ADDRESS.

GENTLEMEN OF THE CITY COUNCIL:

The municipal government for the coming year of a city whose population exceeds a quarter of a million of people, whose taxable wealth is wellnigh six hundred millions of dollars, and whose public charities and benefactions are great and generous, is, to a large extent, placed in your hands to-day.

The people, who have committed this trust to you, have a right to require of you a degree of diligence, fidelity, and care in its execution commensurate with its importance.

At a period like this, when all public burdens are necessarily large, it is especially your duty to be economical in your municipal expenditures. The economy, however, should be a wise one. Economy may become so narrow as to be more fatal than profusion. It should not be permitted to defeat or even retard needed public improvements. Parsimony in our public affairs would produce general discontent, and would be the prolific source of future expense. True economy will seek to guard and protect the

treasury against the spirit of reckless expenditure and waste, and will resist with an unrelenting opposition the invasions of dishonesty and fraud; but it will recognize and welcome all just demands, and will spend money whenever and wherever money ought to be spent. You will be required to make large expenditures. The public interests and necessities will demand it. In a prosperous community like ours, public improvements, if not in advance of private enterprise, should, at least, be side by side with it.

You will be expected to use the large sums of money which will be under your direction, with a single eye to the interests of the people, and to avoid all extravagance and waste. There are forms of extravagance whose worst consequences are not found in the loss of the money wasted. Against such forms of extravagance I do not deem it necessary even to caution you.

Waste in all its forms, improper, careless, and reckless expenditure of every kind, whether for private gain or personal gratification, or resulting from a lazy indifference, should receive your severest reprobation. If you fail to meet your duty in this regard, you will fail to meet the just expectations of the people.

Many of our citizens believe that the expenses of several of our departments can be largely reduced without essentially impairing their usefulness. The rate of taxation is apparently much larger in Boston in proportion to its population than it is in the other cities of the Commonwealth, and in many large cities out of the State.

The following table, which I have not verified, but in the accuracy of which I have full faith, as it was obtained from a reliable source (Mr. Wells), shows that the rate of taxation per capita in Boston is not only greatly above the average of the other cities therein mentioned, but that it is much larger than in any of them.

How correctly this table, when carefully examined and analyzed, will exhibit the comparative rate of taxation in the cities named in it, I am unable to say. I, however, deem the statement worthy of attention.

These figures are significant, and are sufficient to invite your inquiry into the causes of the apparent high rate of taxation in Boston as compared with that in other places.

The City Charter requires the Mayor "from time to time to communicate to both branches of the City Council all such information, and recommend all such measures, as may tend to the improvement of the finances, the police, health, security, cleanliness, comfort, and ornament of the city."

Many of my predecessors (whose previous municipal experience had made them familiar with the affairs of the city) have in their address to the City Councils at the commencement of the year, in obedience to this requirement of the Charter, entered into elaborate and detailed statements of the condition of the city.

My excuse for a partial departure from this usage must be found in the fact, that I enter upon the discharge of my official duties without the benefit of that intimate acquaintance with the details of municipal legislation which most of my predecessors have at the commencement of their labors possessed. All the information which I should be able to communicate would be that which will be contained, and will be more intelligently and accurately expressed, in

the reports from the several departments of the city service, which will be soon submitted to you; and the opinions which I should be able to express would be rather opinions borrowed from others, than the results of my own judgment and reflection.

The financial condition of the city, however, is a subject of such controlling importance, that I am induced to devote a considerable space to its consideration. The fact that the report of the Auditor will not be made for several months to come, makes it the more important that I should communicate to you such information as I now possess on this subject.

The total consolidated funded and unfunded debt of the city, as it appeared from the books in the office of the Auditor of Accounts on December 28, 1870, was $26,629,911.52, of which amount $23,908,350.91 is funded, and $2,721,560.61 unfunded.

This debt the Auditor of Accounts classifies as follows, compared with the classification of 1869:

$26,629,911 52 $23,783,938 84

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