Tin. Municipality of New Amsterdam. 245 



have been that there wouM be a muddling through somehow — by the 

 Fortuitous appearance of a Deus ex machina, that the sight of ;i 

 Municipality in debt would always provoke the sympathy of both 

 gods and men. Supervision of expenditure was lax in the extreme. 

 For a long number of years it was the custom to have the Estimates 

 framed by the Secretary and submitted to the President who signed 

 it. and had it forwarded to the Government, no opportunity being 

 given to the Board to exercise any kind of check whatever. When 

 Mr. John Downer joined the Board in 1891, just before it merged into 

 a Council, lie put a stop to this undesirable practice. But he did not 

 put a stop to the belief or understanding that to keep within the 

 estimates of expenditure is an insufferable financial solecism. 



Neither the Board nor the Council overpaid its staff with one or 

 two exceptions in later years. The Town Superintendent and Collector 

 of Taxes got $125 a month, the Secretary's salary w T as $60, that of the 

 Inspector of Nuisances 830. while the Sexton got less than half what is 

 now paid, viz.. $15. Afterwards an Assistant Town Superintendent was 

 employed at a salary of S70. About a generation ago the maintenance 

 of all that pertained to the Board was about half what it is to-day, when 

 money has a larger purchasing power. Some items from the 1881 

 budget are here set out against those for 1914 : — 



New Amsterdam owes it.- Water Works to the brave and strenuous 

 labours of the Board of Suj erintendence ; and it was an agitated and 

 expectant time it experienced to bring these labours to a successful stage 

 The Works at their completion were found to have cost !?120,000. It 

 appears that in the 'thirties a canal was dug from the Calabash Creek 

 through the £avann*h to the backdams of Blu^. Lochafoer, Vryhefti :^d 



