NEW YORK (CITY). 



NICARAGUA. 



591 



& Co., of Chicago, at an aggregate price of 

 $11,890,342. The excavation is required to be 

 sixteen feet in diameter, and the finished con- 

 duit fourteen feet, and for the greater part of 

 the distance it must he a rock-tunnel, in some 

 places 250 feet underground. The entire length 

 covered by the contracts is 148,692 feet. Work 

 was to begin within ten days after the approval 

 of the contractors' bonds, and be completed 

 within thirty-three months. The bonds re- 

 quired were in amount equal to 10 per cent, of 

 the cost on each section as estimated by the en- 

 gineer of the commission, and amounted in the 

 aggregate to $1,428,000. The contracts were 

 executed before the end of the year, but no 

 awards had been made for the portion of the 

 aqueduct below the Harlem river. The cost 

 of the entire work, exclusive of the proposed 

 Quaker Bridge dam, was estimated by the Com- 

 missioner of Public Works at $15,664,308. 



Surface Railroads. Before the passage of the 

 General Surface Railroad Bill (see NEW YORK 

 STATE), a commission appointed under the law 

 of 1875, known as the Rapid Transit Act, 

 had decided in favor of a number of lines, 

 partly on the surface and partly elevated, to 

 be operated by the cable system. They in- 

 cluded twenty -nine different routes, mostly 

 cross-town, and seventy miles of track. The 

 right to construct the roads was given to the 

 New York Cable Railway Company, but be- 

 fore the proceedings were completed the Sur- 

 face Railroad Act became a law, one section of 

 which prohibited the construction of surface 

 lines under authority of the Rapid Transit Act. 

 This threw the validity of the action of the 

 commissioners and the company into dispute, 

 and the matter was not settled at the end of 

 the year, when commissioners had been ap- 

 pointed by the Supreme Court to decide 

 whether the proposed rapid-transit lines -on 

 the cable plan should be constructed. An- 

 other controversy arose under the Surface 

 Railroad Act in consequence of the efforts of 

 rival horse - railroad companies to secure a 

 franchise on Broadway, below Union Square, 

 which had thus far been kept free from rail- 

 road-tracks. The property - owners refused 

 their consent, and a commission was ap- 

 pointed to act on the question of the expe- 

 diency of permitting the construction of a 

 railroad in that thoroughfare. In the mean 

 time application was made to the Board of 

 Aldermen for its consent. After an injunction 

 had been issued to prevent this, and had been 

 dissolved on the ground that discretion was 

 clearly lodged in the "local authorities," con- 

 sisting of the aldermen subject to the veto 

 power of the mayor, the consent of the board 

 was granted to one of the applying companies. 

 This was disapproved by the mayor, and again 

 voted, notwithstanding his objections; but as 

 the latter^ action took place at a meeting of 

 which notice was not given to all the members, 

 it was held invalid by the courts. Later, in 

 November, a new application, accompanied by 



terms and conditions more favorable to the 

 city, was made by the company and accepted 

 by the aldermen, who again gave their formal 

 consent. Again they encountered the mayor's 

 veto, and the matter was still in doubt and 

 dispute at the end of the year. Mr. Grace, the 

 new mayor, in referring to the matter in his 

 first message, said : 



No franchise for any such purpose should be awarded 

 except upon such conditions as will secure to the city 

 the largest possible revenue. The proper means to 

 attain this end I conceive to be the undeviating ad- 

 herence to the plan of putting all such franchises up at 

 public bidding at a sufficient upset price, and the in- 

 sistence, as a condition of awarding the franchise, that 

 there shall be prompt annual payments into the city 

 treasury of a iair percentage upon the gross receipts 

 of the person or corporation enjoying the franchise. 

 1 shall give my approval to no grant of any such fran- 

 chise which is not awarded under some such condi- 

 tions. 



NEW ZEALAND. (See page 60.) 



NICARAGUA, a republic in Central America. 

 Area, 51,600 square miles; population in 1883, 

 275,815. The President is Dr. Adan Cardenas, 

 elected in 1883. His Cabinet is as follows: 

 Finance, War, and Navy, Col. J. Elizondo ; 

 Justice and Public Worship, Dr. F. Delgadillo ; 

 Foreign Affairs, Sefior F. Castillon ; Interior, 

 Sefi or J. Chamorro. 



The northern coast of Nicaragua is the site 

 of the Mosquito Kingdom, over which, although 

 it is an integral portion of the republic, the 

 Government exercises but a nominal control. 

 By treaty with the British Cabinet, Nicaragua 

 acknowledged the Mosquito King as sovereign 

 of this strip of land, and agreed to pay him a 

 subsidy of $7,000 per annum. When the King 

 died, English missionaries elected an illegiti- 

 mate son of the King to succeed him. Since 

 that epoch the Nicaraguan Government has 

 ceased to pay the stipulated subsidy, although 

 it has till recently figured in each appropria- 

 tion. Nicaragua took formal possession of the 

 Mosquito coast on Dec. 31, 1883. 



National Indebtedness. In 1877 the Govern- 

 ment of Nicaragua passed a law amalgamating 

 its different liabilities, chiefly created during 

 and subsequent to the filibuster war of 1855- 

 '57, and represented by bonds of different de- 

 scriptions, into a consolidated bonded debt, and 

 provision was made for their payment by re- 

 ceiving the bonds at the custom-houses in part 

 payment of import duties 50 per cent, to be 

 paid in cash, and 50 per cent, in bonds. In 

 1877 this consolidated debt amounted to $1,- 

 469,147 ; and on June 18, 1884, there had been 

 canceled $1,318,151, still leaving in circula- 

 tion, $150,996 ; adding thereto seven years' in- 

 terest at 5 per cent, per annum, $49,451, there 

 remained unredeemed, $200,447. But on Nov. 

 8, 1884, there had been canceled $111,947, re- 

 ducing the indebtedness to $88,500. 



Finances. The income in 1883 was $1,969,- 

 569, and the outlay $1,712,994. There were 

 on hand in the national treasury on Jan. 1, 

 1884, in cash, $256,575, being $74,218 in excess 

 of the available balance the preceding January. 



