we all hope it will), and that of the city, too, the accommodations which free ferries will necessitate, must go on increasing also. If they cost $200,000 this year, they will cost $300,000 or $400,000 two years hence, and $800,000 before the younger men now before me are of middle age.

Now, I will present a few figures which corroborate, I think, this statement; and I will give you a brief summary of some of the evidence which I propose to put in, which I think will prove conclusively that the expense of this thing must go on continually increasing until it reaches, at an early day, a very large sum. On looking over what is known as the "Ferry Document," which I found in the City Clerk's office, and which I suppose is familiar to all of you, although it was not to me until a few days ago, I find a statement of the cost and expenses of the old ferries, coming down to the present time. I go back only a dozen years. In 1859, the expenses of the two ferries together -the East Boston ferry and the People's ferry, both running - were $77,000.00. In 1860, they were $86,000.00. In 1861, they were $80,000.00. In 1863, the expense of the East Boston ferry — the People's ferry having stopped, their expenses having proved greater than the business would bear were $52,000.00.

And now they have come up until the city in the last year, 1870, appropriated $170,000.00 for its ferries, and added $50,000.00 to the appropriation, making $220,000.00 appropriated for ferries in 1870, of which $212,000.00 have already, been reported as expended. The whole expenses for the year, I believe, have not come in. The appropriation for the coming year is $208,000.00; and the probability is, as in all such cases, that the appropriation will have to be enlarged; so that, comparing the year 1863 with the year 1871, we find the expense of running these ferries has nearly quadrupled. But perhaps it is hardly fair to take the year 1863 as an average year. Compare 1860 or 1861, when both ferries were running, with

1871, and you find that the expense has trebled. That is, by the mere growth of business, the expense of running those ferries has trebled in ten years. Now, it is proposed to add another element of increased cost; for you all know, gentlemen, that whenever the tolls are removed from a highway, whenever a highway is made free, the travel over that highway inevitably increases. That has been the universal experience. Your Superintendent of Streets, in his report, handed in the other day, says that the travel on the Mill-dam has quadrupled since the tolls were taken off.

Chelsea Bridge was freed a year ago, and the travel over that has already nearly trebled, as we shall show you. So, take the tolls from the East Boston Ferries, and the travel there will greatly increase; and it will increase, not only in consequence of the increased business which will go to East Boston, as everybody, I presume, agrees, but it will increase by drawing all the team travel from Essex County, upon the ferry. If you look at this map, gentlemen, you will see that from Essex County, and from eastern Middlesex, from Saugus and Melrose, for instance, the shortest route to the central parts of Boston, State street, Faneuil Hall, and the markets of that portion of the city, is by way of the East Boston Ferry; and not only will it save distance, in case the tolls are removed, but it will save horse-flesh. Because if a man is driving a heavy team, and can drive on a ferry, and save a mile and a half, over which he would have to haul his load if he went round by Chelsea and Charlestown, and without any expense, of course the inducement is so great that the ferry route must necessarily be sought,—the route which imposes the least burden on the horses; and we shall show you, gentlemen, that this will be the effect of making these ferries free.

This freeing of the ferries will undoubtedly double or treble the present traffic in a comparatively short space of time; not, perhaps, this year or next year, but in the course of a very few years. Nobody who has watched the effect of freeing public

highways can fail to perceive that there must be a great increase of travel, of team travel especially, if the tolls to East Boston are removed. The ferries at present do not any more than suffice comfortably to accommodate the team travel which seeks them; and you know, gentlemen, that when a ferry-boat is full, and cannot take any more of the teams which have to be got over and are ready to go on board, these teams have to wait for another boat; and that causes serious delays; and it is these delays which give rise to discontent, in consequence of the failure of ferries to furnish adequate accommodations.

If you read the reports of the hearings which have been going on here for the last ten years before committees in this hall, you will find that one of the great grievances set forth has been, that there are not ferry-boats enough to transport the teams, and save them from troublesome and sometimes disastrous delays. Now, by freeing these ferries you inevitably greatly increase the number of teamus going over them. The number will increase, whether they are freed or not, and certainly they will increase more rapidly if they are freed, and you will soon have to greatly enlarge your accommodations. Instead of running four boats, you will very soon have to run six, and before a great while you will have to run eight; and having to increase the number of your boats, you will have to increase the number of your slips, and you will have to buy real estate on both sides of the river, at great expense, in order to get more slips and more wharves to accommodate the increased number of boats.

In short, a great increase in team travel necessarily involves a great increase, not only in the current expenses of running the ferry-boats, but also in the interest on the capital which has to be continually invested in them. The City of Boston has invested now a little short of a million dollars in these ferries. boats are old; they will soon have to be replaced, probably quite rapidly, in the course of the next few years. A bill has already passed the Legislature, at somebody's kind urgency, authorizing

The

the City of Boston to take a quantity of land- I think T wharf is the point aimed at for the purpose of affording additional ferry accommodations on this side of the river. There is another half million or million of dollars. All these expenses point inevitably to at least a doubling or trebling of the present annual expense of running the ferries in two or three years; so that it is not merely a safe prediction, but almost a certain calculation, that before five years have passed, with free ferries, this city will be raising, by taxation, a sum of at least half a million. dollars to pay the expenses and the interest upon the debt caused by this freeing of the ferries. Half a million dollars, gentlemen, is half the amount that the city appropriates, this year, for its two hundred miles of streets. It is about equal to the whole interest on the water debt.

Well, gentlemen, I shall introduce a good deal of evidence bearing upon this point which I have endeavored to state to you. There is, however, another question which comes in here, incidentally, as connected with the question of expense; and that is this: Who is it going to benefit? There are some few parties who are certainly going to be benefited by it. Nobody doubts that it will benefit the Eastern Railroad, and nobody objects to the Eastern Railroad being benefited; but I don't suppose the Eastern Railroad would ask, or the City of Boston would think of granting them, an annual subsidy of $500,000.00. The Boston and Albany Railroad undoubtedly will be largely benefited by it; but I don't think they would ask it, or that the City of Boston would grant it, for the sake of benefiting them, although it is very well that they should be benefited. All of the land-owners in Chelsea and in East Boston will be bene. fited, largely benefited. Of course, all the vacant land in East Boston, and Chelsea, too, will rise very largely in value.

I have taken some little pains to find out how many people will be benefited in this way by free ferries; and I find, by the figures on the Assessor's books (if they are incorrect, the other

side will be able easily to correct the errors), that there are about 40,000,000 feet of vacant land in East Boston, valued at $1,000,000.00. I have had a list made of the owners of more than a hundred thousand feet, and I find that but three of them are in the directory as residents of East Boston. (To a question of Mr. Sweetser,) I suppose the forty million feet include Breed's Island, for I see thirty million feet set down to the Breed heirs, and I suppose that must be Breed's Island. I find three gentlemen, well-known residents of East Boston, Messrs. Bowker, Blaney, and Googins, have over a hundred thousand feet of land. There is no other resident of East Boston on this list. The largest land-owner there is the East Boston Company; and the East Boston Company is the party that will be most benefited by free ferries. The East Boston Company is a corpora tion, having a highly respectable and estimable body of stockholders, with twenty thousand shares of stock, of which nine thousand seven hundred and twenty-six shares are held out of this Commonwealth, and three hundred and twenty-three shares are held in East Boston. That land company holds 2,500,000 feet of land there in East Boston, and will be very largely benefited indeed by the freeing of the ferries; and three hundred and twenty-three twenty-thousandths of this benefit will come to citizens of East Boston.

I suppose that both the large land-owners and large corporations will certainly be benefited by free ferries; but it is by no means so certain that the small householders and tenants will be so largely benefited. There is no petition here before us. This is a movement started entirely in the City Government; there is no petition for it; and so we do not know by any signatures of citizens how they stand; but it is pretty obvious that if the value of real estate is greatly increased over there (as it seems to be claimed on the one side, and admitted on the other, that it will be), the small householders and the tenants will pay five dollars in extra taxation, and higher rent for every dollar