THE COFFIN REPORT 95 



It is believed that this method will allow the use of meters on services 

 with only a single faucet, and also in large houses in which little water 

 is used, with substantial justice and with satisfactory results in revenue 

 to the department. Aside from occasional exceptions, houses with a 

 single faucet are small and on narrow lots, while large, well-plumbed 

 houses generally have greater frontage. These different classes of property 

 would bear their proportion of fixed charge in a fairly equitable manner. 

 As long as each pays its fair proportion of fixed charges, there is no reason 

 why a single faucet using large quantities of water should not pay for it, 

 and on the other hand, why a large, fully plumbed house should pay for 

 water which it does not use. 



This method seems to be very well adapted for summer and winter 

 resorts, where there is a great fluctuation in the use of water. Those 

 consumers who actually use water for only a few months in the year must 

 pay the fixed charges for the entire year through the assessments, and if 

 they use a very large quantity of water during their short stay, pay for that 

 at meter rates. 



While places of this sort need metering as a means of water waste 

 prevention more than any other places, it is very difficult to meter them 

 under the methods of fixture rates now in use. The transient consumers, 

 while using large quantities of water for a short time, do not use enough 

 in the whole year to exceed the ordinary minimum rate, and thus, while 

 making it exceedingly difficult and costly to supply them while in town, 

 do not do their share (under ordinary meter rates) toward supporting 

 the works, the fixed charges of which are tremendously increased by their 

 requirements. 



This class of consumers would be reached through the frontage assess- 

 ment, and in such places the portion of the entire annual cost which was 

 assessed upon frontage could be larger than in places with more normal 

 conditions. 



The whole report, and also the excellent discussion by mem- 

 bers of the association that follows, is worthy of careful study. 

 The members of the Committee were Freeman C. Coffin, Caleb 

 Mills Saville, Henry V. Macksey, Frank E. Merrill and Charles 

 F. Knowlton. The report was presented September 13, 1905, 

 with unusual modesty; for the Committee states that it sub- 

 mits its report " with a profound sense of its inadequacy." It 

 does not speak of its propositions as recommendations, but 

 rather as suggestions of a somewhat tentative character that 

 may be of some present value. 



While the form of rate suggested in this report has not 



