336 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVIII. No. 454. 



year of school life be not lost, that the 

 student may begin in college where he 

 leaves ofS in the high school, with pre- 

 liminary Avork reasonably complete and 

 satisfactory. 



EuFus P. Williams. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS. 

 Municipal Public Worhs, their Inception, 

 Construction and Management. By S. 

 "Whineey, Civil Engineer. New York, The 

 Macmillan Company. 1903. 8vo. Pp. 

 241. 8J in. by 5| in. 



This is an excellent book on a subject which 

 is more and more attracting the attention of 

 the general public. It is written by an ex- 

 perienced engineer ' for the inexperienced 

 city official and for the urban citizen.' Al- 

 though it treats of engineering subjects it is 

 not a book of engineering. It is rather a 

 book of public policy in municipal engineering 

 afiairs, and as such it differs from many 

 books which have recently appeared with sim- 

 ilar titles. 



The early chapters in the book are ele- 

 mentary, describing the scope of municipal 

 works, the relation to them of-tbe engineering 

 departments and the manner of financially 

 providing for their support. The author then 

 takes up the question of contract work, and 

 discusses various details of it, such as advertis- 

 ing, preparing specifications, opening bids, 

 awarding contracts, supervising the work, etc. 

 He favors contract work as opposed to work 

 done directly by the city, but points out many 

 weak points in the ordinary contract. Con- 

 tractors he divides into three classes — the 

 honest and responsible contractor, the irre- 

 sponsible and unreliable contractor and the 

 boodler ; and bis descriptions of the conditions 

 wliich operate to develop these different in- 

 dividuals are most instructive. He is strongly 

 opposed to the comjiulsory award of contracts 

 to the lowest bidder, and believes that in this, 

 as in many other matters, the engineer or the 

 commissioner should have more latitude and 

 be held personally responsible for the result. 

 In some of these matters the author is at 

 variance with present custom, his theory being. 



apparently, that there is less chance of bad 

 results due to the use of autocratic power by 

 an occasional dishonest or unfit official than 

 by the operation of laws which continually 

 hamper honest officials and which are ignored 

 or broken by the dishonest ones. 



Perhaps the most valuable portion of the 

 book is that which relates to the financial side 

 of municipal works. The subjects of guaran- 

 tees, special assessments, uniform accounts, 

 municipal ownership, quasi-public corporations 

 are treated in special chapters. His criticisms 

 of the ordinary methods of municipal account- 

 ing are severe, but none too severe, as any 

 one will admit who has attempted to com- 

 pare the cost of any class of municipal work 

 for different cities. And he is quite right 

 when be says that many questions of public 

 policy are being to-day obscured because of 

 false statements issued with no intention to 

 deceive, but simply as a result of bad book- 

 keeping. Among these questions he places 

 that of ' municipal ownership ' of public 

 utilities, and while not wholly deprecating 

 the modern trend toward public purchase of 

 private water works, electric light works, etc., 

 he believes that such changes should be made 

 only after a more complete study of all the 

 financial elements which enter into the ques- 

 tion, than is usually given to it. His com- 

 ments upon the proper treatment of such mat- 

 ters as maintenance, operating expenses, in- 

 terest, depreciation, sinlving funds, in connec- 

 tion with the valuation of private property 

 are worthy of serious consideration. 



Instead of the wholesale municiisal assump- 

 tion of public utilities he favors private owner- 

 ship under suitable control, and in the last 

 chapter he outlines a plan and ofl'ers it as a 

 solution of this vexed question. He would 

 organize all quasi-public corporations under 

 a general state law, similar in its general 

 features to the present interstate-commerce 

 law, a"nd would make the law ' so radical and 

 far-reaching as to assume, within limitations, 

 the absolute control of quasi-public corpora- 

 tions and of their relations between them and 

 the municipal corporations.' 



Whether or not the reader agrees with all 

 the author's conclusions upon the questions 



