SigQon. .Power in niaintaimng a Ferry. 71 



fttance ;that a public t»anagement can have but one object, is 

 strongly against.it: things which have but one apphcation, are 

 always expensive, and seldom very useful. But, besides this, 

 private managements naturally accommodate themselves to the 

 «ircumstances in which they are placed ; and readily adopt im- 

 provements, because they have a direct interest in doing so, 

 and because, at the end of every short lease, what one indivi- 

 dual will not do, another will : — while it is of the vdry nature of 

 public managements to be stiff and unbending, to disregard pri- 

 vate interests, the aggregate of which is notwithstanding that of 

 the public, and in the road to improvement to have a vis i/iwt\ 

 UnS, exactly in proportion as the rank, distance, independent sta- 

 tion, and disinterestedness of the members composing them, se- 

 clude them from the knowledge of, and sympathy with, humble 

 wants. On the other hand, it is true that in the essential qua- 

 lities of public spirit and permanence of interest, the public 

 management . has the advantage ; but this only proves that a 

 medium between both systems would be better than either :.-- 

 and this medium, it is not the least praise of that plan whiph 

 has now been considered in so many other favourable points of 

 view, that it furnishes it with singular security and ease. If 

 trustees were to find their own passage-vessels, they might let 

 them, with their privileges, to whatever individuals would pro- 

 vide the power with which to ply them : and if they secured 

 the performance of the conditions which they chose to annex to 

 their leases, by pecuniary penalties graduating from entire for- 

 feiture down to a smart fine for every single infraction of them, 

 they need no more scruple at allowing their lessee to make other 

 use of his tugs at the same time, than a coach proprietor thinks 

 of preventing the innkeeper who horses his coach, from keeping 

 what further establishment he pleases, and using it as he likes. 

 On the contrary, if the system were well understood, it would be- 

 come the greatest recommendation of a leasee, that he had capital 

 and enterprize sufficient thus to fit several strings to his bow ; and 

 it may be confidently added, that it is thus (reducing the expence 

 of employing steam, deriving a greater effect from a smaller power 

 of it, and permitting establishments of it to serve a variety of 

 purposes), — and thus only, that high rents can ever be got 

 from ferries, — rents, in some degree, corresponding to the bur- 



