they save in tolls.

That used to be stated here and admitted. I find in the report of the committee on one of the East Boston controversies, made some years ago, this language:

"And lest erroneous impressions should serve to prejudice any reasonable measures of relief, it should be stated that we have received every assurance from the Committee who appeared on behalf of the inhabitants, that it was not their desire or expectation to have free ferries; they frankly admitted that the city expenditures for streets, education, police, and other public objects at East Boston, were already much more than the seventy-five thousand dollars received in taxes. There was no disposition to deny that if the city assumed the charge of the ferries, the eighty thousand dollars, which is about the present cost, or the larger amount, as private corporations work more economically than municipal, requisite for their support under public management, would be so much more taken from the pockets of their fellow-citizens in other parts of the city, whose estates would be depreciated as their own were enhanced. They, moreover, represented not only the larger proprietors, but the more numerous class of tenants, who had taken up their abode upon the island for cheap rents, which would be raised twentyfold for every dollar saved in toll."

Then, last year, when the question was up on buying these ferries, and the citizens of East Boston were very anxious that they should be bought by the city, in order that they might be saved from the unaccommodating, to say the least, management of the ferry proprietors, you will see by the report of the Committee appointed to investigate the subject, with an East Boston Alderman at its head as Chairman, that they say, "In regard to the management of the ferry, after it comes into possession of the city, it would be premature to do anything more at this time than to state that the citizens of East Boston have not as yet asked for free communication, and that the City of Boston would give satisfaction, were a sufficient rate of

toll established to produce an income which would cover the current expenses of maintaining the ferries, and pay the interest on the ferry scrip issued for the purpose." That was the view of citizens of East Boston a year ago, and the city has, so far from receiving tolls enough to meet the expenses and the interest on the ferry debt, been obliged to appropriate $50,000 beyond the tolls for the current expenses of the ferries.

One other suggestion. It will not do to suppose that in abandoning these tolls the city is simply to lose the amount of tolls it receives. The city received from April 1, 1870, to April 1, 1871, $163,903.85. Of this sum, the receipts from teams were $71,130.32; from foot passengers, $92,773.53.

We will suppose that all the foot travel is East Boston travel, and that half the team travel is East Boston travel; and you then have about $125,000 as the amount of tolls which the citizens of East Boston would pay in a year for ferriage; and it is a pretty large estimate. Now, when the City of Boston gives up the collection of these tolls, that $125,000 is the measure of the gain to the people of East Boston, but neither that nor the $163,903 is by any means the measure of the loss to the city; for, as I have endeavored to explain to you, and as I can prove, the city will have to pay, in increased expenses for running these ferries, three or four times that sum; and so the result will be, that to save the people of East Boston $125,000 in tolls, a tax of $400,000 or $500,000 will be levied upon the inhabitants of the city at large.

6

TESTIMONY OF NATHAN MATTHEWS.

Q. (By Mr. PUTNAM.) You live in Boston, do you not? A. Yes, sir.

Q. In Ward 9?

A. In Ward 6, I think; bordering on Ward 9.

Q. You have large property interests in Ward 9, have you

Q. You are one of the largest real estate tax-payers in Boston?

A. I think I pay the fourth or fifth tax; the fifth individual tax in Boston.

Q. You also, I believe, have large real estate interests in Chelsea, have you not?

A. I am the largest tax-payer in Chelsea.

Q. About how much land have you there?

૨.

A. Well, I don't know; but my impression is that I have 7,000,000 or 8,000,000 feet of land. I own, I should say, 200 acres, right in the centre of the city, nearly.

Q. You are largely interested, are you not, in the Winnisimmet ferry?

A. I own a portion of the stock; about one third of the stock, or a little more.

Q. Do you take any considerable part in the management of the Winnisimmet ferry?

A. I have been the principal manager for twenty years.

Q. I will ask you, Mr. Matthews, in the first place, what, in your judgment, will be the effect of removing the tolls from the East Boston ferries on the value of real estate on the other side of the river?

A. I should say that the real estate in any of the towns east of Malden, and possibly Malden, would be greatly benefited by removing the tolls from the ferries.

Q. Do you include Chelsea in that?

A. I do. I think it would increase the value of my land twenty-five per cent.

Q. And you think, of course, that the real estate of East Boston would be greatly increased in value?

A. I do.

Q. What, in your judgment, will be the effect of removing the tolls upon the expense of running the ferries?

A. If I may answer that question by making a little state

ment

Mr. PUTNAM. State anything you please, Mr. Matthews.

WITNESS. I have been the manager of the Winnisimmet ferry for nearly twenty years. I think I took the management of it in 1851. The ferry has never paid its running expenses from that time to this; and I suppose we have sunk our capital four or five times.

The gross receipts now have got up, so that it pays just about its ordinary expenses, leaving out the interest on the capital. I wish to make a statement here in relation to that ferry. I understand it was stated here the other night, that freeing the East Boston ferries would injure the Winnisimmet ferry. I wish to contradict that statement. The freeing of the East Boston ferries would be a great benefit to the Chelsea ferry, on this account: the gross receipts of the Winnisimmet ferry fall a little short of $100,000.00 the present year. If I am not mistaken, the Winnisimmet ferry has received about

$18,000 from the team travel. To carry that team travel, it costs us $40,000 every year. Last year, the directors passed a vote to fit up their steamboats and exclude team travel entirely, after they freed Charlestown bridge; and we fitted up one of our boats exclusively for foot passengers, supposing that we could drive the teams over to East Boston, or round by Charlestown bridge.

But we found that the teams would not go over the bridge; and when we were running only once in half an hour they would come down to our dock and wait, and pay our tolls rather than go over the bridge. On that account, we have deferred exchanging our other boats into passenger boats; and I will give my reasons for this. The Winnisimmet ferry, with a population in Chelsea of 12,000 or 13,000, eight years ago, received from them for communication with Boston about $40,000.00. When the Eastern railroad was built, I found the ferry directors opposing it; but when I came in I asked them why? I said, "Give the railroad every facility to get there. The land is more important than the ferry, and if it injures the ferry, so be it; the land and the people who live in Chelsea are more important than the profit of a few stockholders in Chelsea ferry." Therefore we went for the landed proprietors and the people. And so with the horse railroad.

We had the charter offered us for three hundred dollars; they told us the road would take $20,000.00 a year out of us. "Very well," I said, "I suppose it will;" and it did. "But,' I said, "if the railroad takes $20,000.00 out of us a year, it will in a few years increase the population of Chelsea, so that we shall gain more than we lose." The result has proved that I was right. Now the horse railroad receives $80,000 or $90,000 a year; the Eastern Railroad, $30,000.00 or $40,000.00; and we think, if we could run exclusively passenger boats, we could take $50,000.00 from these two roads, and lose merely our team travel of $18,000.00. We should make a great deal more