APPENDIX. 



A. MUNICIPAL MONOPOLIES OF SERVICE. 



I specify the matters of gas and electric light because they happen 

 to be the things nearest at hand and the question of the assumption of 

 the business by the city of Boston is now under discussion at the City 

 Hall. To do this will be wise and profitable ; not to do it will be short- 

 sighted folly. How to do it best is something that the intelligent con- 

 sideration of our most practical men ought to show. But, inasmuch 

 as our new gas monopoly has reached its hands out into the suburbs 

 on all sides, and as the interests of the surrounding municipalities are 

 so thoroughly bound up with those of Boston in the matter of street 

 railways, highways, sewerage and other things, it seems as if these 

 subjects might be best and most economically handled by constituting 

 a metropolitan district a greater Boston for their administration in 

 the interests of the whole with an equitable apportionment of expen- 

 ditures and receipts among the various municipalities on account of 

 these purposes. 



Not only the experience of Berlin, but universally that of all other 

 cities in Germany and Great Britain, as well as this country, that 

 have established their own gas works, shows the profitableness and 

 economy of this policy. The same is true concerning electric light- 

 ing, as demonstrated by a considerable number of American cities 

 that have their own plants. Where cities depend upon private corpo- 

 rations for their electric lighting the average cost is three times that 

 in cities which run their own works. In eighteen cities of the latter 

 class, the average cost is 13.4 cents a night for each lamp; five of 

 these cities formerly paid an average of 45. 1 cents to private companies ; 

 seventy-five cities, supplied by private corporations, pay an average of 

 42 cents. Lewiston, Me., formerly paid from 55 to 65 cents a night for 

 lights burning only till midnight; now, with its own plant, it burns its 

 lights all night at a cost of only 14 cents ! The town of Danvers is 

 now before the Legislature seeking the right to supply its inhabitants 

 from the plant with which it now economically lights its thorough- 

 fares. Though this is opposed by private interests, it would be mani- 

 festly wasteful to allow another plant in private hands for the latter 

 purposes, encumbering the streets with its poles and wires, and there 

 is even better reason why a municipality should supply light than sup- 

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