UNCOMPLETED PUBLIC BUILDINGS AND PUBLIC WORKS, MAY 1, 1869.

TOTAL APPROPRIATIONS AND EXPENDITURES FOR EACH.

The following table shows the total amount of appropriations made from time to time by the City Council, and the objects for which they were made, the amount expended and balance unexpended, including the April draft:

CITY OF BOSTON.

In Board of Aldermen, April 11, 1870.

The Committee on Ordinances, to whom was referred the order that all fees received by public officers as witnesses be paid over to the Clerk of Police, and placed by him to the credit of a fund for the relief of aged and invalid policemen, who have performed honorable service, having carefully considered the subject, beg leave to submit the following

REPORT.

It is provided by the present ordinance on police, that the members of the department shall account to the city treasurer for all fees received as witnesses on complaints or prosecutions, and in cases in which the city is a party; but when summoned and in attendance as witnesses for the government in the County of Suffolk, before the grand jury, or in the Superior Court for the transaction of criminal business, they may, when off duty, receive for their own use, and without accounting to the city treasurer therefor, one attendance fee a day, and no more.

The sum paid into the City Treasury, under this ordinance, for the financial year 1867-68, amounted to $6,254.44; in 1868-69, to $5,615.90.

In most of the large cities some provision is made for the relief of police officers who have become disabled by reason of sickness or old age. In this country, where the government has no settled policy in regard to the civil service, the relief is afforded generally from funds established by the payment of a certain percentage of the salaries of those who may become

entitled to its benefits, or by the collection of certain fines and fees. In European cities the organization of the police service partakes more of the character of the military service, the members being placed on the retired list after a certain number of years of honorable service. The pay allowed to members of the force is not sufficient for those who have families to make provision for a long sickness, contracted, perhaps, in the discharge of their duty, or for extreme old age; and this uncertainty in regard to the future is calculated to make them less energetic and cheerful in the performance of duty. Indeed, it would seem almost impossible to maintain a well-disciplined and thoroughly efficient organization without some such provision.

The matter has been discussed many times before, and has always been regarded favorably; but, from various causes, it has never before been put into proper shape for the action of the government.

In a few years the income from the fund composed of these witness fees will amount to a sum sufficient to meet the most pressing demands of those in necessitous circumstances; and undoubtedly when the fund is once established there will be additions to it from various other sources.

The committee have prepared the accompanying ordinance, which has received the approval of the City Solicitor, and they would respectfully recommend its passage.

For the committee.

FRANCIS W. JACOBS, Chairman.