The Municipality of New Amsterdam. 251 



by express statute. Again, there is nothing in the Ordinance inhibiting 

 any of the Councils servants from becoming Councillors, and indeed one 

 of them has been. It makes no provision for a Mayor's vote, but such 

 an appropriation has for years been made. Nor is provision made for 

 pensions and gratuities. The first Councillors, all members of the Board, 

 were Messrs. N. E. McKinnon (the first Mayor), John Downer, C. P. 

 Gaskin, I. E. A. Patoir. Henry Kynveldt, M. de Mendonca, Jnr., and Bruce 

 Harvey Stephens. 



The inauguration of the Council took place on the 1st September, 

 L891, when Sir Charles Bruce, who was then administering the Govern- 

 ment, came up to Xew Amsterdam to assist thereat. He was presented 

 with an address by the Council. In the course of his gracious reply 

 thereto, Sir Charles Bruce, referring to the reform of the political 

 constitution which took place in that very year, gave it as his 

 opinion, that that reform could not fail to have an important bearing 

 on the Municipal institutions. " The urban constituencies will almost 

 certainly look to the Municipal bodies for candidates who have given 

 proof of an intelligent interest in public affairs, and candidates for 

 seats in the Legisla'ure will naturally avail themselves of Municipal 

 seats as stepping-stones to the Court of Policy and Combined Court. 

 In this way it may reasonably be expected that the services of the 

 best men will be secured for our Municipal Corporations, and ir will be of 

 every advantage that future representative members of the Legislature 

 should enter upon their duties with a previously acquired knowledge and 

 experience of the administration of public business.'" It came to pass 

 that as many a3 five or the seven Councillors whom Sir Charles was then 

 addressing afterwards became members of the Combined Court, and two 

 of them of the Court of Policy. 



The new Council began its labours with becoming enthusiasm, and at 

 first confined them strictly to the ordinary duties of a Municipality. The 

 Water Works were improved, the efficiency of the Fire Brigade increased, 

 the roads attended to, a yrant of occupancy obtained of Pin. Vry man's 

 Erven on the east of the town. The Board of Superintendence had had 

 in contemplation the lighting of the town with electricity. A scheme 

 was also on the anvil to run a tramway around the town and then on to the 

 ( lorentyne. With all the forward precipitancy of youth, the Council 

 worked away at this tragic stroke of enterprise. There came a day — ten 

 years after the inauguration of the Council — when the Electricity Works 

 were established. The plant now consists of a 100 h.p. horizontal tandem 

 condensing engine, belted to a 60 k k alternating current generator, 

 delivering electricity at a pressure of 2,000 volts ; two horizontal jet con- 

 densing plants by Messrs. Tangye and the Worthington Pumping 

 Company, respectively ; one 150 h.p. vertical Cahall boiler with two Weir 

 feed pumps ; a switchboard with the usual instruments and an exciter 

 driven off the tail shaft of the generator. The second unit consists of a 

 125 h.p. wood gas generating apparatus by the Power Gas Corporation of 

 Stockton-o^i-Tees ; ojid a J.25 horizontal gas engine by Messrs. W. J. 



