Mr. MOULTON. I will not trouble the gentleman [Mr. TRAIN] to look over the list. If there is any gentleman here who signed the petition, he can speak for himself.

Mr. ALEX. WADSWORTH. I signed the petition for a hearing. The CHAIRMAN. Does Mr. Wadsworth desire to address the Committee?

Mr. WADSWORTH. I wish to abide the pleasure of the Council,

Mr. WILLIS. I would like to inquire if there are any other of the petitioners present.

Mr. JAMES B. Dow. I signed the petition.

Mr. E. T. MILLIKEN. I also signed it.

Mr. WILLIS. I do not see but that we have material enough to make a beginning.

Mr. NOYES. I would move that we proceed with the hearing as far as we can with the witnesses who are here.

Mr. Dow. I would like to remark, for one, that I did not come here as a witness; I came here to listen.

Mr. TRAIN. I suppose every gentleman here is more or less familiar with the trial of causes and with hearings of this character. My own observation has been, that when hearings of this kind have been entered upon without preparation, more time was lost than was usefully occupied; whereas, if sufficient time is given for preparation, intelligent counsel on the one side and the other, hearing what facts are in dispute, can come at once to the witnesses who are possessed of information in regard to those facts, put them in, and go on with rapidity, and with a good understanding of what is before them. I understand that there are three or four gentlemen here to-night whose names are upon the petition, and I can call them, and set their mills running; but what good would that do?

3

It would be, simply, for those gentlemen to go on, each in his own way, and make remarks of greater or less length, some of them pertinent, and others, perhaps, not so; whereas, if I can

be allowed the same amount of time which is ordinarily allowed
counsel in putting in a case, I can put a witness on the stand,
knowing what I expect to prove by him. I can interrogate
him upon those facts, and then he leaves the stand, and that is
the end of it, so far as he is concerned. If the Committee de-
sire to go on with a hearing which shall simply consist in calling
the gentlemen, and asking them to express their views as to
whether it is worth while to free the ferries, I can go on with
that sort of hearing as long as any gentleman wishes; but I
did not suppose that was the kind of hearing that was desired.
On the contrary, I supposed it was desired to investigate this
question as one of policy; as to how East Boston would be
affected by free ferries; how Boston itself would be affected by
free ferries; whether East Boston would gain what she claims
she has lost for the want of free ferries, and whether Boston
proper could afford, as an investment, to spend the money re-
quisite to maintain free ferries; and so on, and so on.
I sup-
posed that was what the Council desired information upon, and
that that was what the petitioners desired to offer evidence
upon. With a reasonable amount of time for preparation (and
the gentlemen who know me here—and I see there are some
know that I am not in the habit of occupying time wastefully),
I will endeavor to bring the hearing to a close just as soon as
though the Committee should go on to-night.

Mr. STONE. I move that the Committee now adjourn.
Lost, 23 to 25.

The CHAIRMAN. The Chair would state to the counsel for the petitioners, that the Committee having voted to proceed, he will be obliged to call upon him to proceed in such way as he may deem best.

Mr. TRAIN. I understand that I am to be allowed to make an opening, in the ordinary way.

The CHAIRMAN. The Chair understands that to be the usual custom.

OPENING ARGUMENT OF HON. CHARLES R.

TRAIN.

FOR THE PETITIONERS.

Mr. President and Gentlemen :

The parties whom I represent, come here and ask that a hearing may be had upon an order which now lies upon your table, the effect of which order is, if adopted, to make the ferries free between the main and East Boston; and they have asked me to conduct the hearing which has been kindly and courteously granted to them by the Council. I suppose that I am indebted for that invitation to the fact, that it was believed that I had some ideas in relation to, and some degree of familiarity with, the question thus brought before you. I remember that the ferries have always been a source of anxiety, perhaps of altercation, between the citizens of East Boston and of the city proper, involving a great many hearings, a great deal of discomfort, and a great amount of complaint on the part of the citizens of East Boston against the old ferry companies, which perhaps culminated finally, more than at any other period, in 1868, when certain persons came before the legislature and asked for an act of incorporation for the purpose of building a bridge from the city proper to East Boston.

As a member then of the City Government, and as a member of the legislature, I believed the idea of a bridge was utterly idle and futile; I believed that the General Government never would permit a bridge to be built across the ship-channel between the North End and Ward One; and I believed that even if the consent of the Government could be obtained, no body of

men could be found who would construct a bridge that would satisfy the wants of the people of East Boston; and accordingly, I took ground in the legislature against it, but unavailingly; because in the legislature, as elsewhere, questions are sometimes decided on their merits and sometimes not; they are sometimes decided upon an investigation, and sometimes decided by a process which is known in parliamentary assemblies as “log-rolling.” So that bridge question was settled in 1868.

I told the gentlemen who advocated that bridge corporation, that they did not mean a bridge, they meant free ferries. They denied it then. It has turned out as I then predicted, and they now come and ask that the city government will transport them and everybody else who has occasion to pass and repass from the city proper to East Boston, free of expense; and the remark which I then made to my colleague, Mr. Tompkins, of East Boston, has proved true. What they were at in 1868, when they talked "bridge," was "free ferries," and now the demand is squarely made that free ferries shall be granted them. That demand, to my mind, involves a great variety of very important considerations; and to those considerations I desire first to call the attention of the Council, as well as I may, inadequately prepared as I am, and then, if I have an opportu nity, to enforce them by such evidence as I may be able hereaf ter to obtain.

This question is an important one, because it affects so vitally the treasury of the city; and whether the City Government will saddle the expense of maintaining free ferries between here and East Boston for ever upon the people of this city is to depend upon the situation of Boston proper, upon the situation of East Boston herself, and upon a variety of considerations growing out of the relative situation of Boston proper and of East Bos

ton.

Now, before we proceed to increase the expenditures of the city of Boston, and to increase the city debt, I wish to ask the

Council to pause and inquire what is the effect of your present system of expenditure and your present mode of taxation upon the welfare of Boston itself; and I shall propose to show that by your system of expenditures as at present practised, and upon your system of taxation as at present practised, you are driving the taxable wealth of Boston away from it, and doing precisely that in the city proper which the citizens of East Boston claim is being done for them under the operation of the existing system of ferries. If you increase the taxation and the debt of Boston beyond its present limits, you imperil the welfare of the city by the loss of its tax-paying citizens. I expect to be able to show hereafter, that in consequence of the present expenditures of this city, you have lost and are losing, numbers of your most valuable citizens in the way of taxation.

Gentlemen are leaving for the country, for Nahant, for Brookline, for Cape Cod, for Rhode Island, and for New York, because of the increase of taxation with which they are saddled if they remain; and it is a fact which I will undertake to demonstrate before this hearing is through, that a gentleman with a moderate fortune, say $300,000 or $400,000, can go to New York city and do his business, both in Boston and New York, just as profitably as he can by remaining here, and save a very large part, or the whole, of his taxation. That process has commenced, and is going on, so that if we would retain within our borders the taxable property and the wealthy men who contribute to the treasury, we must so conduct our municipal affairs as not to drive them away by the pressure of taxation.

So much in that view, in reference to the city itself. Boston lost, as I find upon an examination of Hon. David A. Wells' report upon taxation to the legislature of New York, $6,000,000 in 1870; and a large proportion of that was gained in towns in the immediate neighborhood. Six million of dollars is a considerable sum for any municipality to lose, and it will take wise and careful legislation on the part of the City Government of Boston