GAS MANUFACTURE AND GAS COMPANIES. 487 



of this country was in Philadelphia $2.30. In Boston the price was 

 $2.50, and in New York $2.75 ; these prices were, however, reduced, 

 in the early part of 1876, to $2.25 and $2.50, respectively. The prices 

 charged in the smaller cities are, as a rule, much higher, being in 

 some cases Ashland and Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, for example 

 as high as $10 per 1,000. In Detroit, Michigan, owing to a tem- 

 porary war between an old and a new company, the price was as low 

 as 50 cents per 1,000 in one part of the city, and $1 in another ; 

 while in a third, supplied only by the pipes of the old company, it 

 was $3. 



With regard to the Philadelphia company, which, as before stated, 

 is under control of the municipal authorities, it was found that, while 

 the price charged was the lowest, the cost of the gas was the highest. 

 It had been alleged that the authorities were in the habit of giving 

 employment to laborers for political purposes about election-time, and 

 it was found that the cost of labor was ten cents per 1,000 feet greater 

 than in other works. The proportion of capital to business done 

 varies very greatly with different companies. In Washington, D. C, 

 it was $1.46 per 1,000 cubic feet of gas sold, and in Brookline, Massa- 

 chusetts, $17.50. " This," remark the commissioners, " must be due, to 

 a great extent, to improper investments or expenditures, and is the 

 great argument against any monopoly being in the hands of a private 

 corporation, and in favor of its management by municipal authorities, 

 since a corporation, having a monopoly, has the power to charge such 

 a price as may be necessary to pay its dividends, and has, therefore, 

 no inducement to diminish its capital, but, on the contrary, one to 

 increase it." The average capital and borrowed money of the London 

 companies, in 1874, w r as $4.54 per 1,000 cubic feet of gas sold. 



As information given them touching the net cost of manufacture 

 was confidential, the commissioners were deterred from publishing the 

 facts as they found them, and forced to resort to giving an approxi- 

 mation. For this purpose, they compare the New York Mutual Com- 

 pany and the Boston Gaslight Company, as being more nearly on an 

 equality, with respect to business done and capital employed, than 

 any others, and deduct the " amount of dividends and taxes pro rata 

 per 1,000 cubic feet sold from the average price of gas to the con- 

 sumer." Each of these companies has an actual paid-in capital of 

 $2,500,000, and bonds to the amount of $500,000. The first paid, in 

 1875, twenty per cent, dividends on the capital, six per cent, interest 

 on the bonds, and $50,000 taxes, making, in all, $580,000, which, 

 divided among 509,000,000 cubic feet of gas sold, gives $1.14 for each 

 1,000 feet; this amount, deducted from the net price per 1,000 feet, 

 $2.65, leaves $1.51, which is supposed to be the cost of the gas ; and 

 that, the commissioners assure us, is even more than the actual cost. 

 In the same manner the cost of the Boston gas is ascertained to be 

 $1.85 per 1,000 feet, or thirty-four cents more. This difference is 



