the people of the city and county of St. Louis, and was finally adopted and ratified by the people themselves by a vote at the polls, August 22, 1876.1

St. Louis is divided into 28 wards and 244 voting precincts. Elections are governed by a strict law, which generally prevents frauds, and are quiet, all drinking saloons being closed till midnight. The mayor is elected by the people for four years, receives $5000 (£1000) salary, is not a member of the city Assembly, with which he communicates by messages. He has the power of return

ing any bill passed by the Assembly, subject to a power in them to reconsider and pass by a two-thirds vote. He recommends measures to the Assembly, submits reports from the heads of departments, and has a great variety of minor executive duties. He appoints to a large number of important offices, but in conjunction with the Council (upper house of the Assembly). For the sake of protecting him from the pressure of those to whom he owes his election, these appointments are made by him at the beginning of the third year of his own term, and for a term of four years.

The Assembly is composed of two houses. The Council consists of thirteen members, elected for four years by "general ticket": one-third go out of office every second year. The House of Delegates consists of twenty-eight members, one from each ward. Each Assembly man receives $300 a year, besides his reasonable expenses incurred in the city service. The Assembly has a general legislative power and supervision over all departments, its borrowing and taxing powers being, however, limited.

The administrative departments are the following, viz.:-Thirteen officers elected by the people, viz. comptroller, treasurer, auditor, registrar, collector, marshal, inspector of weights and measures, president of board of assessors, coroner, sheriff, recorder of deeds, public administrator, president of board of public improvements.

Twenty Boards or officers are appointed, most of them for four years, by the mayor with the approval of the Council, viz.-Board of public improvements, consisting of street commissioner, water do., harbour do., park do., sewer do., assessor and collector of water

1 I abridge the following account from a valuable paper by Mr. Marshall S. Snow (professor of history in Washington University, St. Louis), on the "City Government of St. Louis," in Johns Hopkins University Studies, third series.

rates, commissioner of public buildings, commissioner of supplies, commissioner of health, inspector of boilers, city counsellor, jury commissioner, recorder of votes, city attorney, two police court judges, jailer, superintendent of workhouse, chief fire engineer, gas inspector, assessors, and several city contractors and minor officers.

The four police commissioners who, along with the mayor, are charged with the public safety of St. Louis, are appointed by the Governor of Missouri, with the view of keeping this department "out of city politics." In 1886 the police force was 593 men strong, besides 200 private watchmen, paid by their employers, but wearing a uniform and sworn in by the police board.

The city School Board consists of 28 members, one from each ward, elected for three years, one-third retiring annually. It is independent of the mayor and Assembly, chooses its staff and all teachers, has charge of the large school funds, and levies a school tax, which, however, the city collector collects.

The strong points of this charter are deemed to be "the length of term of its municipal officers; the careful provisions for honest registration and the party purity of elections; the checks on financial administration and limitations of the debt, and the fact that the important offices to which the mayor appoints are not vacant till the beginning of his third year of office, so that as rewards of political work done during a heated campaign they are too far in the distance to prejudice seriously the merits of an election."1

On the whole the charter has worked well. Nevertheless the European reader will feel some surprise at the number of elective offices and at the limited terms for which all important offices are held. He will note that even in democratic America the control of the police by city politicians has been deemed too dangerous to be suffered to remain in their hands. And he will contrast what may be called the political character of the whole city constitution with the somewhat simpler and less ambitious, though also less democratic arrangements, which have been found sufficient for the management of European cities.

1 Snow, ut supra.

CHAPTER LI

THE WORKING OF CITY GOVERNMENTS

Two tests of practical efficiency may be applied to the government of a city: What does it provide for the people, and what does it cost the people? Space fails me to apply in detail the former of these tests, by showing what each city does or omits to do for its inhabitants; so I must be content with observing that in the United States generally constant complaints are directed against the bad paving and cleansing of the streets, the non-enforcement of the laws forbidding gambling and illicit drinking, and in some places against the sanitary arrangements and management of public buildings and parks. It would appear that in the greatest cities there is far more dissatisfaction than exists with the municipal administration in such cities as Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Dublin.

The following indictment of the government of Philadelphia is, however, exceptional in its severity, and however well founded as to that city, must not be taken to be typical. A memorial presented to the Pennsylvania legislature in 1883 by a number of the leading citizens of the Quaker City contained these words :

"The affairs of the city of Philadelphia have fallen into a most deplorable condition. The amounts required annually for the pay

ment of interest upon the funded debt and current expenses render it necessary to impose a rate of taxation which is as heavy as can be borne.

"In the meantime the streets of the city have been allowed to fall into such a state as to be a reproach and a disgrace. Philadelphia is now recognized as the worst-paved and worst-cleaned city in the civilized world.

"The water supply is so bad that during many weeks of the last winter it was not only distasteful and unwholesome for drinking, but offensive for bathing purposes.

"The effort to clean the streets was abandoned for months, and no attempt was made to that end until some public-spirited citizens, at their own expense, cleaned a number of the principal thoroughfares.

"The system of sewerage and the physical condition of the sewers is notoriously bad-so much so as to be dangerous to the health and most offensive to the comfort of our people.

"Public work has been done so badly that structures have had to be renewed almost as soon as finished. Others have been in part constructed at enormous expense, and then permitted to fall to decay without completion.

"Inefficiency, waste, badly-paved and filthy streets, unwholesome and offensive water, and slovenly and costly management, have been the rule for years past throughout the city government." 1

In most of the points comprised in the above statement, Philadelphia was probably at that date-for her government has since been reformed-among the least fortunate of American cities. He, however, who should interrogate one of the "good citizens" of Baltimore, Cincinnati, New Orleans, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, would have heard then, and would hear now, similar complaints, some relating more to the external condition of the city, some to its police administration, but all showing that the objects for which municipal government exists have been very imperfectly attained.

1 The New York Commission of 1876 described in equally dark colours the management of that city.—Page of Report.

The other test, that of expense, is easily applied. Both the debt and the taxation of American cities have risen with unprecedented rapidity, and now stand at an alarming figure.

A table of the increase of population, valuation, taxation, and debt, in fifteen of the largest cities of the United States, from 1860 to 1875 shows the following result:

Looking at some individual cases, we find that the debt rose as follows:

As respects current expenditure, New York in 1884 spent on current city purposes, exclusive of payments on account of interest on debt, sinking fund, and maintenance of judiciary, the sum of $20,232,786-equal to $16.76 (£3: 8s.) for each inhabitant (census of 1880). In Boston, in the same year, the city expenditure was $9,909,019-equal to $27:30 (£5: 9:3) for each inhabitant (census of 1880). It is of course true that much of this debt is represented by permanent improvements, yet for another large, and in some cities far larger, part there is nothing to show; it is due to simple waste or (as in New York) to malversation on the part of the municipal authorities."

1 Municipal Development of Philadelphia, by Messrs. Allinson and Penrose, p. 275.

2 Article "Cities" (by Mr. S. Stern) in Amer. Cyclop. of Polit. Science. 3 Mr. Stern observes: "The cost of opening or improving highways