIPTS AND EXPENDITURES. ART. 132. The communal budget is divided into the ordinary budget and the extraordinary budget. ART. 133. The receipts of the ordinary budget consist of : (1) The income of all property of which the inhabitants do not have the enjoyment in kind [common pastures, forests, etc.] ; (2) Assessments imposed annually upon those having the right to benefits which they receive in kind ; (3) The proceeds of the ordinary and special centimes assigned to the communes by the fiscal laws ; (4) The proceeds of the portion accorded to the commune out of certain of the taxes and dues gathered on account of the State ; (5) The proceeds of the municipal octrois devoted to ordinary expenses ; (6) The proceeds of license fees collected from halls, fairs, markets, and abattoirs according to tariffs duly established ; (7) The proceeds from permits for stands and locations upon the public roads, upon the rivers, ports, and wharves, and in other public places ; (8) The proceeds of the communal tolls, the weighing, measuring and gaging fees, the highway tolls (droits de voirie), and other legally estab- lished fees : (9) The revenue from the communal lands used for purposes of burial, and of the part of the price of concessions in the cemeteries accruing to the commune; * (10) The proceeds from water concessions, concessions for the removal of mud and rubbish from the public roads, and other authorized concessions for communal services ; *Two thirds ; the remaining one third IB devoted to charity. 488 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE (11) The receipts for copies of administrative and civil acts ; (12) The portion of the products of fines imposed by the police courts (tribunaux de police correctionnelle et de simple police) which the laws assign to the communes ; (13) The proceeds of the sweeping tax in the communes of France and Algiers in which it is established, on their demand, in conformity with the provisions of the law of March 26, 1873, by virtue of a decree issued in the form of regulations of public administration ; (14) And in general the proceeds of contributions, taxes and fees the col- lection of which is authorized by law in the interest of the communes, and of all the annual and permanent resources, in Algiers and in the colonies, the collection of which is authorized by the laws and decrees. The establishment of centimes on account of insufficiency of revenues is authorized by order of the prefect when required for obligatory expenses. In other cases it is approved by decree. ART. 134. The receipts of the extraordinary budget consist of: (1) Extraordinary contributions duly authorized ; (2) The price of alienated property ; (3) Gifts and legacies; (4) Payments of exigible principal and recoverable interest ; (5) The proceeds from the extraordinary cutting of wood [from public forests] ; (6) The proceeds of loans ; (7) The proceeds of taxes or additional taxes of octroi specially devoted to extraordinary expenses and the repayment of loans ; (8) And all other accidental receipts. ART. 135. The expenditures of the ordinary budget comprise the annual and permanent expenditures of communal utility. The expenses of the extraordinary budget comprise the accidental or temporary expenditures which are paid from the receipts enumerated in Art. 134 or from the surplus of the ordinary receipts. ART. 136. The following expenditures are obligatory upon the communes : (1) The maintenance of the town hall, or, if the commune has none, the renting of a house or hall to take its place ; (2) Office expenses and the expense of printing for the service of the commune, of preservation of the communal archives and of the collection of the administrative acts of the department ; the expense of subscription to the Bulletin des communes* and, for the communes which are the chief towns of the canton, the expense of subscription to and preservation of the Bulletin des lois; (3) The expense of enumerating the population, of the electoral assem- blies which are held in the communes and of electoral tickets ; (4) The expense of civil registers and of books of registry (livrets de famille), and that part of the decennial table of civil acts (actes de V6tat civile) which is at the expense of the communes ; * The Bulletin des communes is no longer published, tout it is replaced toy the Journal offlciel, edition des communes. APPENDIX HI. THE FEENCH MUNICIPAL CODE 489 (5) The salary of the municipal receiver, and of the overseer-in-chief of the octroi ; (6) The salaries and other expenses of the municipal and rural police and of the keepers of the forests of the commune ; (7) The pensions at the expense of the commune, when they have been regularly liquidated and approved ; (8) The expense of rent and repairs of the apartments of the justice of the peace, as well as that of the purchase and maintenance of his movables in the communes which are the chief towns of the cantons ; (9) The expense of public instruction, in conformity with law; (10) The quota of the expense of assisted children and of lunatics as- signed to the commune in conformity with law ; (11) Payment for the lodgings of vicars, curates, and other ministers of public worship salaried by the State, when there is no building set apart for their residence, and when the vestry boards or other managing boards of the religious bodies are not able themselves to provide for the payment of this expense; (12) Heavy repairs of communal buildings, with the exception, when they are dedicated to worship, of the previous application of revenues and re- sources which may be expended by the vestry boards for these repairs, and subject to the execution of special laws concerning buildings devoted to military service. If there is disagreement between the vestry-board and the commune, when the financial assistance of the latter is asked by the vestry-board in the cases provided for in paragraphs 11 and 12, it is decided by decree upon the statements of the ministers of the interior and the ministers of worship ; (13) The closure of cemeteries, their maintenance and their removal in the cases determined by the laws and regulations of public administration ; (14) The expense of preparing and preserving the plans of laying out and leveling streets ; (15) The expense of the councils of prudTiommes, for the communes; comprised within the territory of their jurisdiction, in proportion to the number of electors registered on the special electoral lists at their election ; the inconsiderable expense of consulting chambers of arts and manufac- tures for the communes where they exist ; (16) The assessments and taxes established by law on the communal property and revenues ; (17) The payment of exigible debts ; (18) The expenses of the local roads (chemins vicinaux), within the limits fixed by law; (19) In the colonies governed by this law, the salaries of the secretary and employees of the mayoralty ; the taxes assessed on the communal prop- erty ; the expenses for the service of the militia which are not at the ex- pense of the treasury ; (20) The expenses occasioned by the application of Art. 85 of this law, and in general all the expenses assigned to the communes by provision of law. 490 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE ART. 137. The establishment of octroi taxes voted by the municipal coun- cil, and the regulations relative to their collection, are authorized by decree of the President of the Republic in the Council of State, with the advice of the council general or of the departmental commission in the interval be- tween the sessions. ART. 140. The various taxes due from the inhabitants or proprietors by virtue of laws and local usages are levied by vote of the municipal council approved by the prefect. These taxes are collected according to the forms established for the col- lection of public taxes. ART. 141. Municipal councils may vote, within the limit of the maximum fixed each year by the council-general, extraordinary contributions not ex- ceeding five centimes for five years, to apply the proceeds to extraordinary expenses of communal utility. They may also vote three centimes extraordinaires to be applied exclusively to the ordinary local roads (chemins vicinaux), and three centimes extraordi- naires to be applied exclusively to recognized country roads (chemins ruraux). They vote and regulate the communal loans payable from the centimes ex- traordinaires voted as provided in the first paragraph of this article, or from the ordinary resources, when the liquidation, in this latter case, is within thirty years. ART. 142. The municipal councils vote, subject to the approval of the prefect : (1) Extraordinary contributions which exceed five centimes, without ex- ceeding the maximum fixed by the council-general, the duration of which, exceeding five years, is not more than thirty years ; (2) Loans payable from the same extraordinary contributions or from the ordinary revenues in a period exceeding, in this latter case, thirty years. ART. 143. Any extraordinary contribution exceeding the maximum fixed by the council-general, and any loan payable, from such a contribution, is authorized by decree of the President of the Republic. If the contribution is established for a period of more than thirty years, or if the loan payable from extraordinary resources is to exceed that period, the decree is made in the Council of State. It is decided by a law if the amount of the loan exceeds a million [francs], or if, added to the amount of other loans not yet paid, it exceeds a million [francs]. ART. 144. The forests and woods of the State pay the ordinary and extra- ordinary centimes additionels devoted to the expenses of the communes in .the same proportion as private property. SECTION II. VOTE AND REGULATION OF THE BUDGET. ART. 145. The budget of each commune is proposed by the mayor, voted "by Jthe municipal council, and approved by the prefect. APPENDIX III. THE FRENCH MUNICIPAL CODE 491 When it provides for all the necessary expenses, when no extraordinary receipts are applied to the expenditures either obligatory or optional, ordi- nary or extraordinary, the allowances contained in the said budget for op- tional expenditures cannot be modified by the superior authority. The budget of a city whose revenues are at least three million francs is always submitted to the approval of the President of the Eepublic, on the proposition of the Minister of the Interior. ART. 146. The credits which are recognized as necessary after the authen- tication of the budget are voted and authorized in conformity with the pre- ceding article. ART. 147. The municipal councils may insert in the budget a sum for unforeseen expenses. The sum allowed for this purpose cannot be reduced or rejected except- ing so far as the ordinary revenues, after having satisfied all the obligatory expenditures, will not permit it to be met. ART. 148. The decree of the President of the Republic or the order of the prefect which approves the budget of the commune may reject or reduce the expenditures allowed therein, except in the cases provided for by section 2 of Art. 145 and section 2 of Art. 147 ; but it cannot increase them or introduce new expenditures except so far as they are obligatory. CHAPTER IV. THE ACCOUNTABILITY OF THE COMMUNE. ART. 152. The mayor alone may issue warrants. If he refuses to order the payment of an expenditure regularly authorized, it will be ordered by the prefect in the council of the prefecture, and the order of the prefect will take the place of the warrant of the mayor. ART. 157. The accounts of the municipal receiver are audited by the coun- cil of the prefecture subject to the appeal to Court of Accounts, for the communes whose ordinary revenues, in the last three years, do not exceed thirty thousand francs. They are audited and finally approved by the Court of Accounts for the communes whose revenue is greater. These distinctions are applicable to the accounts of the treasurers of hos- pitals and other benevolent establishments. INDEX INDEX Abattoirs, municipal, of Paris, 99, 100 ; of Hanover, 300; of Munich, 342, 343, 363; of Vienna, 431 ; of Berlin and of other German cities, 363, 366; of Hamburg, 407 ; of Budapest, 456. Adjuncts of French mayors, 173. Administration, effective, in Germany, 290, 291. Administrative laws of Prussia, 305-307. Adulterations of food-supply, Paris, 101. Aggrandizement of French towns, 191. Agricultural colonies, municipal, of Paris, 110; on Berlin sewage farms, 340 ; see also Labor Colonies of German Cities, 368. Aix-la-Chapelle, savings-banks, 372. Albany, growth of, compared with Al- tona, 295. Alcalde of Spanish towns, 245, 246. Alphand, director of Parisian works. 11, 31. Altona, growth of, compared with Al- bany and Rochester, 295; annexation of suburbs, 302 ; size of municipal coun- cil, 310; electric lighting, 348; gas sup- ply, 348 ; savings-banks, 372 ; nitration of water supply, 394; housing condi- tions, 361 ; cellar residences, 403. Allegheny, growth of, compared with German towns, 296. American cities, growth of, compared with German, 292-297. American councils, municipal, size of, compared with European, 310, 311. American councilors compared with French, 180. American county government and French cantons, 152. American mayors, compared with French, 175; compared with German burgomasters, 314. American street-paving compared with German, 298. American water-supplies and filtration, 392. Amiens, once walled, now boulevarded. 198. Amsterdam, death-rate, 233; popula- tion, 234; canals and sewers, 234; gas plant, 235; public works, 235; water- supply, 235. Annexations, to Paris area, 65, 79-82 ; to Milan, 261; to various German cities, 301, 302; to Hamburg, 383; to Vienna, 417 ; to Budapest, 442. Antwerp, street reforms, 227 ; harbor fa- cilities, 228; population, 228; death- rate, 230. Appointing power, in hands of French mayors, 175 ; in Belgian municipalities, 226 ; in Dutch towns, 239. Archeological reservation in Borne, 279. Architecture, administration of, at Paris, 133. Architecture, public, of Bordeaux, 189; of Budapest, 467; of Lille, 186; of Vi- enna, 422, 423. Area of Berlin, 301; of Bremen, 388; of Budapest, 455 ; of Cologne, 301 ; of De- partment of the Seine, 82 ; of Frank- fort, 301 ; of Hamburg, 301, 383 ; of Han- over, 302 ; of Liibeck, 389 ; of Lyons, 189 ; of Marseilles, 192 ; of Munich, 301 ; of Paris, 80, 81, 82 ; of Vienna, 433. Arnhem, population, 234. Arrondissements of France, 155,156; of Paris, 16; of Paris as neighborhood centers, 32-35 ; of Paris as administra- tive units, 34. Artesian wells in Milan, 264. Art, industrial, libraries of Paris, 127; museum of Lille, 186; schools in French towns, 201. Arts, fine, promoted by Paris, 129-131. Asphalt in Paris streets, 56-58; in Ber- lin, 298; see also under Paving and Street Systems. " Assistance publique " at Paris, 102-110 ; in French towns, 201, 202. Asylums and hospitals of Paris, 105. Athens, modernization of, xi. Augsburg, public pawn-shop, 372. Austrian municipal systems, 418. Avre aqueduct, Paris waterworks, 67. Bacteriology, municipal, vi. ; laborato- ries in German cities, 366; and Ham- burg water supply, 396-400; and the po- lice power, 406, 407. Bake-shops, inspection, Paris, 101. Balance-sheet of German cities, 377. Ballot system, French elections, 170, 171 ; in Belgium, 223, 224. Baltimore, growth of, compared with Hamburg, 293. Barcelona, progressive character, 241 ; self governing, 244 ; population, 247, 248 ; death-rate, 247; harbor, public works and water supply, 248. Barmen, growth of , compared with Amer- ican towns, 296 ; gas supply, 347 ; elec- tric lighting, 348. Baths, in Paris schools, 121; public, of Budapest, 458, 465, 466. Bavaria, electoral system, 308, 310. Beer-selling, new Hamburg sanitary rules, 406. Belgium, municipal system influenced by French, 210; medieval conditions, 210, 211 ; in period of French Revolu- tion, 211, 212; relations with Holland, 212, 213 ; constitution of 1830. 214, 215 ; provinces, how administered, 215, 216 ; electoral system, 216-224; municipal 495 496 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE officials, 225; municipal system com-" pared with French, 226 ; towns com- pared with American, 226 ; street rail- ways, 228 ; school system, 231. Belgrade, modernization of, xi. Belgrand, constructor of Paris sewers, etc., 64, 70, 71. Berlin, as influenced by Paris, 1, 2 ; com- pared with Chicago, 292; growth of, compared with New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia,293 ; paving of streets, 298 ; area, 301 ; railway terminals, 303 ; navigation of Spree, 304 ; electoral sta- tistics of, 307, 303; electoral districts, 309 ; size of municipal council, 310 ; mu- nicipal council, property owners in, 312; magistracy of, analyzed, 317; po- lice and watchmen, 321 ; paving, com- pared with New York, 332 ; era of mu- nicipal progress, 333-335 ; sewers and sewage farms, 336-340 ; street cleaning, 345, 346 ; gas supply, 347 ; electric light- ing, 348; street-railways, 351; street- railway franchises, 352; housing and inortality,356-360 ; disinfection stations, etc., 362, 363 ; municipal abattoirs, 363, 364; market-halls, 364, 365; poor-relief organization, 366-368; lodging houses, 368; savings-banks, 371; municipal fire insurance, 373; parks and open spaces, 374 ; nitration of water supply, 394 ; cellar residences, 403. Bern, proportional representation in, x. Bienfaisauce, bureaux de, at Paris, 103, 104, 107 ; in French communes, 202. Birth-rate of Amsterdam, 233 ; of Elber- feld, 194 ; of Frankfort-on-the-Main, 195 ; of Paris and the large Frencli towns, 193-195 ; of the Hague, 233 ; of Leeds, 195; of Metz, 195; of Rotterdam, 233; of Sheffield, 195; of Strassburg, 195; of Stuttgart, 195. Bois de Boulogne (Paris), 78. Bois de Vincennes (Paris), 78. Bordeaux, growth and population, 189; street-railways, 189 ; births and deaths, 194. Boston, density of population, 84 ; growth of, compared with Hamburg, 293. Botanical gardens 9f Paris, 79. Boulevards of Amiens, 198 ; of Brussels, 227; of Florence, 269; of Lille, 186; of Marseilles, 192 ; of Rouen, 197 ; pro- posed, in Rome, 279; see also Street Systems. Bread-supply of Paris (health inspec- tion), 101. Bremen, annexation of suburbs, 302 ; street cleaning, 346; gas supply, 347; savings-banks, 372 ; as a free city and " city-state," 388 ; area and population, 388 ; government and finance, 388, 389. Breslau, density of population, 84; growth of, compared with Cincinnati. 294 ; size of municipal council, 310 ; paid and unpaid magistrates, 320 ; as a well- governed city, 341, 342; water supply and sewage-farms, 342 ; street cleaning, 345 ; gas supply, 347 ; electric lighting, 348 ; housing conditions, 361 ; parks and open spaces, 374. British sanitary progress compared with French, 191. British towns, little influenced by conti- nent, 2; compared with Italian, 249; size of municipal council, 310; see also under English, etc. Briinn, recent development, 438 ; number of rooms per family, 454. Brunswick, growth of, compared with American towns, 296; progress and characteristics, 343, 344 ; gas supply, 347. Brussels, as influenced by Paris, 1 ; area, 224, 225; death-rate, 230; population, 224, 229 ; municipal elections, 224 ; boule- vards and street reforms, 227 ; munici- pal gas-plant, 228; ship-canal, 228. Bucharest, modernization of, xi. Budapest, rise of a new metropolis. See entire chapter ix, 435-468, for all ques- tions affecting Budapest; as influenced by Paris, 1 ; number of rooms per fam- ily, 454. Budget, of Berlin, appendix; of Paris, 143, and appendix ; of Rome under dif- ferent regimes, 272, 274. Buffalo, growth of, compared with Co- logne, 294. Building activity in Rome, 280, 281; in German cities, 302 ; in Vienna, 424-426. Building reforms at Venice, 287, 288. Building regulations, of Berlin, 357, 358; of Budapest, 453 ; of Hamburg, 402-404 ; of Paris, 90,92; of Rome, 281; of Vien- na, 425, 426. Burgomaster, of Budapest, 449 ; of Ham- burg, 385 ; of Vienna, 415, 416. Burgomaster, German, as an expert, 313 ; compared with American mayor, 314 ; his functions, 318 ; salaries in Germany, 320. Burgomasters, Belgian, 225, 226 ; Dutch, 238, 239. Buttes-Chaumont park (Paris), 79. Cab system of Paris, 87, 88. Cadiz, constitution of, 241, 242. Cantons of France, 151-154. Capitals, provincial, of France, 186^-209. Capitoline, seat of Rome's municipal government, 251. Carnavalet museum of Paris, 132. Cassel, electric lighting, 348. Cattle-markets, municipal, of Budapest, 456 ; of Paris, 100 ; see also Abattoirs, Cellar residences in Alton a, 403 ; in Ber- lin, 360, 403 ; in Budapest, 453 ; in Ham- burg, 403 ; in Vienna, 453. Cemeteries, municipal, of Paris, 95, 96 ; of Stuttgart, 328. " Centimes additionnels" in France, 205, 206. Centralization in French local govern- ment, 161-163. Cess-pools of Paris, 74. Champs Elyse'es (Paris), 79. Character of municipal councilors. See Councilors. Charity administration, in Belgium, 231 ; in Berlin and Germany, 366-370; in France, 201, 202 ; in Holland, 240 ; in Paris, 102-110; in Vienna, 433. Chemnitz, growth of, compared with va- rious American towns, 295 ; annexation of suburbs, 302 ; size of municipal coun- cil, 310; electoral period, 310; house INDEX 497 owners in city council, 312; paid and unpaid magistrates, 320; gas-supply, 347 ; parks and open spaces, 374. Chicago, density of population, 84 ; com- pared with Berlin, 292, 293 ; compared with Vienna, 410-412; area compared with Hamburg's, 383. Children (friendless) of Paris, 107, 108; municipal duty toward, in Germany, 374, 375. Cholera, and city government in Europe, 378-380 ; epidemic at Naples, 283 ; at Hamburg, 341, 395-401; at Budapest, 457 ; immunity of Berlin, 363. Chnstiania, growth, population, death- rate, ix: Cincinnati, growth of, compared with Munich and Breslau, 294. Citizen deputies attached to Berlin coun- cil, 313. Citizen helpers in German charity work, 366-368. City Hall, new, of Berlin, 333 ; of Ham- burg, 340 ; of Paris, 131 ; of Vienna, 422. City life and the national welfare, 4. Civil-service, organization of, in Paris, 27-32 ; character of, in Germany, 314. Cleansing services of Berlin, Dresden, and various German cities, 344-346 ; of Milan, 262 ; of Paris, 54-62; of Stuttgart, 328. Cleveland, growth of, compared with Co- logne, 294. Code, municipal, of France, 163-185, also translated in Appendix III. ; of Italy, 252-257. Collectivism in Germany, 291 ; versus so- cialism, 311, 312 ; spirit of, 325, 326. Cologne, growth of, compared with Cleveland, Buffalo, and Pittsburg, 294 ; annexation of suburbs, 301 ; size of municipal council, 310; street clean- ing, 345 ; gas-supply, 347 ; electric light- ing, 348 ; street railway, 351 ; street-rail- way franchises, 353; parks and open spaces, 374. Columbus (Ohio), growth of, compared with German towns, 296. Commissary of police in Paris, 42-44. Committees of French councils, 174, 175. Communes of France, 146-148, 165 ; of Bel- gium, 211, 216 ; of Spain, 244 ; of Italy, 253. Compressed-air pipes (Paris) in sewers, 75, 76. Compulsory education in France, 119, 200; see also under Education and Schools. Compulsory workingmen's insurance in Germany, 369, 370. Concentric growth of Paris, 79-82. Conception, German, of municipal life, 323. Concessions in Paris streets and parks,76. Conduits, Paris, 76. Congestion of medieval towns, 2 ; of Ly- ons, 190 ; of Toulouse, 196 ; relieved in Berlin, 359; of the old Vienna, 419. Constantinople coming under influence of Paris, 2 ; of Budapest, 468. Contract system in Paris paving, 58. Copenhagen, growth, population, and de- cline of death-rate, viii. 32 Councils-general in France, 148 ; of De- partment of the Seine, 82. Council, municipal, of Belgian towns, 216 ; of Berlin and German towns, SOS- SIS; (biirgerschaft) of Bremen, 388; of Budapest, 448; of Dutch towns, 238; (biirgerschaft) of Hamburg, 384; of Italian towns, 253-255 ; (biirgerschaft) of Liibeck, 388 ; of Paris, 16 et seq. ; of Spanish towns, 245, 246 ; of Vienna, 414- 416. Councils, municipal, as central fact in French municipal government, 165 ; as central fact in German city govern- ment, 308, 309 ; election of, in Belgian towns, 222-224 ; election of, in French towns, 166-172 ; size of, in various Ger- man and European cities, 310, 311. Councilors, character of, in Belgian towns, 225; in Dutch towns, 238; in France, 180 ; in Germany, 311 ; in Italy, 266 ; in Milan, 265, 266 ; in Paris, 20, 21 ; in Vienna, 415. Councilors, French, compared with Eng- lish, German and American, 180. County government, English, and French departments, 164, 165. Cracow, recent development, 438 ; num- ber of rooms per family, 454. Crfcches, aided by Paris municipality, 110. Crefeld, growth of, compared with Amer- ican towns, 296. Crematory (municipal) of Paris, 96. Crispi and sanitary laws of Italy, 257. Cuxhaven, belongs to Hamburg, 383. Dantzic, modern remaking of, 344 ; gas supply, 347. Danube, improvements at Vienna, 429, 430; improvements and commerce at Budapest, 440. Darmstadt, electric lighting, 348. Deak, Francis, and Hungarian policy, 437. Death-rate of Amsterdam, 233 ; of Ant- werp, 230; of Brussels, 230; of Budapest, 451, 452 ; of Elberfeld, 194 ; of Frank- fort-on-the-Main, 195; of large French towns, 193-195; of the Hague, 233; of Hamburg, 409; of Holland, 233; of Leeds, 195 ; of Marseilles, 192, 193 ; of Metz, 195; of Milan, 265; of Naples, 285, 286 ; of Paris, 102, 193 ; of Rome, 276; of Rotterdam, 233; of Sheffield, 195; of Spanish towns, 247; of Strass- burg, 195 ; of Stuttgart, 195 ; of Turin, 269 ; of Vienna, 430-432. Death-rate of Berlin as affected by hous- ing, etc., 356-360. Death-rate of infants, 194, 195. Debt, municipal, of Paris, 134-140; of French towns, 208, 209 ; of German towns, 376, 377 : of Hamburg, 389. Defenses of Paris, 82, 83. Demolitions in Paris, 8-12. Density of population, in Paris, London, New York, Brooklyn, Chicago, Boston, and Philadelphia, 83, 84; in Holland, 232 ; in French towns, 187. Density and transit in Paris, 84. Department of the Seine, 82. Departments of France, 147 ; reform laws of 1871, 162-165 ; compared with Eng- lish counties, 164, 165. 498 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUEOPE Departments, administrative, of Ham- burg, 386, 387. Detroit, growth of, compared with Magdeburg, 294. Dhuis aqueduct, Paris waterworks, 66. Directories, city, made by police officials in Germany, 321. Directory, of France, administrative laws of 1795, 150^54. Disinfection service of Paris, 94, 95 ; of Milan, 264 ; of Berlin, 362 ; of Hamburg, 404, 405. Docks, of Hamburg, 304 ; see Harbor fa- cilities. Dortmund, growth of, compared with American towns, 296. Drainage. See Sewers. Drawing in Paris schools, 125. Dresden, as influenced by Paris. 1, 2; growth of, compared with New Or- leans, 294 ; annexation of suburbs, 301 ; river improvement, 304 ; size of mu- nicipal council, 310 ; electoral periods, 310 ; house owners in city council, 312 ; paid and unpaid magistrates, 320; street cleaning, 345, 346 ; gas supply, 347 ; electric lighting, 348 ; street rail- ways, 351 ; housing conditions, 361 ; pro- visions against epidemics, 363 ; savings- banks, 371 ; parks and open spaces, 374. Dunbar, Professor, and Hamburg sani- tation, 398-400. Duisburg, electric lighting, 348. Diisseldorf, growth of, compared with various American towns, 295 ; house owners in city council, 312 ; street clean- ing, 346; gas supply, 347 ; electric light- ing, 348. Dutch municipal system influenced by French, 210. Dutch burgomasters, 238, 239. Dutch school system, 240. Echevins, Belgian, 225. Education, iu Holland, 240; in German cities, 374, 375 ; in Milan, 265 ; and the community in Germany, 330 ; qualifica- tions for suffrage in Belgium, 217-222 ; recognized in Austrian electorate, 413 ; recognized in Hungarian electorate, 450. Educational system of Belgium, 231 ; of Budapest, 462 ; of France, 199-201 ; of Lille, 187 ; of Paris, 118-126. Educational system of Paris as feeder of civil service, 31. El be as water supply of Hamburg, 389-396. Elberfeld, growth of, compared with American towns, 296; births and deaths, 194. Election of French councils, 166-172. Elections, municipal, in Milan, 266. Elective franchise. See Suffrage. Electric companies chartered in Paris, 52. Electric lighting in Paris, 50-54; in Mil- an, 262, 263; m Berlin, 348; in Ham- burg and various German cities, 348, 349 ; in Budapest, 459 Electric street railways in Budapest, 459; in Germany, 354, 355; in Milan, 262, 263. Electrical works, municipal, of Stutt- gart, 323-326. Emergency relief at Paris, 108, 109. Employment bureaus, free, at Paris, 111. English birth-rates and death-rates, 194, 195. English council committees compared with French, 175. English councilors compared with French, 180. English mayor compared with French, 175. English municipal system compared with French, 163, 164. English municipal executive, compared with German and French, 315-317. Epidemic hospitals, Paris, 95; in Ham- burg, 404, 405; of Budapest, 457; in Venice, 287. Essen, growth of, compared with Amer- ican towns, 296; an extreme example of three-class voting system of Ger- many, 308 ; street cleaning, 346. European towns, newness of, 292. Examinations, educational, lor suffrage, in Belgium, 218-220. Exemption of new buildings from taxa- tion in Vienna, 424, 425. Expenditures of Paris, 140, 141. Fall River, growth of, compared with German towns, 296. Fares, street railway, in Belgium, 230; in France, 188; in Germany, 354; in Vienna, 429. Farms, sewage, of Paris, 72, 73. Filtration of water at Berlin, 335 ; at Breslau,342; at Budapest, 457; at Ham- burg, 340, 341, 389-396; at Brunswick, 343. Finances, municipal, of Paris, 134-145; of French towns supervised, 179; of French towns, statistics, 204, 209; of Genoa, 267 ; of housing reforms at Na- ples, 285. Finance, municipal, in Germany, 330, 331. Financial burdens of European cities, 297. Fine-arts, promoted by Paris municipal- ity, 129-131. Florence, modern conditions of, 269-271. Flushing sewers in Paris, 75. Food inspection in German cities, 365, 366 ; in Hamburg, 405 ; in Vienna, 431. Food-supply and inspection in Paris, 97- 102. Forckenbeck, Dr., as mayor of Berlin and Breslau, 318, 342. Forestry, municipal, in Stuttgart, 328. Fountains, public, in Rome, 276. Franchise, elective. See Suffrage. Franchises, electric, in Berlin, 349, 350. Franchise (street) questions in France, 184. Franchises, street-railway, of Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfort, and other Ger- man cities, 352-354. Frankfort-on-the-Main, influenced by Paris, 2 ; births and deaths, 195 ; growth of, compared with Newark, 295; size of municipal council, 310; house owners in city council, 312; paid and unpaid magistrates, 320 ; waterworks and sew- age purification, 343; street cleaning, 345, 346; gas supply, 348; street-rail- INDEX 499 way, 351 ; street-railway franchises, 353 ; parks and open spaces, 374. Francis Joseph I. and Vienna municipal- ity, 412. Free cities of Hamburg, Bremen, and Liibeck, 384-389. French services to civilization compared with German, 3. French municipal system. See chapter I., pp. 146-209, and appendix III. ; as a type, 210. French municipal executive compared with German and English, 315-317. French municipal code of 1884, 163-185, and appendix III. French regime in Holland, 236. Fuel supply as a municipal function, 327. Functions of Belgian town councils, 231; of French councils, 181 ; 9f Italian mu- nicipalities, 256; municipal, in Ger- many, 323 et seq. Funerals, a church monopoly in Paris, 96, 97. Gaffky, Professor, and Hamburg sanita- tion, 398. Garbage removal in Paris, 61 ; Stuttgart, 328 ; in German cities, 345, 346 ; in Ham- burg, 401, 402. Gas supply of Budapest, 458 ; of German cities, 346-348 ; of Milan, 263 ; of Paris, 45-51 ; of Stuttgart, 324, 325. Gas-works, municipal, of Amsterdam, 235 ; of Brussels, 228 ; of German cities, 346-348. Gas-works, non-municipal, in German cities, 348. General ticket, proposed for Paris elec- tions, 21 ; in French elections, 166 ; in Belgium, 222 ; in Italy, 255. Geneva, proportional representation, x. Genoa, municipal affairs, 266, 267. Gennevilliers, Paris sewage farm, 72. German municipal system. See chapters V., VI., VII. ; like English and French, in making council the basis of munici- pal government, 309. German, English, and French municipal executive systems compared, 315-317. German services to civilization compared with French, 3. German cities, growth compared with American, 292, 297. German councilors compared with French, 180. Gerrymandering in French cities, 167. Giuntas of Italian municipalities, 253-255. Glasgow, as key to study of British mu- nicipal gov't, vi. ; water-supply, 68. Good government as exemplified in Hanover, 301. Good roads in Germany, 298; in France, 183 r 185. Gorlitz, housing conditions, 361. Governor, civil, of Spanish provinces, 245. " Grand Prix " of Paris municipality, 133. Gratz, number of rooms per family, 454. Grimm, Herman, quoted on the new Rome, 271. Gronengen, population, 234. Ground-plans of modern cities, 297. Gymnasium in Paris schools, 125. Haarlem, population of, 234. Hague, death-rate, 233; population, 234; growth of, compared with American towns, 296. Hamburg, administration and progress, chapter VII. ; influenced by Paris, 2 : water nitration, 68 ; growth of, compar- ed with Boston and Baltimore, 293 ; har- bor facilities, 303, 304 ; water supply and drainage, 340, 341 ; street cleaning, 345, 346 ; gas supply, 347 ; electric lighting, 348 ; street-railways, 351 ; street-railway franchises, 353 ; provisions against epi- demics, 363 ; public pawn-shops, 372 ; savings-banks, 371 ; parks and open spaces, 374; cholera visitations, 380; commercial character, 381 ; street sys- tem, 382 ; as a city-state, 382 ; area and population, 383; administrative system, 383 387 ; public debt, 389 ; water supply, 389-396; general sanitary conditions, 401-409 ; cellar residences, 404. Hanover, growth of, compared with Ko- nigsberg, Louisville, and Jersey City ; 295 ; its modern transformation and appointments, 298-301; annexation of suburbs, 302 ; house owners in city council, 312 ; paid and unpaid magis- trates, 320; gas supply, 348 ; street-rail- ways, 351. Hanseatic League, 384. Harbor facilities of Amsterdam, 235 ; of Antwerp, 228; of Barcelona, 248; of Dantzic, 344 ; of Genoa, 267 ; of Ham- burg, 304 ; of Le Havre, 197 ; of Mar- seilles, 192. Harbor sanitary service at Hamburg, 407, 408. Harmony of Paris buildings, 90. Harrison, Frederic, on Paris before Rev- olution, 13 ; quoted on Italian changes, 271 ; on transformation of Rome, 272. Haussmann, Baron, street reform of Paris, 8-11; financial policy, 135. Havre, births and deaths, 195; popula- tion, 196, 198; streets, harbor, and pub- lic works, 196, 197 ; municipal revenues, 207 ; municipal debt, 208. Health boards of Paris, 92-94. Height of Paris buildings, 90. Historic edifices protected at Rome, 282. Historical researches, municipal, at Paris, 131-133. Holland, union with Belgium, 212-213; growth of town population, 231-234 ; health conditions, 232-235 : death rate, 233 ; administrative system influenced by French, 236-238. Home-rule, municipal, as exemplifled at Hamburg, 387. Hospitals of Paris, 95, 105 ; of Budapest, 457. For epidemic hospitals see Sani- tary, etc. Housekeeping, municipal, in Germany, 289. House owners in German city councils, 312 Housing conditions of Belgian towns, 229 ; of Budapest, Vienna, and six other chief Austrian towns, 453-455 ; of Ger- man cities, 355-362; of Hamburg, 402- 404; of Lyons, 190; of Milan, 265; of Naples, 251, 252, 283-285 ; of Paris, 79, 90- 92 ; of Rome, 280-282 ; of Venice, 287. 500 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUEOPE fie de la Cite" (Paris), reconstructed, 9 ; original site of Paris, 80. Illiteracy, in Belgium, 217; disqualifies for Italian suffrage, 254. Improvements, recent, in German towns, 333. Income, of Paris, 141, and appendix I. ; of Berlin, appendix II. Indebtedness. See Debts. Indianapolis, growth of, compared with German towns, 296. Industrial-art libraries of Paris, 127. Infant deaths in various French, English, and German towns, 194, 195. Initiative, public and private, 291. Insurance, mutual-benefit societies in Germany, 369, 370; old-age, etc., in Ger- many, 369, 370 ; municipal, against fire, in Berlin, 373. Isolation of infectious disease in Germa- ny, 362, 363. Italian municipal system influenced by French, 210. Italian municipal progress, 249-288. Italian epidemics, 284. Italian towns, size of municipal council, 310. Jersey City, growth of, compared with Hanover and Konigsberg, 295. Kansas City, growth of, compared with various German towns, 295. Karlsruhe, annexation of suburbs, 302. Kindergartens (e"coles maternelles) of Paris, 119 ; in French towns, 199. Kiosks in Paris streets and parks, 77. Koch, Dr., and German sanitation, 398. Konigsberg, growth of, compared w_ith Hanover, Louisville, and Jersey City, 295; gas supply, 347; electric lighting, 348. Korosi, Joseph, statistician of Budapest, 452-455. Labor colonies of German cities, 368. Labor exchange of Paris, 111. Laboratory, chemical, at Hamburg, 407 ; floating, at Hamburg, 399; municipal, of Paris, 100, 101 ; municipal, of Milan, 264. Lacroix, proposed constitution for Paris, 18. Laud ownership, municipal.in Budapest, 456 ; in southeastern Europe, 456. Lavatories, public, of Paris, 76. Lavelaye, on social conditions of Belgian towns, 229. Leeds, birth and deaths, 195. Leipsic, growth of, compared with St. Louis and San Francisco, 293, 294 ; com- pared with Cincinnati, Breslau, and Munich, 294; annexation of suburbs, 301; rail way terminals, 303; size of mu- nicipal council, 310; house-owners in city council, 312 ; paid and unpaid mag- istrates, 320; street cleaning, 345 ; street railways, 351 ; parks and open spaces, 374 ; gas supply, 347 ; electric lighting, 348 ; housing conditions, 362 ; provisions against epidemics, 363. Lemberg, number of rooms per family, 454. Leroy-Beaulieu on English municipal system, 163. Library centers in Parisian mairies, 33. Libraries of Paris, 127-129; of Lille, 186; of Hanover, 300. Liege, street improvements, 226, 227; population, 229. Lighting, public, of Paris, 45-54 ; of Ger- man cities, 346-350 ; see also Gas Siip- ply and Electricity. Lille, modern transformation, 186, 187; births and deaths, 194; and Roubaix, 197, 198 ; technical schools, 201 ; munici- pal debt, 208 ; municipal revenues, 207. Liquor question, viii. Lisbon, death-rate, 247. Loans (outstandiug) of Paris, 136-140. Local government reorganized in Prus- sia, 306. Lodging-houses, municipal, of Paris, 109, 110 ; of Berlin, 368. London, little influenced by Continent, 2 ; sub-municipalities and Parisian ar- rpndissements, 34; density of popula- tion, 83; transit system, 85; size of municipal council, 310; filtration of water supply, 394. Louis XIV. and Louis XV., Paris im- provements, 7. Louis Philippe, street reforms of Paris,, 8. Louisville, growth of, compared with Hanover and Konigsberg, 295. Lowell, growth of, compared with Ger- man towns, 296. Lubeck, electric lighting, 348; govern- ment of, 388 ; as a free city and " city- state," 388. Luxemburg gardens (Paris), 79. Lyons, restoration of mayoralty, 18; can- tons of, 153 ; police system, 182 ; street- railways, 188, 189; area, growth, and population, 189; street system, 190; housing conditions, 190; water and drainage, 191 ; births and deaths, 193 ; municipal revenues, 207; municipal debt, 208. Macadamized roads of Paris, 58; of France, 185. Madrid, population, 247 ; death-rate, 247. Magdeburg, growth of, compared with Detroit and Milwaukee, 294 ; annexa- tion of suburbs, 302 ; size of municipal council, 310; gas supply, 347; housing conditions, 361. Magistracy, municipal, of Berlin, 317; or German towns, apportionment of tasks, 319 ; of Hamburg, 385 ; of Vienna, 416. Magistrates, German, as administrative experts, 313, 314. Magistrates' salaries in Germany, 320. Mairies of Paris as social centers, 33. Malaga, municipal conditions, 248. Mannheim, growth of, compared with American towns, 296. Manual training in Paris schools, 125. Markets of Paris, 98. 99; of Budapest, 457. Markethalls.iuBerlin and German cities, 364-366. Marriage performed by maires in Paris, 33. INDEX 501 Marseilles, cantons of, 153; street-rail- ways, 188; health conditions, 191-193; area and population, 192 ; streets and boulevards, 192 ; harbor facilities, 192 ; sewers, 192 ; slums, 192 ; birth-rate, 193 ; technical schools, 201 ; municipal reve- nues, 207; municipal debt, 208. Maternal schools, of Paris, 119 ; of other French towns, 199. Mayoralty questions in Paris, 17. Mayor. See also Alcalde, Burgomaster, Sindaco. Mayor, American, compared with French and British, 175. Mayor and adjuncts of French towns, 173. Mayors, French, appointed by Napoleon, I., 156; have appointing power, 375; in dual capacity, 176-178 ; control police, 181-183 ; and street system, 183. Meals served in Paris schools, 122 ; in schools of other French towns, 199. Medical inspection of Paris schools, 121. Medical organization, Paris hospitals, 105, 106. Medical relief services In Paris, 106. Medicine, practice of, new Hamburg rules, 408, Medieval towns, their congestion, 2. Membership (numerical) of councils in German and various cities, 310, 311. Merchants govern Hamburg, 385. Metropolitan transit, 85. Metz, births and deaths, 195; electoral periods, 309, 310 ; electric lighting, 348. Milan's municipal system, growth, pop- ulation, and progress, 258-266. Milk supply, of Paris, 101 ; of Hamburg, new regulations, 405, 406. Milwaukee, growth of, compared with Magdeburg, 294. Minneapolis, growth of, compared with various German towns, 295 ; compared with Budapest as grain and milling center, 439-441. Minneapolis and St. Paul, joint area com- pared with Hamburg's, 383. Minority representation, not provided in France, 172 ; in Italy, 255 ; in Switzer- land, ix, x. Monopoly companies of Paris, 89. Monopoly of funerals in Paris, 96, 97. Monts-de-Pie'te', in Paris, 112-116; in other French towns, 202, 203; in Belgium, 231. Montsouris park (Paris), 79. Munich, influenced by Paris, 2 ; growth of, compared with Leipsic, Breslau, and Cincinnati, 294 ; annexation of suburbs, 301; electoral periods, 310; size of municipal council, 310; paid and unpaid magistrates, 320 ; water sup- ply and sanitary conditions, 342,343; street cleaning, 345; gas supply, 347, 348 ; street-railway, 351 ; housing con- ditions, 362 ; municipal abattoirs, 363 ; provisions against epidemics, 363; parks and open spaces, 374. Music in Paris schools, 125. Mutual-benefit insurance societies in Germany, 369, 370. Nantes, population, 196; births and deaths, 195. 32* Naples, housing conditions, 251, 252 ; new sanitary regime, 282-286; effects of cholera epidemic, 380. Napoleon I., street reforms of Paris, 8; administration of Paris, 14 ; police pre- fecture, 35; administrative laws of 1800, 154-157 ; relations with Spain, 241. Napoleon III., street reforms of Paris, 8-11 ; administration of Paris, 15 ; ad- ministrative system, 158, 159. Nashville, growth of, compared with Ger- man towns, 296. Neighborhood administration in Vienna bezirken, 417. Neighborhood life centering at the mai- ries of Paris, 33. Neuchatel, proportional representa- tion, x. Newark, growth of, compared with Fraukfort-on-the-Maiu, 295. New Haven, growth of, compared with German towns, 296. New Orleans compared to Bordeaux, 189; growth of, compared with Dres- den, 294. Newspaper kiosks of Paris, 77. New York, density of population, 83; transit system, 85 ; growth of, com- pared with Berlin, 293 ; street paving compared with Berlin's, 298, 332 ; com- pared with Hamburg's position as a city-state, 387. Nominations for Belgian councils, 224. Normal schools in France, 200. Nuremberg, growth of, compared with Providence, 296 ; electoral periods, 310 ; house owners in city council, 312 ; paid and unpaid magistrates, 320 ; gas-sup- ply, 347 ; public pawn-shop, 372; parks and open spaces, 374. Nurses, trained, in Paris hospitals, 105. Octroi system, in Paris, 141, 142 ; in France, 204, 206-208; abolished in Bel- gium, 230; in Italy, 256, 257. Officialism in German city government, 322. Old-age insurance in Germany, 369, 370. Omaha, growth of, compared with va- rious German cities, 295. Omnibus company of Paris, 86. Omnibus lines of Marseilles, 188. One-room dwellings in various German cities, 361, 362, 454 ; in Hamburg, 404 ; in Belgian towns, 229; in Berlin, 356, 357, 361 ; in Vienna, 454 ; in Budapest, 454. Opera, royal, of Hungary, 465. Opera-house of Paris, 7. Oporto, death-rate, 247. Ourcq canal (Paris water supply), 63. Palermo, various municipal facts and conditions, 286, 287. Pantheon, new, at Budapest, 442. Paris, see chapter I., pages 1-145; as a municipal influence, vi. ; influence on municipal progress, 1, 2 ; influence on German cities, 2 ; street system, 4 el seq. ; boundaries of, 1789, 5 ; suburban development, 5 ; population in 1789 and 1889. 6 ; destruction of ancient churches, 6; improvements under Louis XIV., 502 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE and XV., 7 ; police authority, 15; muni- cipal council, 16 et seq. ; mayoralty question, 17 ; relation to French nation, 22; civil-service organization, 27-32; arrondissements as social centers, 32- 35; police administration, 35-^45; light- ing system, gas and electricity, 45-54 ; street paving and cleansing, 54-62 ; wa- ter supply and sewers, 62-75; sewers and sewage-farms, 70-75; privileges and concessions in streets and parts, 76 ; parks and parkways, 77, 79 ; transit system, 79-90; area and population, 81-84 ; building regulations, 90, 92 ; san- itary administration, 90-96 ; food-sup- ply, 97-102 ; markets, 98, 99 ; abattoirs, 99, 100; public charity work, 102-110; relations to labor, 111, 112; mont-de- pie"te\ 112-116; savings-banks, 116-118; educational system, 118-126 ; fine-arts administration, 129-131 ; municipal fi- nances, 134-145 ; cantons of, 153 ; birth- rate, 193; death-rate compared with Marseilles, 193; municipal debt, 208; size of municipal council, 310. Parks, public, of Paris, concessions in, 76 ; system of Paris, 77, 79 ; (and light- ing) of Paris, yearly cost, 141 ; of Milan, 260, 261 ; proposed, in Rome, 279 ; man- agement of, in Stuttgart, 328 ; and open spaces in German cities, 373, 374; of Budapest, 447, 448. Party politics in Belgium, 224. Paterson, growth of, compared with Ger- man towns, 296. Paving assessments in Paris, 55. Paving materials of Paris, 56; in Mar- seilles, 192. Paving, street, in Berlin and New York, 332; in Berlin, 334, 345; in Budapest, 446 ; in Milan, 260, 262 ; in Paris, 55-58 ; in Germany and America, 298 ; in Ham- burg, 401 ; in Hanover, 300. Pawnshops, public, of Paris, 112-116 ; of large French towns, 202, 203; of Bel- gium, 231 ; of German cities, 372, 373. Penalties for refusal to take office in Germany, 318. Pensions, retiring, in Paris civil-service, 32 ; old-age, in Germany, 370. Permanence of organization in German cities, 331, 332. Philadelphia, density of population, 84 ; growth of, compared with Berlin, 293. Philotechnique association in Paris, 127. Play-grounds in Paris, 79; in German cities, 373, 374. Plural voting in Belgium, 222. Pneumatic tubes (Paris) in sewers, 75, 76. Pittsburg, growth of, compared with Cologne, 294. Pius IX., grant of charter to Rome, 273. Poor-relief. See Charity. Police administration of Paris, 15, 35-45, 140, 141. Police authority in France, 37 ; in French towns, 181, 182; in Lyons, 182. Police budgets compulsory, 183. Police control in Belgian towns, 226; in Dutch towns, 239; in German cities, 321. Police power as affected by bacteriol- ogy, 406, 407. Polytechnique association in Paris, 127. Portugal, health conditions, 247. Postalsavings- banks of France, 203, 204. Poverty and the community in Germany, 330. Population of Amsterdam, 234; of Ant- werp, 228; of Arnhem, 234; of Barce- lona, 247, 248; of Bordeaux, 189; of Budapest, 435, 462 ; of Bremen, 388 ; of Brussels, 225, 229 ; of Florence, 269, 270 ; of Gronengen, 234 ; of Haarlem, 234 ; of Le Havre, 196, 198 ; of the Hague, 234 ; of Hamburg, 383; of Liege, 229; of Lille, 186; of Lubeck, 389; of Lyons, 189; of Madrid, 247; of Marseilles, 192; of Milan, 265; of Nantes, 196; of Naples, 286 ; of Palermo, 286 ; of Paris, 1789-1889, 6 ; of Paris, 1790 to 1891, 81 ; of Rheirns, 196 ; of Rome, 277, 278 ; of Rotterdam, 234; of Roubaix, 196, 198; of Rouen, 196-198 ; of Toulouse, 196 ; of Tourcoing, 198; of Turin, 268 ;of Utrecht, 234 ; of Venice, 287 ; of Vienna, 433. Population of Berlin moving from center to suburbs, 359. Population, density of, in Paris, London, New York, Brooklyn, Chicago, Phila- delphia, Boston, 83, 84. Population, growth of, in Holland, 231- 234. Population of various American and Ger- man cities compared, 293-297. Prague, recent development, 438; num- ber of rooms per family, 454. Prefect of the Seine, his sphere, 23. Prefect of police, Paris, 24. Prefects, in France, 154, 155. Primary schools of Paris, 120. Privileges in Paris streets and parks, 76. Property owners in German municipal councils, 312. Proportional representation in Switzer- land, ix., x. Providence, growth of, compared with Nuremberg, 296 ; government com- pared with Hamburg, 383. Provinces of Belgium, 215, 216 ; of France, 147 ; of Holland, 237 ; of Italy, 253 ; of Spain, 244. Provincial towns of France, 186-209. Prud'hommes of Paris, 111, 112. Prussian municipal system, 305-307. Public works of Florence, 270 ; in German cities, 331-336; of Paris, organization, 28 ; loan of Rome, 278. Public ownership of gas works not fa- vored in France, 50. Purification of sewage, Paris, 72, 73 ; see also under Sewers and Sewage. " Quarters " of Paris, 81. Quays of Berlin, 334; of Paris, 77; of Rouen, 197 ; of Budapest, 444. Railroad system of Hungary, 439. Railways at Berlin, 303. Railway terminals, accommodations for, in German cities, 302, 303. Railways, street. See Street-railways. Rapid transit. See Street-railways. Refuse, disposal of, in Stuttgart, 328. Revenues of Paris, 141, and appendix I. ; of French towns, 204, 208. INDEX 603 Bheims, population, 196. Bichmond, growth of, compared with German towns, 296. Bing-strasse of Vienna, 420-423. Ring-streets of Budapest, 445. Eoads, of France, 183, 184, 185; of Ger- many, 298. Rochester, growth of, compared with Altona and Chemnitz, 295. Eome, as influenced by Paris, 1; spirit of modern reforms, 7; modernization of, 271-282. Botterdam, death-rate, 233; population, 234 ; water supply, 235. Roubaix, births and deaths, 195 ; growth and population, 196-198 ; street system, 198 ; an industrial town, 198 ; municipal revenues, 207. Bouen, births and deaths, 195 ; popula- tion, 197, 198; its transformation, 197; municipal revenues, 207 ; municipal debt, 208. Eussia, municipal government, x. St. Etienne, births and deaths, 195; a modern manufacturing town, 198, 199 ; technical schools, 201. St. Germain, Paris, sewage-farm, 73. St. Louis, growth of, compared with Leipsic, 293, 294. St. Paul, growth of, compared with various German cities, 295. St. Petersburg, creation of, as new me- tropolis, x. ; as influenced by Paris, l. Salaries, of Paris councilors, 21 ; not paid to French mayors or councilors, 176; not paid to German councilors, 311 ; in German city government, 320. San Francisco, growth of, compared with Leipsic, 293, 294. Sanitary administration of Budapest, 451-455, 457. Sanitary affairs of Milan, 264, 265. Sanitary appointments of Hanover, 300. Sanitary conditions in Holland, 232-235; in Italy, 249, 250; in Marseilles, 191-193 ; in Spanish towns, 247. Sanitary council of Paris, 92, 93. Sanitary methods in general of German cities, 362-366. Sanitary motive in German municipal activity, 378. Sanitary police of Paris, 94. Sanitary progress of Belgium, 229, 230 ; of French towns, 191; of Genoa, 267; of Turin, 269. Sanitary reforms of Palermo, 286 ; of Vienna, 430-432. Sanitary services, cost of, in Eome, 274 ; organization of, in Eome, 276. Sanitary system, new, of Italy, 257. Savings-banks, municipal, in Paris, 116- 118 ; in Paris public schools, 118 ; in French towns, 203, 204; in German cities, 371, 372 ; postal, in French towns, 203, 204. Saxony, electoral system, 308-310. Scandinavian municipal government, viil.,ix. Schools, see also Education. Schools of Budapest, 462 ? 463 ; of Belgium, 231; Schools, Belgian, obligatory courses in, 218 ; of Paris. 118-126 ; of Paris, cost, 141. School baths in Paris, 121. School-books, free in France, 199. School libraries of Paris, 128. School restaurants in France, 199. School savings-banks in Paris, 118. School system of France, 199-201 ; of Hol- land, 240 ; of Milan, 265 ; of Spain, 246 ; of Vienna, 432, 433. Science of municipal life in Germany, 330. Scientific methods in German town im- provements, 290. Scran ton, growth of, compared with Ger- man towns, 296. Second Empire, influence on municipal progress, 159. Senate of Hamburg, 385. Seville, municipal conditions, 248. Sewage-farms of Berlin, 336-340 ; of Bres- lau, 342 ; of Brunswick, 343 ; of Dant- zic, 344 ; of Paris, 72, 73. Sewage purification at Frankfort-on- the-Main, 343. Sewers, of Berlin, 336-340; of Budapest, 458 ; of Hamburg, 341, 391 ; of Lyons, 191 ; of Marseilles, 192 ; of Milan, 261, 262 ; of Naples, 283 ; of Paris, 62-75 ; of Eome, 275 ; of Toulouse, 1% ; of Vienna, 431. Shade trees on Paris avenues, 77. Sheffield, births and deaths, 195. Ship-canal of Brussels, 228. Sindaco (mayor) of Italian towns, 253, 256. Slums of Budapest, 454, 455; of German cities, 355 ; of Marseilles, 192 ; of Milan, 265 ; of Naples, 284 ; of Paris, 90, 91 ; of Toulouse, 1% ; of Venice, 287. Snow removal from Paris streets, 61, 62. Socialism and poor-relief, 370. Socialism, municipal, iu Germany, 291 ; illustrated by experience of Stuttgart, 324, 325 ; involved in business policy of German cities, 327, 328. Socialists and municipal suffrage in Ger- many, 311. Socialists in municipal politics in France, 311. Sofia, modernization of, xi. Spain's municipal system, 241-248; in- fluenced by French, 210. Specialists in Berlin council, 312, 313. Sports of Paris school-children, 124. Spree, navigation of, at Berlin, 304; quays, etc., at Berlin, 334. Springs and baths of Budapest, 465, 466. Sprinkling streets, in German cities, 346; in Paris, 58, 60, 61. Statisticians, municipal, in Germany, 330, 331. Statistical bureau of Paris, 133-135. Statistics, municipal, of Budapest, 452- 455 ; of Milan, 265 ; of Eome, 251. Stein's municipal reform system in Prus- sia, 305, 306. Stettin, growth of, compared with Amer- ican towns, 296 ; gas-supply, 347. Stockholm, growth, population, decline of death-rate, ix. Strassburg, births and deaths, 195; elec- toral periods, 309, 310 ; size of munici- pal council, 310; gas-supply, 348. 504 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE Street franchises in France, 184. Street cleaning in German cities, 344-346 ; in Hamburg, 401 ; in Marseilles, 192 ; in Paris, 54-62 ; see also Cleansing. Street railways of Belgium, 228; of Ber- lin, 335; of Budapest, 459, 4