CITY OF BOSTON. IN COMMON COUNCIL, December 7, 1871. The Special Committee of the Common Council, appointed to investigate the alleged frauds in the performance of certain contracts with the City of Boston for the removal of earth from Fort Hill, beg leave to submit the following REPORT. As a full abstract of all the evidence bearing upon the matter under investigation is printed in the Appendix, it will be sufficient for the committee to state very briefly the character of the operations under the contracts for the removal of earth from Fort Hill, and how far the allegations of fraud on the part of the contractors and their agents have been substantiated. For obvious reasons the inquiry has been confined mainly to the operations during the present year. On the ninth of January last an order was passed by the Board of Aldermen "that all matters of an unfinished nature relating to the contemplated improvements on Fort Hill be referred to a Special Committee consisting of the Chairman of the Committees on Streets, Paving, and Sewers, with authority to exercise all the powers relating to the premises, which were held by the Standing Committee on Streets of the Board of Aldermen of 1870." Soon after the appointment of this committee the attention of the Chairman (Alderman Jenkins) was called to the fact that vessels were being ballasted with earth from Fort Hill by at least one of the persons who had a contract from the city for the removal of earth to the docks. He immediately called upon the engineer, who supervised the execution of these contracts, for information as to the manner in which the work was being performed, and was assured in the most positive manner that it was receiving proper attention. About this time the police officers on duty in the vicinity of Fort Hill reported that earth was being largely used for ballasting; and the chairman directed them to give their attention more particularly to the matter, and report to him from time to time any irregularities which came to their notice. These reports confirmed the suspicion that frauds were being committed; but they were too indefinite, in the opinion of the chairman, to be acted upon. On the seventh of February, the committee appointed a superintendent of the operations on Fort Hill, with instructions "to see that the contracts were complied with, and also to look after flowage, and see that the buildings remaining on the hill were not undermined." He soon discovered that earth was being taken to other places than those designated in the contracts, and endeavored to prevent it by calling the attention of the principal contractors to the thefts, and by stationing an assistant in a position to control, in some degree, the movements of the teams, and direct them to the proper places. The stealing went on, however, and appears to have increased until some time in July, when a system of tickets was introduced by a member of the Suffolk-street District Committee, which put an effectual stop to the fraudulent practices. THE CONTRACTS FOR FILLING THE DOCKS. At the beginning of the year there were three contracts for the removal of earth from Fort Hill to the Atlanticavenue docks, the contractors being John Souther, B. N. Farren, and Martin Hayes. Bonner and Sutherland had a sub-contract under Farren, to remove the earth which could not be readily transported by cars, and cart it to the City Wharf where Farren was filling. These contracts were completed early in the spring of the present year. The committee do not find any evidence tending to show that Mr. Souther or Mr. Farren were directly concerned in, or were knowing to, the unlawful appropriation of earth measured for removal under their Atlantic-avenue contracts. With regard to Mr. Hayes, they are unable to speak so positively. It is clear that Mr. Hayes's teams carried away a great deal of Fort-Hill earth, while he had the contract for filling docks, and sold it for ballast, but it cannot now be discovered with certainty whether he charged the city for the removal of this particular earth. He is unable, apparently, to say whether he did or not. In their endeavors to settle this point, the committee have examined the contracts and the records of the Fort-Hill Committee. The contract is in the usual form, and merely provides that earth shall be taken from such places as the Fort-Hill Committee shall designate. It should be stated here, that the proposals upon which this contract was based were received near the close of last year, and that the bids made by Hayes and Farren for filling the docks inside of Atlantic avenue and north of Long Wharf were for the same amount, namely: seventy-five cents per cubic yard, or six dollars per square. They both declined to change their bids, and the work was divided between them. The parts of the hill which the committee did designate for the removal of earth under these contracts were never made a matter of record; and even the superintendent, appointed by the committee in February last, was not instructed upon this point. Mr. Talbot, chairman of the committee having charge of the improvement in 1870, states that, although they gave no license for the removal of earth for ballasting or other private purposes, they would have been |