bridge, is very large. I believe I am correct in saying that the city had to pay one-sixth of the expense of freeing Chelsea bridge. She has to pay now one-half of the expense of the bridges across Charles River. I think I know, so that I may state without the expectation of being laughed at, that if you free these ferries, three-fourths, if not the whole of the freight traffic which is now done over Chelsea bridge will be done over the East Boston ferries, and that would, of course, be an advantage to a private interest, for the benefit of the inhabitants living in Essex County. I hope to have, at the next hearing, some evidence in relation to that point in the case, which will be of value to any gentleman who wishes to consider this question wisely and well.

Then there is another private interest which I ought to mention, and that is the Winnisimmet Ferry. I think we are all of us sufficiently Yankees to guess that when the East Boston ferries are freed, the freight traffic, if there is any, which goes over Winnisimmet Ferry now, will come through East Boston over that ferry, and avoid the tolls which are now paid to the Winnisimmet Ferry Company.

I have thus pointed out to the Council, and I hope to verify my statements by proof, a variety of private interests which would be subserved by this scheme of free ferries; and the public interest would be resolved into two elements, to wit: The gain which Boston would derive in taxable property by the rise in real estate; and the gain to the inhabitants of East Boston, who wish to cross the ferry free, and who now pay passenger fare. As a financial question, I suppose the proportion of income derived from passenger fares, to that which is derived from the passage of wagons, teams, trucks, railroad transportation, expresses, etc., etc., is very inconsiderable.

Now, to determine this question, having first ascertained, and grouped around in their respective positions the various elements to which I have endeavored to call the attention of the

Council, you have to apply these considerations to the question of the cost of the ferries, and the amount of revenue to be derived from Ward 1, and then determine, upon the whole, whether the benefit which the city would derive from the change would be in any manner compensated by the increase of wealth in, and the growth and welfare of, Ward 1.

For the purpose of enlightening ourselves in that regard, I propose, at a proper time, to call the attention of the Council to the cost of maintaining these ferries. I understand the original cost of the ferries to the city was $275,000. I understand the amount asked for this year is $208,500, which includes a new boat, which will make the cost of the ferries, at the close of this year, somewhere between $600,000 and $700,000. What the cost of maintaining the avenues connecting with the ferries may be, I do not know, and am not able to state. I hope to be able to furnish the Committee with that hereafter. It is, of course, an element which it is very desirable to have.

Then, the moment your ferries are freed, you will have to increase the cost of maintaining them. You must not only have more boats, but you will have to replace the present old boats with new ones, at a very heavy expense, because the energetic, boisterous population of East Boston, that once compels this City Government to give free ferries, are not going to sit down and be quiet after that.

Having obtained that in reply to their pressing demands for a series of years, they will claim, and you will give them, the best ferry accommodations, perhaps, in this country. They will insist upon as many boats as are requisite to accommodate them at any hour of the. day or night, and good ones at that; and they will insist upon sufficient accommodations at the slips. They will insist that you shall have a new slip — that is talked of already — and a new ferry landing nearer the centre of business than the present ferry landing; and perhaps they will insist that you shall maintain that one, and give them a new

one in addition; and very likely they will insist that you shall divide the passenger traffic from the freight traffic. And you may be pretty sure, that anything they think they ought to have, they will ask for; and you may be quite sure that if you give them free ferries now, you will grant them whatever they ask for hereafter. I will not undertake to say to-night what all this will cost, for I have had no opportunity to make up any basis of calculation, or to consult with anybody who knows better than I; but I venture to say that no $208,000, no $500,000 per annum, will run your free ferries. I shall put in some evidence and some calculations, and argue upon the elements which I shall undertake to put in here, that your expenditure per annum will be based upon an expenditure in the total of from six to eight million of dollars.

Now, if I am within a day's march of right in what I suppose the calculations will show, when I can get at them, what is paid by East Boston into the city treasury is of hardly any account as compensation to the city proper, for making this grant. Her payment last year was $203,000, or thereabouts, and the expenditure proposed was somewhere in the neighborhood of $170,000. I have had no time or opportunity to make a careful investigation, and only speak from general recollection. I understand East Boston puts herself this year, in this way: that if her valuation remains the same this year as last, her taxes will be $186,144, and she asks for her fire department, for her schools, for her police, for her paving, for her public buildings, etc., etc., some $290,000. I do not vouch for the correctness of this statement, but I suppose it is substantially correct. Add to $290,000 an expenditure of $208,000, or what would probably be more nearly correct, $350,000, for free ferries; if you free them this year, and give them a new boat, and you get an expenditure of some $300,000, against an income to be derived from East Boston of about $190,000.

Now, if these propositions are in anywise true, the proposi

tion with which I started, that East Boston has no right to claim that these ferries be made free, will be substantially proven. If she contributes but $190,000 this year, of the expenses which she asks you to make on her account, how rapidly must she increase in valuation and general prosperity, to justify you in making an expenditure which is to inure more largely to the benefit of private individuals, not residents of East Boston, to large corporations, and to the inhabitants of Essex Co., than it is to East Boston herself. Then, if East Boston has no right to claim, much less has the city a right to make, a donation for the benefit of the various classes of individuals to whom I have referred in the course of this opening.

In this connection, I wish to say, what I might properly have said at an earlier period in the opening, that if the people of East Boston desire to come to State street by land, the facilities for them to do so are just as open to them, and of just as proper and useful and pleasant a character as they are from Ward 16, and perhaps from Wards 13, 14 and 15. I understand that the distance from Central Square in East Boston, via Chelsea and Charlestown, is three and five-eighths miles. From City Hall to the fartherest point in Dorchester is six and threequarters miles. People who live beyond three and three-fourths miles in Dorchester, I shall claim, might just as well come here and claim that you should bring them in the horse-cars free of cost, as the people who live in East Boston claim that you should bring them 1,800 feet across the water free of toll; because they may go around through Chelsea, a less distance than our Ward 16 friends have to travel to get here, and, for aught I know, at the same expense. At any rate, they can claim to be put on no better footing than the inhabitants of Boston who live at the same distance by land from City Hall.

It seems to me, that it is a gross piece of impertinence on the part of gentlemen who have adopted an island for their home, to come here and contrast themselves with the inhabitants

of Boston who live farther from the City Hall than they do, and demand it as a right that they shall have transportation free. Why, sir, God made East Boston an island, and so he made Long Island an island, and Winthrop's Island an island; and if a man chooses to go upon either of the islands in Boston harbor, because he can there buy land cheap, and chooses to live there, because he can buy land cheap, that is no reason why he should afterwards come to the City Government, and say, "It is my misfortune to live upon an island in Boston harbor, and I demand it as a right that you should give me free ferries, because you cannot give me a bridge." I remember that in the course of that discussion to which I have referred, in the legislature, three years ago, I quoted to my friend from East Boston the lines of Dr. Watts,

"Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood

Stand dressed in living green;

So to the Jews fair Canaan stood,

While Jordan rolled between.”

And I added, that his misfortune was, that he lived on the wrong side of Jordan. Now, it is the misfortune of these gentlemen that they live on the wrong side of Jordan; but they selected their homes in East Boston, because the industries. which they chose to pursue were there; and those industries were located there because land was cheap; there was plenty of deep water, and it was a nice place to carry them on. Now they ask you to make them substantially main land, by putting your hands into the city treasury and giving them free ferries.

These are the views, substantially, which I shall endeavor, at the proper time, to verify with some degree of proof. I am sorry that I have been obliged to put them in this rambling and desultory way; but I know the gentlemen of the Council sympathize with me in the fact that I have had no time for preparation, and have had to make the statement with the slight consideration I could give to it.