Tin- Municipality of New Amsterdam. 2-"!M 



them ia efficient working order, and tit for service on the most sudden 

 emergency/' The Court of Policy seems to have exercised greater con- 

 trol over the finances of the Corporation than the Executive Council 

 does to-day. it had to approve of the Estimates before the assessment 

 i'or taxes was authorised. It is not so to-day. albeit the Auditor 

 General is not precluded from taking exception to this or that item of 

 expenditure, and emitting post-audit growls. In the 1844 Ordinance it 

 was enacted that " whatever moneys are required for the maintenance 

 and keeping in order of the said town, the Board shall, with due regard 

 to economy, form an estimate and submit a plan for raising the funds 

 required in such manner as they, in their discretion, may consider 

 equitable towards all classes of the inhabitants, on which the Governor 

 and Court of Policy, if they approve thereof, will authorise such assess- 

 ment as may be found expedient and grant the requisite authority for 

 levying the same." This estimate had to be " formed " and an adminis- 

 tration statement prepared and published in the month of February, as 

 now. The ;: requisite authority " took the form of a solemn Ordinance, 

 and up to a few years before the date of the establishment of the 

 present Town Council, the Statute Book contained, every year, a New 

 Amsterdam Tax Ordinance. Since 1891 a "Tax Resolution '" passed by 

 the Council is the self-given :: requisite authority." 



In the town regulations we find some extant to this day. For 

 instance, all proprietors, renters or occupiers were required to have their 

 respective lots or parcels of lots weeded in March and September. 

 There was also a p nalty promised in respect to the improper erection 

 of buildings. There was then the fear that the river would erode and 

 be mischievous. Hence no building or shed of any description could In- 

 erected within ninety feet of the centre of the draining trench of the 

 public front dam (the Strand;, nor within three feet from the respective 

 side-trenches or within twelve feet from the draining trenches of the 

 public middle road (High Street) under a penalty of $300. This inhibi- 

 tion still remains. Properly enough, no building with a thatched roof 

 was tolerated. In after years, when some East Indian sett'ers reared 

 these unsightly huts in Stanleytown, an exasperated Mayor caused them 

 to be demolished. As the fire-extinguishing apparatus in possession of 

 the Board was rude and inadequate, the law was particularly stringent 

 with regard to kitchens. These had to be provided with a rire-place or 

 hearth and a chimney of brick or stone : the chimney to be of sufficient 

 height "so as not to endanger the neighbourhood or not to annoy it 

 with smoke, and should any oven be required the same shall be con- 

 nected with and ventilated by such chimney." The kitchen floor was to 

 be of stone bricks or solid earth. Xow mark the severity of the 

 clause : — " and in case any such kitchen or cooking house shall hereafter 

 be erected contrary to the foregoing description, or in am case any 

 kitchen or cookino- house already erected be not altered as aforesaid within 

 the said period of six months, in either of said cases, the proprietor oi 

 the lot, known as such in the books of the Receiver of Town Taxes, shall 

 incur a penalty of fifteen dollars in the first instance and double that 



