I wish to say, before I take my seat, that I suppose the reason why the gentlemen who have signed this petition, and who, I am instructed, take a deep interest in this matter, are not here to night is, because, knowing thai I had only been retained on Wednesday evening, and had had no opportunity to make preparation, and no opportunity to confer with them, not having had a list of the witnesses furnished me until after I came into the house this evening, and therefore having been unable to notify them, supposed the hearing would not proceed, and therefore thought it proper to remain away. If, with this opening, the Council should be satisfied, I shall be very happy to resume the hearing on Wednesday evening, and, so far as I am concerned, to finish it with such proof, documentary and personal, as I may then have.

Mr. NOYES. As the counsel says the witnesses are not ready now, I move that the Committee adjourn.

This motion was carried, and the Committee adjourned to Wednesday evening next, at seven and a half o'clock.

SECOND HEARING.

WEDNESDAY EVENING, APRIL 12.

THE meeting was called to order at 74 o'clock, and the Chairman stated that the Committee were ready to proceed with the hearing.

OPENING ARGUMENT OF GEORGE PUTNAM, JR., ESQ.

Mr. Chairman, and Gentlemen of the Committee:- Since the hearing was began, three or four days ago, I have been employed to assist the distinguished gentleman who represented the petitioners on the first evening, in the preparation and presentation of this case. I was not present at that hearing, and I have had no opportunity of finding out, otherwise than through the public papers, what was said and done there; and I hope, therefore, the members of the committee will pardon me if, while opening to them briefly the nature of the testimony which propose to introduce, I shall cover some of the ground which has already been covered. I do not intend to make anything like a full and elaborate opening of the case. I think, however, that no question of greater or graver moment than this one now before you was ever submitted to you, or to any of your predecessors in this City Government, for the measure which is before you is to inaugurate a policy which is unheard of, I believe, in the history of municipal legislation.

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You are asked to impose upon the tax-payers of this citythe most heavily burdened tax-payers, I believe, in the world purden of a character never before proposed, a burden, I believe, never assumed by any municipal corporation in the

world, certainly not in Massachusetts or in the United States; for although many public burdens are imposed, of necessity, by legislation upon cities and towns, like the maintenance of highways, I believe it has never been suggested, heretofore, that a municipal corporation should run a line of steamers free. The difference between the character of the burden proposed to be assumed here, and that which municipal governments have been in the habit of assuming, and which our government has always assumed, is a difference in kind, not a difference merely in degree; but it is a difference so great in degree that even for that reason alone, it is one that should receive the most careful and patient consideration, as I have no doubt it will, at your hands.

The expense of carrying on this proposed system of free ferries. is of course one of the first considerations, and perhaps it is the leading consideration which ought to be introduced here and be dwelt upon; for I am sure that no one would grudge to East Boston the freedom of the ferries, if the ferries could be made free without expense to the community; and, on the other hand, I do not suppose that there is any advocate of free ferries, however enthusiastic, who would claim that the City of Boston is bound to give free ferries, at any and all cost. It will not be contended that the City of Boston is responsible for the obstacle that exists between the citizens of the island' and the main land; that it is responsible for it so as to be bound to remove it. The City of Boston did not make that great arm of the sea, which is the obstacle that gives the citizens of East Boston so much trouble. On the contrary, that made the City of Boston, and East Boston too.

But the City of Boston undoubtedly is willing, and has always shown itself willing, to spend upon improvements in East Boston sums largely in excess of any pecuniary return which can accrue to its treasury from that part of the city. Nobody denies (and the facts are patent in any Auditor's Report) that the city

treasury expends upon East Boston two or three times (sometimes more than that) the amount of tax which is received in return. This last year, for example, the three items of schools, police, and streets alone amounted nearly to the whole amount of the tax received from East Boston into the treasury; and, adding the loss upon the ferries, and the expense of the new school-houses, it appears that the tax assessed in East Boston is about half the amount expended there from the City Treas ury, without counting small expenses, and those which are not divisible between the different wards. I do not suppose anybody grudges this expense, because it is incurred in the performance of the ordinary and regular municipal duties which the city undertakes in relation to all parts of its domain; but with regard to this new and extraordinary demand, the question presents itself, first, whether this service can be performed at a reasonable cost, having in view not only what the citizens of East Boston will give, but what the rest of the city will have to pay; and the proposition upon which I shall introduce evidence to-night will be this, that the expense which the city will have to incur in order to maintain these ferries perpetually is out of proportion to any advantage which can accrue therefrom.

Let me call your attention a moment to another proposition before we go further. I understand the legal effect of your action here, if the proposed measure be adopted, will be to make the step you take irrevocable. I understand that you never can go back upon it. Whether that is the legal effect or not, everybody knows that, practically, such experiments as this are final. You cannot, I believe, lawfully, under the statutes under which you are acting, try this thing as an experiment. You cannot free these ferries to-day, and then, next year, or the year after next, if you find that the burden is too great, vote to put the tolls upon them again.

If you want to try experiments, you have to do it in the shape of reducing the tolls, or taking the tolls from some par

ticular kinds of traffic, and not in the shape of taking them off of the whole. If you remove the tolls altogether, as I understand the law, you remove them as a finality; and if the experiment should turn out to be one more expensive than you anticipate, there will be no going back upon it; that is what I understand to be the state of the law.

Mr. SWEETSER. Why not?

Mr. PUTNAM. I understand the law to provide that the city shall determine whether the tolls shall be removed, and if they do so determine, that thereafter the city shall run the ferries free; and until a new act of the Legislature is passed, enabling them to re-impose the tolls, I do not see how they ever can be re-imposed.

Mr. SWEETSER. That is your interpretation of the law.

Mr. PUTNAM. Yes, sir, that is my understanding of the law; I so expressed it. At all events, everybody knows that, practically, there is no going back in such enterprises as this.

And there is another thing that I think must be very plain to you, gentlemen: that this expense is one which, however great it may be now, or however small it may be now, must go on increasing indefinitely.

Freeing your ferries is not like building a bridge or building a tunnel. In the case of a bridge or a tunnel, you lay out a large capital, and build a thing which stands forever, and requires but little expenditure in the way of repairs; but this matter of free ferries is a continually widening gulf of expense. You investin perishable articles, in boats and slips. There are wharf privileges, to be sure; but, mainly, your investments are in perishable articles, ferry-boats, steamboats, and all their accompaniments. We undertake to run a line of steamboats, which everybody knows is a great sink of money, and nothing but very large receipts can ever prevent a line of steamers, not backed by a government, or something equivalent, from finally failing. As the prosperity of East Boston increases (as