for future developments to disclose how far the high expectations of the friends of the new system will be realized. The re-establishment of confidence and a sense of security in the public mind was worth its adoption.

The appropriation of $500,000 for the purpose of carrying out the plan of taking a supply of pure water from Sudbury River, together with your recent action since the annexation of Charlestown, causing scientific investigation to be made into the supply that could be obtained from the Mystic sources; the appropriation of $160,000 for the purchase of land and construction of a reservoir upon Parker Hill; the additional appropriation of $170,000, and the independent appropriation of $200,000, to meet the liberal expenditures of the Water Board in providing Lowry hydrants, and in extending the water-pipes and laying larger mains throughout the city; the purchase of a new ferry-boat, and construction of new wings to the ferry-houses, together involving an expenditure of $70,000; the report of the Joint Special Committee of the Suffolk-street District, by which it appears that the work in that territory has been done for $744,046 less than the estimated cost of the improvements, are all among your more important acts during the year, and are deserving of a more extended mention than you will care now to stay to hear.

The recent question of the most advantageous selection of a site for the Home for the Poor, which came to you from the last Council, and upon which your Committee on Public Institutions has labored wisely and disinterestedly, has been finally decided by your purchase of the Austin Farm for the reduced sum of $75,000. Your immediate action in authorizing the procurement of plans and estimates for suitable buildings upon the site shows that the delay was not from want of interest in this humane project.

The opposition to the opening of the Public Library on Sundays, which in former years has been strong and deter

mined, both within and outside of the City Council, seemed to have abated in a great degree when the order to authorize the opening came before you this year. The credit of unlocking the doors of one of our city's best institutions and offering its elevating use to the public on the best of days belongs to you: The result has equalled the highest expectations of the friends of the reform, and I am not aware that, as yet, any of the abominable evils that its opponents predicted would follow the "opening wedge" have made their

appearance.

Late in the year you took favorable action almost unanimously upon a measure looking to the establishment of one or more public parks. The other branch, admitting that Boston must sooner or later lay out a park, after much discussion, postponed the subject to a more convenient season. It seems to be expected that a time will come when the growth of our city will so far have ceased that large expenditures for other needed improvements will not confront this project, and it is deemed a wise and far-seeing economy to purchase at some future day the territory now so desirable for the location of a series of parks, even if it shall then be largely built upon, and the present natural advantages of landscape scenery shall have disappeared and the land shall have doubled or tripled in value. If such is the true principle of municipal economy, then we should praise and no longer censure the City Council of 1845, because in view of the expenditures of their own time they shrunk from the widening of Washington street, and bequeathed the vast outlay for it upon us.

The recommendation for the appointment of a commission to revise the laws and charter of the city, communicated in the inaugural message of the Mayor, received your early attention. The great importance of the subject deserved and received the fullest discussion both in the Committee on Ordinances, to which it was sent, and in this body, thereby

occasioning delay of your final action until the latter part of the year. Your deliberations finally resulted in the passage of an order giving to the Mayor authority to appoint such a commission. The filling of the commission with five distinguished citizens was among the last official acts of his Honor Mayor Pierce. The far more arduous and difficult labor of considering and deciding upon the report that will be submitted by the commissioners will fall to the lot of the next City Council.

I will venture to suggest without meaning to anticipate any of the reforms that may be effected by the revision of the laws and charter, that harmony between the two co-ordinate branches of the City Council will be greatly promoted, and good government will be better secured, when each body shall have an equal voice in determining in what manner the public money shall be expended in all departments that are under the direction of the City Council. The subjects of paving, police, sewers, bridges, lamps, and others, all of great magnitude, with which this body has nothing to do after it has concurred in the passage of the annual bill of appropriations, would receive by the change suggested all the advantages that are supposed to be derived from a separate consideration in two independent legislative bodies, each of which is a check upon the action of the other. The wisdom of this system of concurrent legislation has been shown in several instances during the past year, which I need not mention, where unwise measures that had passed through one branch without due consideration were defeated in the other. The fact that some good measures passed with great unanimity by this body have been lost in the other, does not argue against the excellence of the system, but shifts the burden of responsibility.

That the pinchings of daily hunger, and loss of health, and of some lives, perhaps, of the poor of our city, are not to be warded off, to some extent, by the meagre charity of

soup for distribution at the various police stations, cannot be laid at the door of this body. Your persistent and almost unanimous action in favor of contributing a trifle out of the public fund, even in face of its questioned legality, toward relieving the increased extreme destitution that it is evident must prevail among the poorest classes during the winter now chilling the naked and homeless, although fruitless in the desired result, will not fail to receive the plaudits of the great majority of your constituents, and without doubt has already been written by the pen of the recording angel among your noblest municipal acts. The $5,000 which the Board of Aldermen appropriated for the balloon ascension upon the common, on the last Fourth of July, but which was saved to the city by the veto of this body, would more than cover the entire expense of this charity.

It is a matter of regret that the city will suffer the loss of some of the most valuable members of the present Council, solely on account of the unfortunate rule that prevails in some wards, limiting the term of office to two years. This rule has its foundation in the false idea of rotation in office for the sake of accommodating other aspirants. It would be more to the advantage of the wards, as well as the city, to return truly valuable members for a third, or even a fourth year, if they are willing to give so much time to the city's service, and thereby strengthen the government with the superior knowledge and aptness which are acquired by a longer experience in the conduct of its affairs.

I need not remind you, yet it is proper for me to make mention here, of the sad fact that death has made one vacant seat in our chamber, and the clerk, ever since the first of September, has ceased to call the name of the lamented Thomas H. Doherty. He set out with us with as certain prospect of reaching this closing hour as lay before any of our number. He made no attempt to impress himself upon his fellow-members by any brilliant deeds or words, but none

could fail to observe enough of true worth in him; a modesty and kindliness of behavior at all times; an honest purpose to discharge his duties here faithfully, which bring to us only agreeable and respectful memories of his life with us, and call from us all sincere regrets over his too early grave.

Again thanking you for the harmony that has prevailed to a remarkable degree in the conduct of our official proccedings, and for the generous and unexceptional good-will and courteous regard of which you have made me a recipient from the beginning to this day, I invite you to join with me in casting behind us into the grave of the Old Year every word and action in our intercourse together that may not be pleasantly remembered, especially every error of judgment that I may have fallen into in the performance of my office, for I am sure that I have never knowingly or intentionally erred against any of you; and I invite you to bring into the New Year and preserve in memory in the coming years all the pleasant scenes and experiences that we have so agreeably shared together. That our closing session and parting words do not fall into the shadows of one of the last days of the dying year, but instead are set about with the radiance and gladness of New Year's Day, may be regarded as a happy omen of the living power of the friendships that have here been formed, and of the light of public favor which will henceforth always shine upon the records and doings of the members of the Common Council of 1873.