164 THE EETEOSPECT OF THE YEAR. 



Boston, and continued by him and others shipping ice to 

 the East and West Indies down to 1860 or later, The 

 Wenham Lake Ice Company was first formed in Danvers 

 largely through the influence of Mr. Joshua Sylvester in 

 1847. A partnership was formed by Henry T. and Joseph 

 W. Ropes, natives of Salem, and Wm. L. Weston for the 

 purpose of gathering and exporting ice to England ; a 

 similar business had been started a few years before by 

 Charles B. Lander and others of Salem, who had offices 

 in London and Liverpool and ice-houses on Wenham Lake. 

 Dr. Putnam spoke at some length of the character and 

 enterprise of the Messrs. Ropes and other Danvers and 

 Salem people, and in this connection paid a tribute to the 

 worth of Messrs. Reuben W. and Ripley Ropes, natives 

 of Salem whom he had known in Brooklyn, N. Y. The 

 ice from Wenham Lake came to be known all over Great 

 Britain, for its purity, so that at length some English ice 

 dealers purchased a lake in Norway and named it Wenham 

 Lake, and it is said, that at this day signs can be seen in 

 British ports of "Wenham Lake Ice," which is known to 

 have been imported from Norway. 



Monday, March 14, 1892. Sylvester Baxter, Esq., of 

 Boston, lectured on "Municipal Democracy." The speaker 

 said that our large cities were the worst governed of any 

 in the world. It was caused by a neglect of public affairs 

 by the better element of citizenship, leaving the matter of 

 municipal government to the self-seeking and unscru- 

 pulous, and, as a result, we have official incapacity, sec- 

 tionalism, wastefulness, high tax rate with low returns, 

 etc. This popular neglect and indifference are the main 

 factor in the problem. The majority prefer good govern- 

 ment to bad, as has been demonstrated in times of popular 

 uprisings against glaring evil. The burden of taxation is 



